Chamonix Snow Report: 2nd April 2005

It was cold last night with a light frost on the ground here at our house, although it quickly disappeared once the sun got round. We headed up to Le Tour to play on the soft slushy pistes there, and we know some people that are learning on the Vormaine beginners' pistes at the bottom there so it seemed like the best choice. With the season coming to its end now, it's good to make use of the areas that usually close first. Having said that, the snow on theVormaine green runs is good – slushy, which means soft falls, and pretty well covered.

Higher up at Le Tour things were still fairly hard at midday, with the top halves of groomed runs like Stade and Arve bulletproof. A light but chilly wind was blowing on the Autannes chair. So we headed down the Caisets home run, which had already started to soften up quite nicely, just to give the sun a little more time to do its work up top. Liaison Balme and then Esserts were next, the latter having slushy sections interspersed with icy ones under the shade of the trees. Some of the slushy sections have transformed into full-on mud patches.

The top of Solonges was great at about 1pm, good and soft, but there were grassy patches just where it meets Liaison Balme; stay left to avoid them. Aiguillettes was good fun, also soft by early afternoon but not too heavy either with a fairly firm base. Next we returned to the pistes served by the Autannes chair that had been too hard earlier. Thankfully by about 2pm, they'd started to lose their bulletproof qualities and transformed into the soft slush that's so much fun to push around. Ecuries has taken a severe hammering recently (not much snow left, mainly mud, stones and grass) and the lower third of it is now closed, instead there's a diversion across the Arve draglift and onto the lower section of the Arve piste, which still has a fair bit of snow. By about 4pm the pistes started to look tired, with more, wet grey patches showing through as the temperature peaked.

On our run down at the end of the day Caisets had become slushier and heavier than it was earlier in the day, but luckily not to the point where it transformed into the dreaded glue from a week ago. Despite it being the end of the day, the piste was quiet. All day we hadn't had to wait in a lift queue once; it seems all the Easter holidaymakers have gone home now. Not having to wait in queues really does make it feel much more relaxed up on the mountain. One of my skiing friends said today was one of the best day's skiing he's had all season, and the fine weather just makes it even better.

Useful Links
Cross-country skiing is Closed
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

We will be keeping this Chamonix snow report updated often during the season, but if you want even more up-to-date news on the ski conditions, why not sign up for our Dump Alert? We'll email you each time it snows enough to significantly change the skiing conditions. It's great to know that the snow is falling in the run-up to your holiday, and it might even allow you to book a last-minute weekend when the snow is particularly good. The service is free, and you can unsubscribe whenever you like.

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