Chamonix Snow Report: 6th December 2012
Bluebird in Les Houches
With the first blue sky day in Chamonix after all the snow we have had lately, it made perfect sense to head up to see what the conditions were like up on the mountain. The Les Houches ski area has the easiest accessible roadside pistes and has the lowest objective avalanche danger of any ski area in the valley. A good bet for getting out and seeing what condition the mountain is really in.
First off preparations for this weekend’s Les Houches opening are in full swing. The snow cannons are hard at it pumping out snow to cover what we have naturally and the piste machines are out grooming the slopes.
At the base there is more than enough snow to say it’s January not early December, everything is covered, every wall, hedge and car has a nice rounded white top to it.
Heading up the freshly manicured piste it’s instantly obvious we are not alone. I estimate there were more than 200 people with the same idea as us – skin up the mountain on our touring skis and see what there is to ski, remember this is a weekday in early December, all I can say about the crowds is “only in Chamonix”.
The weather was calm and just cold enough for snow cannons, a perfect early touring day. Any piste not being worked by machines had knee deep powder on a soft base, with a firm layer below the soft. Unless you tried really hard and found a tree stump you are not going to hit anything skiing here.
At Col de Voza we headed towards the Bellevue rather than the Prarion, this took us away from the crowds (well the 5 other skiers) and almost gave us solitude. Skiing one of the ungroomed pistes we could have been Heliskiing in Canada such were the conditions!
Down on the lower slopes it was even possible to make powder turns inbetween the chalets, my day ended at noon with a need to go to work rather than exhausting the possibilities of skiing, I’ll be back on Saturday morning when the lifts open early.
We did see a few natural avalanches on steeper grass slopes, not surprising with the amount of snow out there. If your heading out away from any patrolled area, be very, very careful out there.
