Skiing in Les Houches & off the Aiguille du Midi

I really wasn't sure if any off piste would be fun skiing, let alone safe, so headed to Les Houches on Monday for the first time this winter for an easy cruise around the pistes.

Clouds were lingering for the first half of the morning but over the back side they slowly started to clear enough to offer good visibility. The long piste to the lowest-right point (Plancerts drag lift) was skiing well but quite heavy. Still, nice and quiet so lots of space to make big turns and good views down the Arve Valley.

The new Melezes chairlift proved to be a fast and efficient way to get some quick laps; beginners will really like the blue pistes it serves and there are a few small kickers and boxes near the top although they need some rebuilding after the recent rain. Pistes on the back-left side to the Crozats chairlift were skiing well too but had a few bare patches to look out for and some forks of the piste had no snow cover at all - piste closure signposts are in place for very good reasons at the moment!

The clouds continued to clear on the whole mountain so I moved to the front side where there were great views of the Mont Blanc Massif towards Chamonix and Argentiere. Preparations are well underway on the Kandahar piste for the world cup downhill event in a couple of weeks' time but the whole piste was still open and in good condition. The best piste of the day was the red skier's-right off the Voza chairlift; separated by a fence you need to go hard left as you get off the chairlift so it doesn't see much traffic meaning the snow was much less cut-up and the large rollers were very fun for a bit of air. Similarly the red piste off the Grand Bois drag lift towards Bellevue where kids' race training normally takes place had barely been skied so was in prime condition for skiing flat-out on a couple of quick laps.

Returning to the Prarion car park the snow got heavier all the way down but the piste had good cover - a good effort by the pisting team to make this possible after the recent heavy rain.

Some friends had reported decent conditions above 2,500m on Monday on Grands Montets and horrible crusty snow below that, so we took our chances on a lap off the Aiguille du Midi on Tuesday. I hadn't skied off the Midi yet this winter so thought it was a good chance to get a run in before the holiday crowds arrive next week. On our 9.30am lifts there was a bit of queuing but we were down the arete quickly; the easy "Z" path should be open soon but the direct rope lines were OK today, a bit of ice in the steeper sections so I'd recommend skis-on-backpacks plus crampons at the moment for anyone inexperienced.

We had the Gros Rognon variation of the Valley Blanche in mind; a more interesting and less-skied variation of the Classic route without as much objective danger as the Envers variations. Snow for the main part of the descent was a lot better than I had expected; not powder but still excellent smooth chalky snow and not too tracked of cut-up so we could make long high-speed turns the whole way.

Lower down the snow turned a bit crusty, as we had expected it to do at some point, so we stuck right through the Salle a Manger instead of going up left πast the Requin Hut. There was one short section with some ice & crevasses to negotiate through the Salle a Manger but nothing for us to worry about too much, then the Mer de Glace exit had melted out just enough to offer good spring snow for a nice fast exit to within 20m of the steps up to Montenvers.

Another storm has rolled in today (Wednesday) and temperatures will hopefully be dropping for some good snow on the whole mountain in the next 48 hours. Take a look at the latest forecasts.

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Follow more from Lorne in his ski blog.