Chamonix Snow Report: 24th March 2009

9.08am is the fabled hour when the sun edges its way over the mountain tops of the Mont Blanc Massif and bathes the valley in soft, warm spring sunlight. As I make my way past Les Gaillands, on the way to Chamonix, I duck back into the shadows made from the Mont Blanc's neighbouring peaks, but arrive in Chamonix in full sunlight just a few minutes later. With the sun coming up so early, it feels less like a spring morning and more and more like a summer one.

That said, the storm front that we expected before the weekend finally arrived last night. The system came in warm, starting up with a rain front that gave us warmish drizzle until very early this morning, when the clouds began dolloping snowflakes down to 500m.

That meant slippery roads, confused short-wearing daytrippers and, most importantly, an unexpected but welcome improvement to the surface conditions up on the mountain. The report says 27cm of fresh snow at 2000m, but the aspects we rode at Brevent this morning felt a bit deeper, with a thin crusty layer underneath. That crusty layer will have come from the highish rain line at the start of the storm, which will have frozen as the system cooled.

Things got better at Les Houches this afternoon; we hit the resort just after midday and there were plenty of spaces in the car park and fresh lines in the woods. We spent most of our time lapping the chairlift which runs above the park, finding deep, though slightly soggy, boot-top powder in the trees.

One part of the forest gets on for 40° - very steep for Les Houches - and the snow-covered deciduous trees seemed to sparkle with a translucency in the light, a beautiful optical illusion that we stopped to watch for a while.

Skiing powder is fantastic in March. In fact, last year some of the best days of the winter were round about the same time, but the sunshine of the last few days has given Chamonix some warm, dreamy, hazy days of riding in t-shirts, spraying slush at friends and taking laps through the Grands Montets park.

Located in the same place as always, just above Lognan, the park is the best it's ever been in Chamonix, with four distinct lines. To the far right, there is a pair of green (small and unintimidating) jumps with a succession of rollers between them. Next over is a pair of blue lines, one larger than the next, both starting with the same beautifully-shaped kicker and landing. Further left is a line of red jumps, which are quite terrifyingly large and a black-grade step up jump. All the lines funnel together for an up-rail/barrel jib combo before tracking round to the second part of the park.

The second part of the park has a well-shaped boardercross course, a blue kicker and a red kicker. Both have whippy kicks and steep landings. Further down, is a very big black-grade air, a flat-down box, a flat-down rail, a wallride and a red kicker. Then you're done and it's a ride of the flat section back toward Plan Joran to take the chair back up and do it all again.

The standard of park riding is incredible this year and I overheard a couple of Aussie tourists remarking at the drop-in that "most of these guys make us look like idiots"!

Oh - if you haven't already noticed, the Compagnie du Mont Blanc is doing an end-of-season promo on MBU lift passes, where you can get the second day of skiing for 1€. The offer's valid from 13th April and works out to be excellent value. Details on the CMB website.

See you out there!

Tom