Chamonix Snow Report: 25th January 2012

As is so often the case though, such heavy snowfall in Chamonix brings with it delayed and limited lift openings whilst the area is secured. In fact, the Compagnie du Mont Blanc decided that it couldn’t open up any of the areas on Saturday with the exception of Les Houches; the one place that can always be relied on to get the lifts up and running no matter how inclement the weather. Needless to say, the vast majority of the population headed down there at the weekend to make the most of the powder. “Waist deep” was the general consensus, but for some of my more vertically challenged friends, it was well above that. One thing is for certain, for a lot of people, January 21st will go down as the deepest day ever!

The freeze level rose overnight Sat/Sun and so on Sunday, as more of the area opened up, the snow was a little heavier than anticipated, but hey, I’m being picky – it was still amazing. Even the competitors on the Freeride World Tour were disrupted due to the heavy cloud and snowfall this weekend and you’ll no doubt have seen in our News section that the event finally took place on Monday. However, if you weren’t watching the freeriders on Brevent on Monday then you were probably doing laps of top ticket at Grands Montets. My (non-working!) buddies reliably inform me it was one of the best days of the season up there.

Having had to work on Monday and fearing that I may have missed that particular boat, I gamely headed up there on Tuesday ignoring the webcams, the zero visibility and the “jour blanc” reports. Sure enough, I arrived to pretty rubbish vis, flat light and horizontal snowfall although I did get straight on the cable car at the bottom (there had been hour long plus queues at the weekend) and the Plan Joran chairlift now seems to have recovered from its “electrical” problem and was once more in operation. (It’s also sporting some flash new turnstiles so I think that may have been what was going on in the last couple of days). As anticipated, the off piste in and around the Herse chairlift had taken a pounding in previous days but there was still some really nice grippy snow and the odd powder stash that hadn’t yet become the mogul field it often is. I’m a big fan of the area to skiers' right of the Blanchots piste, directly under the cliffs and so I did a few laps there until a front edge catch in the flat light (well that’s my excuse!) resulted in a face plant and a hurty arm :O( so I skulked back onto the piste..... Which I have to say were generally really well groomed, grippy and no sneaky bumps to trip you up as the visibility deteriorated even further. I kept on cruising round the pistes until the visibility closed in so much that I no longer knew which way round I was. Dropping down the Pierre a Ric on the way back to the car park, visibility improved again and the run was in pretty good nick for most of the way (apart from a brief section of rubble in the middle) and then a nice run out to the bottom.

Looks like it’s getting a bit milder for the next few days as the sunshine shows its face again and Thursday is promising to be a bit of a bluebird. Happy Days!