Chamonix Snow Report: 30th December 2013

More from Megan...

I spent my weekend in the Brevent and Flegere domains, seeing what the area has to offer both on skis and on a snowboard. Saturday's conditions were fairly challenging, as they have been for the last few weeks with a thin snow covering over the area and lots of icy runs around to test your edges. The Charlanon piste down to the Liaison lift on the Brevent side was particularly moguled and hard packed and the black run down from the Brevent Cable car had some difficult icy, narrow sections. A few little stashes of fluffier snow were still to be found though - we were watched begrudgingly from the Trappe chairlift as we found some short sections of very mellow fresh lines through the trees between the two green runs.

With large flakes of snow falling right down to town-level on Saturday evening, Sunday was set to be one of the best days of the season so far in Chamonix and it certainly delivered. For the first time, the pistes felt soft enough to accommodate my beginner snowboarding. The blue Vioz run on the Brevent side was a great warm up for some shaky turns with a lovely soft layer of snow covering the piste. We then headed over to Flegere again, cruising on lovely powdery pistes down to the liaison. Later in the day, moguls and icy sections started to appear again, not helped by the New Year week crowds. The red pistes from the top of the index provided a few challenging sections for my ropey technique, but they were mostly in great condition. I was also assured that the off piste sections between the runs were still soft in the sunshine and fresh tracks could be found into the afternoon. 

Ellie explains...

Sunday morning was an early start for me. I'm not a morning person, so getting up at 7am (and on a Sunday at that!) was a bit of a shock to the system. Since there had been a good dump of snow overnight we were keen to get first lifts at Grands Montets, which meant setting off from the centre of town at around 8am for a possible first lift at 9am. (The avalanche risk was 4/5 so we made sure we all had transceivers, shovels and probes in our back-packs.)

The main gondola and the chair lift didn't open til around 9.30 and it looked unlikely that the top cable car was going to be running, so we got straight on the Herse chair and enjoyed a good long run in fresh powder back to the mid station. By the time we got back down we were glad to see a queue forming for the top bin so up we went, after thankfully not too long a wait. I always forget how much riding in powder tires out your back leg on a snowboard, but the face shots and the fun make up for it in droves and it's never too long until you get your powder legs back!

Although there had been substantial snow fall on Saturday night, you still had to be mindful of not letting go too much as there were rocks lurking just below the surface. The pistes were in good condition, although higher up they were getting pretty mogul-covered with hard packed snow in between - never fun on a board! Another couple of runs and I was done.. the crowds and queues were getting too much and the powder was getting tracked out and chopped up, so we headed down and grabbed a vin chaud in Chambre Neuf once we were back in town.

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Read more about the different ski areas in Chamonix, Avalanche safety and check out the weather forecast for the next snow fall. If you want to learn more about reducing the risk of avalanches on the mountain, then pop along to the free Avalanche awareness talks at La Terrasse which are run by the Avalanche Academy.