Chamonix Snow Report: 13th January 2016

Unfortunately winds have been very strong too so not many lifts were open in the valley on Tuesday and a trip to Switzerland was our plan. The Col des Montets has been closed for a few days (live information available on chamonix-meteo.com) so the Tunnel des Montets has been in operation instead, but we mis-timed our arrival at the tunnel and would have had a few hours to wait until it opened again. We turned back towards Chamonix, checking what lifts were open online as we drove, and settled for Flegere; at least it would be quiet judging from the very empty car park.

The Index, Floria and Chavanne lifts weren't running but that was fine with us because we only wanted to ski one area: the trees off the 3-man Evettes chairlift. This is a lift I rarely ski laps of, normally just using it to access the rest of Flegere after skiing across from Brevent, but I've had some fun skiing in the past on days like this under the lift line and a little left, and my ski partner Graham knew a few spots on the right side too.

30-40cm of powder snow greeted us on every lap, offering nice soft landings wherever we chose to go. Some exploring further right got us to some gullies and very nice open areas between trees for some faster, longer turns but there were a few large cliffs to avoid so take it slow if you're exploring unknown terrain in there!

The access piste to the Evettes chairlift was in excellent condition even if the visibility was low so I'm sure that the pistes elsewhere on the mountain would be have been similarly good. The homerun piste is not officially open so we took the lift home but did hear from a friend that it was skiing fine so the choice is yours.

Snow continued to fall on Tuesday night and again not much was set to open in the Chamonix valley on Wednesday so rather than battle the road conditions to Switzerland we played it safe with a trip through the Mont Blanc Tunnel to Courmayeur after hearing good reports from Tuesday.

Courmayeur is included on all Mont Blanc Unlimited ski passes; if you are a season pass holder you need to activate your card at the ticket desk (remember your receipt just in case), but having activated our passes last week at the Saint Gervais ticket office we were all set and could walk straight through the gates at the Val Veny lift (which is the closest lift to the tunnel and also has the biggest car park).

When I first started skiing in Courmayeur five years ago our go-to off-piste spot was the large area of trees off the Val Veny gondola (head along the piste 50-200m then drop in right), but for the past few years I haven't skied this area too much. Our first lap was so good that we just lapped the Val Veny lift all day taking variations we know well from the past and also exploring much further left for some excellent skiing even if the descent was a little shorter.

The snow overnight had totally covered the previous day's ski tracks and although there were some bumps visible the snow was so soft that you could ski through them or land on them however you liked. Snow depth was a good 30-40cm of powder everywhere and a friend we bumped into on the lift said that it was feeling better compared to on Tuesday as it had had some time to set up a little for a bit more support underfoot.

We skied until our legs were tiring and called it a day after our last run where we were still finding completely untouched clearings in the snow. We barely skied any pistes but those that we did had excellent soft snow cover and not much traffic.

If you're visiting or living in Chamonix then definitely make some plans to ski in Courmayeur whatever the conditions, whether it's powder tree skiing or just cruising some lovely pistes with a few coffee and pizza breaks thrown in. [Bus timetables from Chamonix to Courmayeur].