Chamonix Snow Report: 31st March 2005
We've had several days of showery weather as per the forecast. In fact, Tuesday night saw persistent heavy rain down in town. As a result, yesterday we made our way to Grands Montets because in the current warm conditions the best chance of feeling the benefit of new snow is there.
It had obviously been raining there overnight too from roughly the top of the Marmottons chair down; snow was packed and slick in places, which made for twitchy riding as edges were catching all over the place. At the top of the Bochard there looked to have been about 6 or 7 cm of new snow, and more was falling all the time we were there. I am sure that it would have been great at the very top. We canvassed a few people who had obviously been up and reports were mixed (e.g., nice snow but big moguls lurking underneath). So, once again we decided to hang onto our euros (until conditions are irresistibly good, or we get very desperate, whichever comes first) not least because low cloud made for variable visibility and if you are going up top the views are so good it is always nice to see too. Maybe that's just greedy. The best fun of the day was had on Pierre a Ric. It was practically deserted when we went down and slushy too so you could throw your board around without fear of ice patches.
Today there was blue sky when we first got up, although big grey clouds came rolling in later in the morning. The rain–snow limit has crept down a bit and we could see the snowline quite clearly, as the trees from about 1800 and above had a dusting. Between us, our house had the valley covered today but I decided to try Brevent. First off I rode the pistes off the Parsa chair (I had hoped to take the cable car and ride down Charles Bozon – known in our house as the Charlie Bronson – but the lift had been shut for the morning and in spite of it being gone 1 pm when I arrived it was still to open). Of Les Blanchots, Vioz and the Stade runs, Stade Slalom Special was best. All had pretty much total snow cover (I spotted only a few rocks), but all were icy, Stade SS the least so hence the vote of confidence. The Compagnie du Mont Blanc website was claiming only 1cm of fresh for Brevent and Flegere and this seemed about right.
I rode over to Flegere via the Col Cornu chair followed by Charlanon piste. Low cloud was impairing visibility higher up but it really wasn't too bad this afternoon and certainly no which-way-is-up whiteout. The net result was that I had Charlanon all to myself, which is just as well because it was also icy, and is steep – always an interesting combination.
It has to be said that Flegere has a few seriously brown pistes (mainly the two lateral ones that connect the Floria to the runs off the Chavanne chair, although a short section of the Floria itself is almost completely bare). The Chavanne and Trappe pistes were the best fun of all today – good visibility, slushy but a shallow sugary sort of slush you can annihilate with a well-timed turn. There were more people here than at Brevent and most seemed to be staying low to avoid the cloud. However, it wasn't at all busy and we walked straight on to every lift.
There was light snow when I first arrived at Brevent, but the really good thing is that it was a bit cooler than usual. I've got used to wearing only two thin layers under a shell jacket but today this left me feeling a bit chilly. All good news for the snow we still have!
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
Additional snow and weather information provided, with thanks, by meteo.chamonix.com and the Tourist Office
Stats
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Level 3
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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: 1042
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High Temp.: 12
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Alt. High Temp.: 1042