Chamonix Snow Report: 7th January 2015

Now you don’t get that in December. My glee was quelled slightly by the realisation that I had in fact left my boots and gloves in the car for the last 48hrs – it had been -12 overnight….total schoolgirl error….and then I arrived at the top of the Charamillon gondola to find a substantial queue, yes QUEUE, at the bottom of the Autannes chairlift. One does not generally expect to queue in January! However the sun was out, there was a temperature inversion going on in the valley and it was a pleasant 2-3 degrees on the slopes.

A couple of my friends said that they had had a great day at Le Tour earlier in the week but, to be honest, I did not have terribly high expectations. The “faible enneigement” or thin snow cover sign prominently displayed as you get off the Autannes chair just seemed to confirm that. However, my first turn down the Stade blue run and the snow was anything but “faible”, well certainly for the first 2/3rds of the piste. You had to keep it reigned in of course, normally you can go screaming down that run at Mach 9 putting in big, sweeping GS turns because it’s wide, cruisy and usually pretty empty. But it was nice, it was fun and I wanted to do it again.

After a couple of warm up laps down the Stade, I felt it was time to check out the back. Again, anticipating the worst on the long traverse over, I was pleasantly surprised and it was absolutely fine. I have definitely ridden far worse conditions on that section of the mountain in previous seasons. I love the Esserts run down the back to the base of the Tete de Blame chair; it’s a beautiful tree lined run with stunning views across to Le Buet, the Emmosson Dam and on into Switzerland. Today it was still tree-lined with beautiful views but the snow was really not good; hard and patchy with really thin cover in places, it didn’t warrant a second visit so it was back down the front and sticking to the sunny side of the area for me.

From the Tete de Blame chairlift my favourite return run is via the Solonges red but the start of the piste today was a bottlenecked, rutted nightmare. There were moguls, grass, rocks and nervous skiers all over the shop but only for the first 10m or so and then it was pretty decent. There were a few sketchy places as you got lower down but again, really not so bad. However, the prize for the best run of the day though goes to the Caisets red that leads back down to the car park. I find that this run and the Pierre a Ric at Grands Montets often get ignored by the masses until the end of the day when the run is busy and full of tired legged skiers heading for home. If you take a peek down these runs in the middle of the day you can often still find corduroy and plenty space as everyone else chases each other’s tails on the higher runs.

Well for the rest of the week it looks like we’re still going to be seeing a fair bit of sunshine in the earlier part of the day and then the cloud cover will build up as the afternoon progresses. Saturday night/Sunday is to be our next potential snowfall which will be gratefully received. However, after one of the driest starts to the season in many years; at least we’re open and we’re skiing, but if you got a new set of skis or a snowboard for Christmas, you might want to keep them in their wrappers for just a little bit longer….

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ed: Meanwhile today at Brevent, Seven Twenty are reporting "reasonable" snow cover.