Chamonix Snow Report: 5th May 2005

On the piste the fresh snow at Lognan was only 2 or 3 cm deep and had fallen on groomed slush that had then frozen. The Marmattons piste had lots of hard ridges making it difficult to ride, until about midday when things started to soften up. The Bochard piste was similarly hard and icy until it softened up later in the day.

The real action was from the top cable car where I guess there was about 15-20 cm of fresh snow. There was still the frozen slush underneath the fresh stuff, which was most noticeable as we descended the steeper section of the Face at the front of Grands Montets. Once past that though, the fresh snow was deep enough to stop us touching the hard stuff until about the top of the Herse lift where the new snow was only about 10cm deep. The snow was good stuff, not wet or sticky, and a real pleasure to turn on. Gradually through the day things warmed up with the hard stuff below also softening making it feel smoother under foot. The snow was pretty untracked left of the Pylones piste at the top so we had a few runs on the open terrain here, ducking into the rocky sections skier's left of the Herse for added interest, where we found some very good snow.

We had a few runs of the Bochard gondola too, the only other big lift left running at Grands Montets. We chose to ride the ridge, skier's left of the gondola, for some fresh lines where the snow was pretty good even down the gully all the way to the Marmottons piste. We also traversed skier's right from the very top of Bochard for more fresh lines down from there; the rolling terrain was great with some fresh powder. Overall, the snow was better the higher up the mountain we went. However, the clouds were rolling in higher up, resulting in one or two whiteouts punctuated with sunshine and blue skies. Lower down it was generally clear from cloud but suffered from less good snow.

It was a fairly quiet day again with not much queuing at all for the lifts. At Lognan preparation continues for the Freeride days with the water slide now in place. If the weather forecast is right and we have 20-30cm of snow at 2500m on Saturday I wonder how many people will be riding the powder on Sunday instead of joining in the celebrations on the last day of the season?

Useful Links
Cross-country skiing is Closed
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

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Additional snow and weather information provided, with thanks, by meteo.chamonix.com and the Tourist Office