Chamonix Snow Report: 8th March 2010

Taking the conditions in to account we decided to head to Le Tour to make the most of the wind direction, and check out a variety of different runs that head off in different aspect, and are subject to differing weather systems, making it more possible to find some undisturbed powder! it's a really good idea to get yourself linked in to the mountain and what its doing rather than trying to make something happen when the mountain wont allow it! Like trying to go for a powder run you know well when you have had a bright blue powder day that just doesn't work on another day when its dust on crust! The smart thing to do is really look at the weather, grab a map and look at wind direction, and also temperatures at different altitudes. Riding a lot of the time will also help understand what the snow is doing! With this information you can work out what slopes facing in certain directions at certain altitudes might still have a wee bit of fresh stashes available in them.

So with the knowledge of the previous few days having some warm weather after some dumps of snow with a little bit of wind we pretty much worked out that above 2000m where the freezing level had hung around and slopes facing in Northerly direction might just have a bit of fresh available in them. Le tour is a great place for a variety of different slopes facing in different directions with a good choice for different altitude. On a fairly overcast Sunday morning we headed up Le tour and checked out the wind direction looking at the Couliors that come back down to the nursery slopes at the bottom of the resort. We where caught out by the altitude factor and found that it was all dust on crust as the area had been quit warm 2 days previous and then frozen with a bit of wind blown snow on top making it look appetising but it certainly was not! So realising our grand error in judgment we headed higher up to the back chair lift and decided to hike for only around 15 minutes with a short traverse along the way to have a look at one of the bowls back down to the back chair with views in to Switzerland, Buet and Vallorcine. We where very excited to find a fairly fresh open field of powder before us after our short hike so we quickly slipped in to our boards and proceeded rapidly in to the epic field of powder which stood before us! It should be noted though that this area can be quit dangerous when the snow is unstable, however with the knowledge that the snow pack has begun to stabilise we felt it was fairly safe. We had a crazy ride down with some great open faces of powder to ride, followed by a few rollers and a nice cliff to drop on the way down before the necessary traverse back to the back chair.

After having an epic day knowing that most people either didn't bother or where riding slopes not so blessed in powder we really felt like we where truly living the dream so went for the mandatory après ski down at the office bar with some great deals on beer and spirits between 4-5, before heading back for an early one the next day to hit a similar face hopefully blessed in luscious pow for us all to ride!

Check out what to do around town once the lifts have closed with our Apres Ski Report - a weekly round up of what's hot and where to party in Chamonix!