Chamonix Snow Report: 24th February 2016

My parents and sister got into town on Sunday and they skied in Saint Gervais on Monday while I was working. It's probably their favourite area covered by the Mont Blanc Unlimited ski pass and is full of cruisy pistes covering a large area. On Tuesday I was free to head out with them in Les Houches for a similar style of skiing closer to home, but unfortunately a recent lower back injury meant that I could only manage a couple of hours before returning home to rest.

Still, it was a fun few hours with no queues anywhere on the mountain and although the snow wasn't ideal on piste it was nice and soft without being sticky. I only managed a few easy laps around the Kandahar, Crozat and new Melezes chairlifts but my family explored the rest of the mountain and seemed to really enjoy it; it was their first time there but they said they'd be going back. A good cheap lunch at the top of the Schuss des Dames chairlift saw them through the day and only when it came to do the homerun back to Prarion, the snow got a little sticky, but that was right at the end of the day.

Rain continued through Tuesday night in Chamonix town but with my back still giving me grief I stayed local and headed up Brevent early with Graham to see what fresh snow we could find. The top lift wasn't open to skiers in the morning and neither was the Cornu lift, so we took a run down one of the tree couloirs we know from mid-station level first.

The snow was a decent 20cm fresh powder up top getting slightly heavier as we went and we had to crossing a bit of old avalanche debris under the surface but it was smooth enough for me to ski pretty fluidly even with a bad back. A short walk across a riverbed got us to the homerun piste which is not officially open and we soon found out why: we had to cross one fairly large pile of old avalanche debris on foot and the track after that was a bit thin in places so we walked the last 5 minutes back to the gondola.

Back up at midstation the Cornu chairlift had started up. We had thought about skiing the Freeride World Tour face off the Aiguille Pourrie but decided that it would be a good idea to check out the snow on similar east aspects before making the hike up, so along the Cornu ridge we went. The top of the ridge was quite wind-scoured so there was surely some dangerous windloaded slopes on the east side, and some pretty large cornices were present too. So we abandoned any plans of skiing anything on that aspect and instead skied the whole length of the ridge to enter an untracked south-facing couloir. Snow at the top was a good 20cm of powder again but it got heavier as we descended, ending up heavier than our previous descent even though we were still at a higher elevation.

With the temperatures forecast to rise and my back getting worse we headed down; a short day but still a couple of nice fresh lines in the bag so I can't complain much.

The forecast is looking to stay fairly warm and wet on Thursday, then Friday should have some brighter and drier weather, leading into a bit of a drizzly weekend. Currently the longterm forecasts aren't looking too snowy or sunny but everything can change in the space of a few days in the Chamonix Valley so wait and see!

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Ed: Anyone with an MBU ski pass can ski in St Gervais. You will need to validate it at the ticket office on your first visit. Catch the bus from Cham Sud terminus through the Mont Blanc tunnel to get there or you can drive. Make sure you show your ski pass at the tunnel ticket desk to get a discount.

NB: Off piste skiing and mountaineering are dangerous. The opinions expressed in these articles are very much time and condition specific and the content is not intended in any way to be a substitute for hiring a mountain guide, undergoing professional mountaineering training and/or the individual's own back country decision making.