Chamonix Snow Report: 28th April 2008

featured in Snow report Author Helen McGrory, Chamonix Reporter Updated 24 October 2014

It's happening – the ski area is beginning to close down. This weekend was the last one for Brevent and Le Tour and it was almost enough to make you shed a tear because conditions are still so lovely up there. I'd been at Brevent a couple of times during the week, and whilst it was undoubtedly slushy underfoot, there wasn't a rock or a brown patch coming through anywhere and it was certainly still better then than it had been for a good portion of last season. The Compagnie du Mont Blanc are still reporting snow depths of 460cm at 2700m and 183cm at 2000m, which given the high temperatures we've had over the last few days, is incredible.

It was the same story at Le Tour yesterday, a group of us headed up around 11am (on the skis again – getting hooked!!) and the first couple of runs down the Ecuries piste under the Autannes chair were just fabulous, like cutting through butter, and the place was absolutely deserted! From the moment we got on the first chairlift, there was a definite end of season feel to the day as the lifties at each base station had little BBQ's and snacks on the go for themselves, the pisteurs and generally anyone who cared to stop. The pistes down the back to the Tete de Balme chair were also in great spring condition and later in the afternoon we hooked up with our Video Snow Reporter, Jon Trigell, (did you see that the Channel 4 adaptation of his book Boy A won a BAFTA last week??) and checked out some of the off-piste around the Emosson black run and off the Chalets de Balme drag. Still a lot of fun to be had if you catch it at the right time. There were also quite a few people trying out snow kiting and speed riding around the Chalets des Balme which looked really good fun.

However, being Chamonix, the season isn't really over - we still have another 2 weeks to enjoy the slopes of Grands Montets and another week of skiing in Flegere where the cable car and the Index and Trappe chairlifts will be running until the 4th May.

On Saturday we headed to Grands Montets where, as expected, the car park at the base was still chocca but we didn't ever have more than half a dozen people ahead of us on any of the lifts. I think a lot of people had just come up to make the most of the sun on the terrace because you couldn't get a deck chair for love nor money at the Spot Restaurant at Lognan! As with Le Tour, I seemed to time my arrival just perfectly (11am) and my first run down the Piste des Combes off Herse was a dream, although I understand from my slightly keener ski buddies, it had been sheet ice misery only an hour earlier. We weren't quite so lucky with the off-piste conditions on Saturday though, finding it mostly crusty, cruddy and bumpy on the higher sections (not top station) and then soft corn snow lower down which made the moguls on the Blanchots piste a lot of fun. We did the Pierre a Ric home at the end of the day only to find it very sketchy on the bottom half – lots of bare patches and a bit of aquaplaning required for the bottom schuss and it has in fact been closed today.

Would you believe it though, here we are entering May and the snow line is due to drop to 1600m by tonight and it seems that we can realistically expect 20-30cms of powder at 2000m tomorrow! Tuesday looks like it will be quite bright and then yet more snow coming on Wednesday. Fine by me!! :O)