Chamonix Snow Report: 8th January 2006

Today I made the most of the sunny weather and headed up to Flegere where you can normally be guaranteed to find the sunniest slopes in Chamonix. The car park was rammed when I arrived there at lunchtime, hopefully all weekend traffic. However, there was no queue to get on the cable car, as everyone must have already gone up onto the slopes. From the cable car the Praz home run looked to be in good shape, without any unpleasant brown patches visible from above.

The Index chairlift seems to be running smoothly now and is certainly keeping up with the increased numbers of skiers at the weekend: no queuing for us there. The piste bashers seem to have been out in force recently, cutting out new pistes and widening existing ones. In particular the piste that connects the Index to the Chavannes piste has been bashed. It's deceptively marked as a blue run, but is in fact quite steep and a tough test for some intermediates. Overall, Flegere looks like it normally does in the middle of February not the beginning of January. As I rode up the Trappe chair I had a glance at the snow-measuring plot, which read 150cm: not bad at all! The Trappe piste was in excellent shape as were all the pistes, the snow mostly packed with some soft stuff on top. There are a few icy, scraped patches to watch out for usually in the tight bends on the cat tracks where everyone turns at the same point. The off piste wasn't particularly inviting, and felt a little crusty.

As 3pm arrived we decided to head back to Brevent to return to Chamonix. It's possible to do this trip quickly if you take the Evettes blue run to the Liaison cable car. It's quite a short run but not very wide so you have to be careful of the beginners that are often weaving across the piste. From the Brevent side of the Liaison head down the Retour Brevent piste to the Charlanon chair. Watch out for this chair though as it has a nasty habit of cracking unaware skiers and boarders in the back of their calf muscles (it's a low chair). From the top of the Charlanon Chair follow the Source piste down to the Parsa chairs. Here there are two options: I went for downloading by going up the Parsa chair and then riding to the Planpraz gondola for the return to Chamonix. The braver option if you don't have new skis or boards is to take the Nants black run down. There was a sign there today warning of poor snow, which convinced me to take the lifts. Having said that, it didn't deter everyone, and from the Gondola the last section on Nants looked to have reasonable snow cover, with a few boarders riding it.

Useful Information
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

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.

Useful Links
Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research
French Avalanche Research Institute
Meteo France - Mountain weather and avalanche conditions bulletins (in French)
Henry's Avalanche Talk - popular avalanche training sessions based in French Alps as well as translation of current avalanche conditions
PisteHors.com - Backcountry Skiing and Snowboarding News in English for the French Alps. Excellent coverage of avalanche safety and advice

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