Chamonix Snow Report: 26th January 2005

Grands Montets was well tracked out today; there wasn't a great deal of fresh snow to be found but if you look hard enough there were still some patches left. The avalanche risk remains high, not helped by the high winds, which are moving the snow around the mountains and forming wind slabs. Today we managed to find some snow that had escaped the wind and it was still relatively light and soft just to the skier's left of the retour pendant chair. The pitch of the slope was just about perfect for pulling large turns, with some of the bushes being good to turn around or jump over. This area is normally a black run that runs below the chair lift, although it isn't officially open yet. The ride back up the retour pendant chair was warm at the bottom whilst still in the sun, but as soon as we got near the top the freezing wind kicked in it was extremely unpleasant. Even though the snow was good here we could only ride the lift a few times because of the cold - a face mask would have made things far more comfortable.

We also headed up to the top of the herse chair for a go down the hotel variant. It isn't open yet but it looked good from the chair so we decided to have a ride down it anyway. We ducked the fence with a danger sign warning that it was closed and that you enter this area at your own risk. It had been fairly well tracked already, with the snow either packed or covered with a wind crust a few centimetres deep that broke easily. The snow wasn't as good as I had hoped so we headed back to the combes piste and down to Lognan.

Bochard has improved greatly since we were last here with all the rocks now buried. The combe de la pendant bowl is still not open with a fence barirng the entrance to it from Bochard. This doesn't seem to have deterred many people as the whole bowl looks tracked out. I guess the temptation of all that powder must have proved too much. Further down bochard and onto marmattons the pistes are in superb condition with great snow for carving. All day the snow up at Grands Montets was incredibly sticky, making flat sections difficult. I'm going to have to get some cold temperature wax very soon as it feels like snowboarding on our living room carpet at the moment; that's if I can find any cold wax left in Chamonix. We headed back down the excellent pierre a ric, everyone's favourite run in our house at the moment. We had a hot chocolate and some warmth at the marmattons restaurant right next to the grands montets lift station. From here we could see some people in the couloirs under the Plan Joran chair. These runs are pretty serious off piste and only for the stupid or the hard core; I'll let you decide!

Useful Links
Cross-country skiing is Open
Piste Maps for Chamonix (pdf format), Les Houches (jpg format), Cross-country skiing (pdf format), and Mountain-bike trails (pdf format)
Current status for opening of Pistes & Lifts
Chamonix Webcam Index

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Additional snow and weather information provided, with thanks, by meteo.chamonix.com and the Tourist Office