Winter has returned to Chamonix this week

Fresh snow falling in town and great skiing up high

featured in Snow report Author Lorne Cameron, Chamonix Reporter Updated 20 April 2016

After a big ski tour midway through last week and mostly cloudy weather I had a good few days off skiing, not feeling too motivated to get up the hill and my mind turning to summer mountain bike plans already. We've only got a couple of weeks left for most of the lift-accessed skiing now, and I'd quite happily take two weeks of sunny weather for some spring ski touring and a few steep lines, but when the weather turned snowier and snowier over the weekend I wasn't complaining either.

On Sunday the snow was falling pretty steadily, anywhere between midstation level and town, so up high I thought it would surely be gathering pretty nicely. On Monday I headed up Grands Montets early expecting big queues but it really wasn't as bad as expected; maybe it's the end of season low holiday crowds or just a lack of motivation from locals?

First lifts are at 8.30am at the moment but our 9am arrival at the car park worked perfectly with the slightly delayed opening; the Lognan cablecar wasn't turning yet and the Plan Joran gondola only just starting up. So we were up the gondola pretty quickly and down to midsation to check out queues for the Grands Montets top lift. There were only about 50 people in front of us, so it wasn't bad at all. The top lift queue is normally a bit hectic so I've avoided it entirely this winter, but seeing as I hadn't had a powder run off the top in a long time we figured we'd wait it out.

We had almost an hour's wait for the lift to start up, getting on the second lift of the day at about 10.15am while the queue grew well out the lift station door behind us. Up top the snow was still falling heavily and the visibility coming and going, but from the lift we saw that only two skiers had gone down the front face from the first lift of the day, so that's where we headed.

The snow was a good 20-25cm of fresh light powder with all bumps underneath fully filled in so we took long fast turns all the way down the main wide open face; it was just like being back in midwinter, amazing! Beside the rock on the left side we got the best light contrast to read the snow a bit better so after the rock we cut hard right all the way over to the Rachasses area beside the big rock wall. Even more surprisingly here, no one had done the run from the top. No complaints from us, and more long turns all the way down! Once joining the Herse chairlift's terrain things were a little tracked but nothing a stiff pair of fat skis couldn't handle.

We had grabbed top lift reservations for 12 noon when we joined the queue earlier so had time for a couple of laps of Lavancher Bowl off the Bochard gondola (left of the lift line, out to the Pendent chairlift or tunnel exit). Sticking right each time the snow really wasn't too tracked; just enough to be able to read the terrain but still easy to make every turn in an untouched patch of snow, and again the best contrast beside the rock face on the right side where some deeper snow had gathered. If we didn't have our reservation I could have happily done another two there instead.

Back around to the top bin and we walked on with our ticket. At the top the visibility had closed in some more so we went off the back on more deep, soft snow and easily around to Col des Rachasses where a decent track had been put in. Not many tracks had gone directly down beside the rock wall so it was more fresh turns all the way down, leading into Italian Bowl (far skier's-right off the Herse chairlift) which was a little tracked and bumpy but still OK.

We were saving our legs for a tour on Tuesday so a good morning's ski was enough. We cut the corner a little off the midstation return cat track to join the Pierre a Ric homerun piste, finding untracked snow but very deep and heavy, we were glad that we didn't take a bigger cut-through! On the homerun itself things got heavier and heavier but pretty smooth the whole way so it was still a fun run back to the car park. I was expecting to be soaking by the time I got down but temperatures were low enough for wet snow to still be falling at the bottom, nice.

On Tuesday nothing but blue skies were forecast so it was sure to be a great day's skiing anywhere in the valley. Avoiding the crowds of Grands Montets and the Midi was our goal so we ended up on a pretty mellow tour from Le Tour to Trient via Glacier de Bron. It was a fairly easy uphill, a good group to ski with and there was no one else around; what more could we ask for? Well, slightly better snow would have been nice. It was all perfectly untouched but a little slow and grabby by the time we were skiing even on a north face at almost 3,000m elevation. Still a really fun, safe and relaxed day though, and that's all I really wanted.

At the moment Le Tour, Flegere and Grands Montets are still open for skiing. Find the lift closing dates for this season.

Follow more from Lorne in his ski blog.