Chamonix Snow Report: 27th March 2009

Fortunately, that's not the case at all. The snow is still in great shape and in fact, yesterday was a season Top Five day at Les Grands Montets.

Despite the fresh snow, Brevent and Flégère are very sticky then very slushy as soon as they get into the sun...although in the shaded gullies off La Flégère there are still plenty of fresh tracks to be had.

Le Tour has been seriously windblown in the last twenty-four hours, which resulted in the mountain being closed today. I reckon all the snow will have been having has pushed over to the slightly more sheltered Vallorcine side, so there'll be some great skiing to be done there tomorrow.

Les Grands Montets, being the highest and most easterly facing resort in the valley, is where the goods are at right now. Thanks to the shaded aspect, the snow stays cooler for longer and because of the high altitude at the top of the resort, that's where it snows the most. When we hit the resort late yesterday, we found excellent conditions, deep as you like, in the Pendant bowl and off the Top cable car.

PENDANT BOWL
Pendant is the twin sister of the Lavancher Bowl, the famous powder bowl that sits above the village of the same name.

In a lot of ways the Pendant is similar; wide, steep and exposed, all three of which make it reasonably avalanche-prone. In fact, in local Savoyard dialect, Lavancher means 'avalanche'. So tread carefully, or take the sensible option of engaging a high-mountain guide for your foray.

We got into Pendant by following the Bochard gondola cables for a couple of hundred metres, then turning to skier's left and traversing into the bowl. I was happy to have brought out my long, tapered 164 snowboard as the snow was really deep.

Dipping the shoulder on cutbacks, faceshots after every bump, bottomless-feeling turns. What snowboarding is all about. With a run in hand in this decent, fluffy, dryish powder, we were happy to head higher for the same feelings, multiplied tenfold.

TOP TICKET
Just like Jackson Hole in Wyoming, Snowbird in Utah or Squaw Valley in Tahoe, Les Grands Montets is the resort that everyone comes to Chamonix to ski. I know of visitors to the valley who consider Brevent, Flégère and Le Tour mere irrelevances to the serious skiing that's found at Grands Montets (and, of course, the Aiguille).

And once at Grands Montets, the Top Cable car is the lift that everyone wants to ride. It's the innocuous-looking box that runs from the midstation at Lognan to the summit of Les Grands Montets at 3233m. And yesterday it's snow did it's reputation justice.

Walking down the steps to the strap-in area, every single person wearing a backpack and most a helmet, gigantic powder guns under arms or insanely fat skis on shoulders, we felt like we were in the company of some serious talent.

Somewhat intimidated, we buckled up fast, rechecked our transceivers and headed out to a spot on the glacier we know called the Droit du Rognan. The Rognan is a gigantic rock outcrop sticking up in the middle of the Grands glacier and although it sits among a sea of hidden crevasses, it serves as a great reference point in low visibility.

We headed far out to the right, threading through the ice cliffs and seracs on our way to the flat glacier floor. It was quite a journey; perhaps 150 or 200 turns of bottomless fluffy snow, light as air and resistance-free on the bottom of my board.

Snow stability was excellent, apart from some small windslabs which we picked up on due-east-facing slopes. Once back down on the glacier, we took our time traversing out toward the Lognan Réfuge, enjoying the contrast of blue ice, grey sky and white snow.

Good times. Let's hope I don't get to write that melancholy end-of-season snow report for a good while yet!

See you out there!

Tom