A snow covered building with a sign that says ' montagne e neve ' on it

A snowy mountain covered in clouds with a blue sky in the background

A snowy parking lot with a mountain in the background

A person in a black jacket and green pants is skiing down a snowy hill

Chamonix Snow Report: 28th January 2010

featured in Snow report Author Kieran Sharp, Updated 24 October 2014

Some snow is in the process of making its way through the valley right now but the cloud has been coming in fairly low so there has been the opportunity of a day of white out conditions whilst also the chance of getting above the cloud and enjoying some of the snow which has fallen. There is a good amount falling right now and there is more forecast but the past couple of days have been fairly small amounts to ride, looking at patches where the wind has blown bigger patches in to the sides of gulleys to get some fresh lines rather than open fields of powder.

With the options of riding either above, or below the cloud or even in the trees, Grand Montets seemed like the logical choice the past couple of days, with the possibility of taking advantage of all these options on one mountain. Grand Montets is the biggest mountain next to the Aiguille du Midi and like the Aiguille lift there is access to big backcountry glaciated terrain.

With the cloud coming in and the small amount of snow I haven't been totally motivated to get up early and ride but when I have, I wished I got up a little earlier as the cloud has been sitting quite low in the valley. Heading up the Bochard lift and traversing toward the Pendant bowl and hitting the right hand side of this area where the wind had blown a load of lovely powder into this area. We hit the same run a few times getting fresh almost every time until the cloud came in a lot higher up making the next option of trees being the best option, so we got in to the magic forest which is possible to access just after the right hand side of the Pendant bowl heading toward the small cat track with a tunnel running through a section of rock where immediately after this tunnel you can enter the magic forest. You can choose from a large option of routes through here traversing right or left to chair lifts or straight down for a longer run but also a walk out to either chair at the once the lower cat track has been reached, or you can even hit some of the steeper couloirs all the way back down to the village. On this occasion we decided to take the shorter route through and traverse right to a chair lift as the snow lower down was quite thin with a layer of ice underneath.

So on that note we decided to get underneath the cloud riding the home run for the rest of the day, where the snow was actually really good on the piste so we had a load of fun just carving around and using the sides of the pistes to jump off and back on again, and with hardly anyone else on there riding we had a good few runs before heading down for a good bit of Après ski at The Office Bar in Argentiere!

Check out what to do around town once the lifts have closed with our Apres Ski Report - a weekly round up of what's hot and where to party in Chamonix!