Chamonix Snow Report: 15th February 2005

First, my apologies for not reporting on any pistes here but the past two days have brought some of the best powder of the season so we haven't been on that many of them.

Yesterday we headed up to Les Grands Montets as it's got some of the best powder riding in the valley. Unfortunately most people know this, which is one of the reasons why we had to queue for an hour to get up the chairlift to Plan Joran. The main reason for the wait was that the lifts had to be de-iced and the area made safe. When we got up there it was snowing and visibility wasn't great but it's often in these conditions that you find the best powder and it proved to be worth the wait. The bushes and gully to skier's left of Remuaz were good but there was some hard snow underneath the powder in places; however the left side of the gully was deeper and untracked and was just about perfect. We also tried the Dream Forest (the off-piste wooded section between Plan Roujon and Retour Pendant chairs), and spent some time in there bouncing down pillowy soft rock drops, and weaving between the trees. The snow was slightly heavy, but this made it easier to push against and turn, and it was deep enough to make dropping all but the biggest rocks effortless. The Bochard gondola was closed all day but the Herse chair was open so we rode off piste to the skier's right from the Herse. The snow wasn't quite so deep here and there were rocks (on the second run, one of our group hit a rock and broke his ankle). To skier's right of the Chalet Refuge de Lognan, the snow was wind loaded, deep and untracked: in other words, it was fantastic. We met up with the lower section of the Hotel Variant, which was slightly more tracked but still in superb condition - the soft, snowed over moguls proving to be excellent for bouncing off.

Today we went back for more at Grands Montets; this time there was no queue and we walked straight on to the Plan Joran chair at around 10am. Visibility was poor today so we went back to the Dream Forest. We could see some of the tracks from yesterday in there but it looked like there had been about another 15-20cm of snow overnight, and it was still snowing lightly. The snow itself was a little lighter and colder than the stuff that fell yesterday. We found large sections in the woods that were completely untracked; we couldn't believe it, and there was enough there to keep us going all morning without having to ride the same bit twice. The 10-minute hike out seems a small price to pay for fresh tracks. Bochard opened today so we took a couple of rides through Combe de la Pendant. Skier's right of the bowl was magnificent: visibility cleared and we had a full speed powder run. Large sections were still fairly untracked and the snow was largely bottomless but for a few rocks I caught. Skier's left, on the second run, wasn't quite so good: visibility closed in to a white out at times and the snow was shallower with my board scraping some icy lumps and a few rocks. On that note we decided to head down for a beer and sandwich chaud at the Rencard in Argentiere, my favourite powder day watering hole.

Useful Links
Cross-country skiing is Open
Piste Maps for Chamonix (pdf format), Les Houches (jpg format), Cross-country skiing (pdf format), and Mountain-bike trails (pdf format)
Current status for opening of Pistes & Lifts
Chamonix Webcam Index

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Additional snow and weather information provided, with thanks, by meteo.chamonix.com and the Tourist Office