The Snow and February Crowds Arrive

Gone are the empty pistes and the quiet chairlifts and in their place came the half-term crowds. I had thought we had one more week before the crowds descended and though that’s still true for the British it seems elsewhere in Europe the holidays are in full swing and the families have made their way to town. The change was noticeable from the first lifts on Monday. Although the resort had much more buzz to it over the weekend and the crowds gathering at the ski school meeting points couldn’t be ignored. By 10 am the queues at all the central chairlifts were pretty epic and the race was on to get to quieter edges of the piste map.

Snow Report
Luckily, with the crowds came the snow! With big snow falling over Sunday night, ready for Monday morning. Which really does take the sting out of waiting in a lift queue this week.
And although enough snow fell to liven up the off-piste skiing, sadly it seems to have crusted up quite quickly and has by mid-week been trekked out.

Snow Forecast
This week, you just want to focus on the snow conditions not the crowds, when you feel yourself lamenting the busy pistes just take a look at the forecast! It’ll cheer you up! It looks like we have snow on the way on Friday, about 5 cms, but then next week the forecast if for snow Monday - Friday!
So no matter how much ski traffic there is this week, the pisties are going to be able to work their magic overnight and keep the resort looking and feeling great.

Jen's Top Tips

• Avoid the crowds as much as possible you’re going to want to get out at ‘off peak’ times, that is 9-10am 12-2pm and 3-5pm when the mountain is noticeably quieter.
• Pay attention to where the ski school hot spots are and avoid them if you can. If you can’t avoid them, just try to schedule it so you aren’t hitting these places on the same timefame as them.
• If you are heading out at night, windchill is dropping the day temperatures by up to 10C, so really keep warm and stay safe.
• Always check the avalanche risk and don't head off-piste if you don't have

Updates
If you head to the bottom of this page, you can see the day by day forecast of what to expect in your resort. But, we will also be updating this snow report page every Wednesday, so check back in with us next week to see how the pistes are doing and what you can expect from the snow forecast for the next 7 days.

We need you!
If you're in Chamonix this week, we want to see your images, especially videos, of what you've been up to. So when you post to Facebook or Instagram, tag us. Every week, we'll be posting our favourite and top videos here to share, along with our weekly resort snow report.
Bon Ski & we'll see you on the pistes!