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Chamonix Snow Report: 7th February 2005

featured in Snow report Author Ellie Mahoney, Chamonix Editor Updated

The weather has been sunny and warm in the day but cold at night here for the last few days (-6°C at our house in Chamonix this morning, but it has been getting up to +5°C in the day). This is good weather for roadtrips as the roads are clear and driving is easy. When the lack of a snowpark in Chamonix gets a bit much we go to Les Crosets – today was one of those days. About a 90-minute drive via Vallorcine, Martigny and Monthey, Les Crosets is the Swiss side of, and sneaky back door into, the epic Portes du Soleil ski area, which is made up of 14 villages including Avoriaz, Chatel and Morzine.

With a season pass you get a day free in the Portes du Soleil but a day pass will cost you around 36 euros or 55 Swiss Francs and this covers the whole area. Avoriaz has parks too, but we go to Les Crosets as the park there is so good for mixed-ability groups and it is usually quieter, although today seemed to be some kind of national holiday as the place was heaving and the roads on the way were littered with confetti.

We arrived around 10am and as the superpark at Les Crosets is in the shade in the mornings we took a ride up the Mosettes chair to have a look at Avoriaz while we waited for it to soften up. The snow on the Avoriaz side is good, if a little hard on the shady aspects, or a little patchy on the south facing ones, and we took a long blue down to the Prolays chairlift in order to head over to Avoriaz town itself. A quick detour via the Snowpark de la Chapelle (it has some really easy beginners jumps if you're not quite ready for the bigger parks). There's also a much bigger, expert park here, with a massive superpipe with 6 metre high wall. but it is only good if you know your stuff. We headed back over to the Swiss side, I had a look down the infamous Wall, an extremely steep, moguled black run off the Chavanette chairs, but decided to give it a miss as grass was poking up between the bumps and we didn't want to damage our boards.

The Les Crosets superpark (www.superpark.ch) is excellent for freestylers of all levels. There are table-top jumps of increasing size so as your confidence and ability grows it's easy to step up to something slightly more demanding without risking getting hurt on a jump beyond your ability. It's possible to take a run though the park and hit 4 different jumps in one go, my favourites were a couple of mid-size table tops on the left of the park followed by a two hips further down allowing a frontside followed by a backside air. There are also a mixture or rails in the park, a rainbow rail and a few kinked rails plus a gap jump that has severe consequences if you come up short. The whole park is served by a drag lift or a four person chair.

Chamonix is undoubtedly one of the best places in the world for backcountry and freeriding, but if they could get their act together and build a park of the quality of the ones in Les Crosets or Avoriaz it would be one of the best resorts in the world fullstop!

(Sorry there are no photos for this report but today I've had a technical hitch with my camera.)


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

Stats

Avalanche Risk
  • Level 2

Snow Report
  • 0

  • Total Pistes: 80

  • Alt. Resort: 2000

  • Alt. Summit: 3000

  • Alt. Last Snow: 1042

  • High Temp.: 5

  • Alt. High Temp.: 1042