A snowboarder is riding down a snow covered slope in the fog

A snowmobile is parked in front of a building with a sign on it that says ' altitude '

A person is riding a snowboard down a snow covered slope

Chamonix Snow Report: 5th March 2005

featured in Snow report Author Ellie Mahoney, Chamonix Editor Updated 26 May 2016

It's been a good day here in Chamonix, although not quite a powder day, more powder-lite. This is a welcome change from the hardpacked pistes we've grown accustomed to recently. It's been snowing continuously all day and right down to the valley, with the temperature on our balcony hovering just below freezing at –2ºc. There was about 3–4cm of snow on our car this morning and even though it's been snowing moderately it doesn't seem to have put down much depth here; we still have 62cm of snow in our garden.

It's a different story up the mountain and there was 15cm of light fluffy snow at Flegere this afternoon. It's great, but the problem is visibility: the light is flat and for most of the time you can only see a few metres ahead of you. The areas with trees offer the best relief from the poor visibility so we hung around the Trappe chairlift for most of the time. The run under the lift line was fun, with a few drops to be had all in view of the people riding the chair up, so be ready for some humiliation if you get them wrong. The Trappe piste is good for learners as it's wide and gentle, and today it was empty. From the chairlift we could see that the snow depth pole showed 195cm.

We had a ride up the Index. The top was almost above the clouds, but not quite. The sun was just visible through the haze but not enough to improve the flat light. One run down the Pylones was enough to send one of our skiing buddies home as it really wasn't much fun not seeing where you are going – very frustrating as the snow itself was excellent and better than it's been for some time, with a silky smooth layer of loose fresh snow over the old base. Surprisingly, there were a few bare patches with bits of vegetation showing through on the last section just above the Index lower station. I think it's where a piste basher has scraped the snow too much as there's so much snow up there it really shouldn't be getting patchy at all; there was a similar patch just as you get off the Evettes chair too.

We headed up the Chavanne chair as it seemed to be clearing but by the time we were at the top the cloud and fog had closed in again. No surprises that the snack hut under the chair was closed today; I don't expect they would have had much business. We headed skier's left to get into the section with small evergreen trees and gullies next to the Floria piste. This proved harder than I imagined as the visibility really was very poor; at some points there was nothing to fix my vision on at all. The snow was good here but as I just couldn't see where I was going it was impossible to really let rip and make the most of it. Some of the gullies had some reasonably deep stuff in, probably drifted in by the wind, and would have been fantastic fun in better light.

We stopped for soup and coffee in the Flegere restaurant, partly to wait for things to clear up, and partly to get out of the snow and into somewhere warm. There was no change so by about 2:30pm we headed down on the Les Praz-Flegere cable car. We all agreed that it was a good day's snowboarding despite the bad visibility – the fact that there was barely anyone else up there was a welcome change from the half-term crowds and more than compensated for the fogginess. One of our housemates stayed up after us and headed off to Brevent to the Charles Bozon piste. Apparently the visibility was as bad there but the snow was deeper, “proper powder” in his words. A final word of warning about the home run Nants to Chamonix – another of our housemates came down it this afternoon and it's very rocky and really shouldn't be open at all given the damage to his base, so be sure to take the gondola down instead if you value your equipment.

Useful Links
Cross-country skiing is Open
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