Chamonix Snow Report: 30th March 2006
Yesterday was an epic day. The 20 cm of fresh snow we had overnight at the house on Tuesday translated into 60 cm on the hill and, unlike on the warmer day before, this time it really was powder – light and up to the knees. Grands Montets was the place to be mainly because it was the ski area with the most lifts open – all except the top cable car. Once again, the visibility was poor, so the trees were best until the weather lifted a little later in the day.
We woke to low cloud, very light snow and 0ºC at the house this morning. With the promise of increasingly heavy showers and a rising rain/snow limit through the day, this morning was going to be the best time to do anything. The rise in temperature and heavy snowfall made for high avalanche risk, and visibility looked to be bad just about everywhere, so I opted for a morning of classic ski de fond. The pistes at Argentiere are still open, but today they had been only partially bashed (only one side of the clockwise circuit between Les Iles and Les Chosalets where we were). There is still plenty of snow on the pistes but it was slushy this morning. We had fun nevertheless, until, that is, the light snow turned to steady rain.
I have been meaning to go to Le Tour for a while now, so in spite of the fact that the signs weren't good (all but the back of Le Tour is a very bad choice in limited visibility due to the lack of trees and other distinguishing features) I went there anyway this afternoon. The rain didn't turn to snow until about two-thirds of the way up the Autannes chairlift. The visibility was bad, but I could see five or so chairs in front of mine as I rode up so it wasn't quite a whiteout. I hugged the edge of the traverse all the way around to the back where the visibility improved dramatically in the trees. The trade-off was that the snow was wet and a bit heavy so low down, and the blue piste Esserts had some very gluey patches, so much so that at one point I thought I was going to have to walk! However, I made it to the bottom of the Tete de Balme chair and decided to go all the way down to Vallorcine on Foret Verte. In spite of the recent warm temperatures (it was raining down there this afternoon), the piste is holding out well and the surface was surprisingly quick. I had been planning to make the most of the good visibility by staying over the back but a windy ride up the Vallorcine gondola and a gale-force ride up the Tete de Balme chair persuaded me to go back round the front via the red run Solonges. The fresh, slightly slushy snow was great fun to ride but I just couldn't see, so I decided to go in. The best run of the day was down the slushy home run, Caisets, which cleared about halfway down.
It is very difficult to say how much new snow there had been at Le Tour as the wind had been moving it all about, but reports from Flegere were a lot of fresh – above the knees and slightly heavy, but the steepness of the slopes there counteracted that and fun was had, apparently.
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 4
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0
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Total Pistes: 80
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Alt. Resort: 2000
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Alt. Summit: 3000
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Alt. Last Snow: 2000
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High Temp.: 10
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Alt. High Temp.: 1050
