Chamonix Snow Report: 28th December 2006
The Compagnie du Mont-Blanc website is proudly boasting that all its ski areas are now open, but this is a little misleading when you look more closely at what exactly is open. For example, the cable car from Les Praz up to Flegere is running, but there's no skiing available up there, so the lift is only useful if you like hiking. Not including the beginner areas (Les Planards, Savoy, La Vormaine, which are open), Le Tour only has two lifts running that access open pistes up the top, and Brevent only has two runs open – a black and a green run, so not much in between for the majority of intermediates. Combine malfunctioning lifts (see below!) with lack of snow and the masses of visitors here for their Christmas and New Year holidays and you've got a pretty miserable mix.
As far as the weather goes, at least it's sunny and it has been warm in the afternoons. I guess if it isn't going to snow, we can at least do some sunbathing! This afternoon it's a warm-feeling +3ºC on our balcony in Argentiere. Yesterday afternoon was similarly warm and we headed up to Le Tour hoping to miss the morning queues. We managed to get up the Le Tour–Charamillon gondola kerfuffle-free but were greeted at the top by a large crowd waiting to go up the Autannes chairlift. If CdMB opened some of the draglifts at Le Tour that serve the same pistes as the chairlift it would reduce the waiting time for everyone; I can't understand why they are closed. So rather than wait we headed down the home run, Caisets, and did a few laps on that. The snow on it was good, with not much in the way of stones and vegetation poking through, just a few icy patches here and there, but also some softer nearly slushy snow on the lower part. The only snow cannons at Le Tour cover this piste, which is why it's in such good condition. Elsewhere at Le Tour the pistes aren't so good. After a few laps we decided to head over to Grands Montets on the bus as the queue for the Charamillon gondola had grown through the afternoon and it really didn't seem worth the wait. It was a bad move as when we arrived at the cable car to go up to Grands Montets the queue was out of the door, so we baled and called it a day.
Today we took the opposite approach and were up early in the morning with the aim of missing the queues. We were sure that we'd be able to either take the Plan Joran chair or the cable car to Lognan, but it wasn't to be. Even at just past 9am the queue for the cable car was out of the door: this is what you'd expect on a powder day at Grands Montets, not when the snow is as limited as it is now. To add insult to injury there was no option to jump onto the chair as it had broken down! Now I hope the snow was good up there for all those people that spent the time waiting. The top section of the Grands Montets cable car opened during the morning so perhaps there were fresh turns for those with the stamina to queue! We weren't among them, so, we hatched a plan to catch the bus to Le Tour before it got too busy there. Thankfully, again, there wasn't much of a queue for the gondola up to Charamillon and we didn't have to wait long to get on the Autannes chair either. Riding up the Autannes chair I could see the effect of the Christmas hordes on the pistes below: Ecuries looked in a worst state than I've ever seen it. The snow had been scraped so thin that patches of grass and rock were showing through for the length of it; it must be almost impossible to groom for lack of snow. To avoid it we traversed around on the Liaison Balme track and dropped down onto the red run Solonges, which was in better shape. It had a few grassy patches but they were few and far between, the only tricky section being the flat track at the bottom that leads back to Charamillon and the chairlift. Solonges has some surprisingly nice rollers and bumps to have fun on; normally they're covered by more snow so less noticeable, but today I would have been happy doing a few runs on it. However, back at Charamillon the queue had already built up for the chairlift, so it was back to laps on the home run Caisets. Again it had the best snow, and some of the snow cannons were still running as we rode down. You can't beat firm corduroy for carving on, and there are a few good hits over the cat tracks near the top of the run.
There are rumours that the weather's going to change after the weekend, and not a moment too soon. I don't know how much longer the runs will be able to stay open if the snow melts much more. I've recently invested in a p-tex gun, just in case it doesn't snow!
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
Useful Links
Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research
French Avalanche Research Institute
Meteo France - Mountain weather and avalanche conditions bulletins (in French)
Henry's Avalanche Talk - popular avalanche training sessions based in French Alps as well as translation of current avalanche conditions
PisteHors.com - Backcountry Skiing and Snowboarding News in English for the French Alps. Excellent coverage of avalanche safety and advice
Additional snow and weather information provided, with thanks, by meteo.chamonix.com and the Tourist Office
Stats
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Level 1
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0
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Total Pistes: 80
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Alt. Resort: 1972
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Alt. Summit: 2800
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Alt. Last Snow: 2800
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High Temp.: 7
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Alt. High Temp.: 1250