Chamonix Snow Report: 3rd May 2005
The heatwave of the past few days seems to have come to an end, with cloud and rain replacing sunny skies and temperatures in the high twenties. The showers started last night and this morning we woke to a grey, overcast sky. Not too promising, but off we went to Grands Montets for a morning's boarding; it's now the only area open in Chamonix. In fact there can't be many resorts left open in the Alps now; nearby Verbier closed a couple of weeks ago.
We arrived to an empty carpark and walked straight onto a half full cable car up to Lognan. Since our last visit to Grands Montets the snow has taken a bit of a battering in places, especially lower down towards Lognan. The Marmottons piste has got narrower since snow has been scraped inwards from the side to keep at least part of it going . The snow on the piste was not bad to ride: a little soft and slushy.
The Herse chair has now closed so we headed straight up the top of Grands Montets on the cable car. Again the cable car was half full and there was no queue at all. We did two runs, the first down Pylones at the front. At the top a little fresh snow had fallen onto soft slightly slushy snow. It was quite a strange surface to board on as although it was soft it didn't give too much, and was fairly heavy. Lower down Pylones we took a detour to the side of the piste, where the snow was sticky and pretty heavy going. We followed Les Combes down the rest of the way, which was in great shape on the top half, freshly groomed and soft without being sticky. Things got patchier lower down, with the cat track back to Lognan having some watery brown patches. Point de Vue was in good shape (except for the same patchy cat track at the bottom). The upper part was soft, and didn't look to have frozen overnight. There are some mogulled sections midway down, but the bumps are soft, easy to ride, and not too big, so I found myself actually enjoying them.
We had quite a few runs from the Bochard gondola, each one in different weather. We had a bit of rain, some sleet, a whiteout at the top, blue sky and sunshine, all in the space of a couple of hours. Bochard is holding out best of all the runs still open: the cover is excellent and the snow well groomed, and even in the morning it wasn't icy. There was barely anyone else on the run today - just a one or two instructors giving lessons.
Preparations have started for the Freeride Days on the 7th and 8th of May. There are some long rails and fun boxes waiting up at Lognan to be set up. As we waited to head down on the cable car we also spotted some interesting pirate/desert island props being taken out of the lift station.
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: 2000
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High Temp.: 16
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Alt. High Temp.: 1042
