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Chamonix Snow Report: 31st March 2015

Fresh snow this week all across the valley

featured in Snow report Author Graham Pinkerton, Chamonix Reporter Updated

The late, great Doug Coombs once said “there’s no such thing as bad snow, just bad skiers”….I reckon there were plenty of skiers across the alps prepared to disagree with that over the last couple of days! A huge weight of snow has fallen, but rather than the light fluffy powder of our dreams it’s been as light and fluffy as cement.

Fifty centimetres of fresh snow is still 50cm of fresh snow though, so we headed up to Flegere on Monday to make the most of the limited openings in the relative safety of the trees, trying to reduce our exposure to the 4/5 avalanche risk and give some definition to help us see in the white out conditions.

As long as you kept your speed up and didn’t turn, then the snow was pretty fun. Alas the trees and drops kept getting in the way so generally we skied in short pitches between sudden stops, either deliberate or tree assisted. The fun came to an end when the Trappe chairlift stopped turning, the lifty joking that they’d run out of petrol. At least I think he was joking. About an hour later the power came back on and we were able to make our chilly and damp way back across the hill to head back down the hill and dry out for the next day.

Tuesday morning and with the storm having abated a little, more terrain was able to be opened. Hoping that by going a little higher the snow would be a little drier, Grand Montets was the destination. However, despite the best efforts of the pisteurs, it wasn’t possible to secure enough of the mountain from the very high risk of avalanche, so only the lower lifts were turning. Arriving some time after the hill had opened I was surprised how many slopes were still untracked. Dropping into the magic forest I quickly discovered why, the snow was even heavier than yesterday.

Conditions could best be described as challenging and a lot of people on the hill were struggling. There was still some interesting skiing to be found, but best run of the day was probably Pierre a Ric which due to being lower was more slushy and sugary than wet and heavy. The quick laps given by the new Plan Joran gondola does seem to have increased the popularity of the piste though, so it wasn’t as quiet as it has been in the past.

Every cloud has a silver lining so whilst the new snow might not be making for the best skiing right now, it will make for great piste conditions over the next couple weeks and once it’s gone through a couple of freeze/thaw cycles the spring touring conditions up high will be much improved.

Location

Map of the surrounding area