Chamonix Snow Report: 3rd March 2014

Snowy start to March in Chamonix

featured in Snow Report Author Robin Deering, Chamonix Editor Updated 24 October 2014

With a decent snowfall coming in on Friday and Saturday, Chamonix is now deep in snow but unfortunately has it's head in the clouds...

A dusting of snow down the Valley this morning turned out to be 10-20cm of powder up top but reports are saying that with the low visibility and marked avalanche risk it has been difficult to enjoy the fresh powder. Nevertheless 90 of the 95 pistes are open to be explored.
The snow forecast is indicating up to 20cm of more snow by morning but persistant cloud cover tomorrow and a appearnace from the sun on Wednesday.

Ellie made it up to Grands Montets on Sunday...
"The clouds were really low on the Grands Montets side of the valley so we made the decision to hedge our bets on the south facing sunny side and headed over to Flegere. Unfortunately the low light and low clouds stayed with us, but the pistes were OK so we didn't feel the need to venture off-piste too much. By the time the clouds took to clear a little we'd given up and were sipping some beers at Elevation. Worse things have happened..."

Megan tested the new Grands Montets ski touring track...
"I skinned up the new touring path through the trees at the Grands Montets on Saturday afternoon - very nice trail with barely a soul around and great views of the valley through the trees at times. The climb was definitely a good workout and took just over 2 hours.

Skied the Grands Montets on Sunday in variable visibility. The Lavancher bowl was tracked, but the snow was very soft so still some great runs. The area under the Herse chairlift was also fairly lumpy, but very nice. We then headed up to the very top for the last run of day and took a hard right to ski down the front face - there's a few Crevasses here to watch out for, but the snow was very light and the visibility had hugely improved by this point, so that we could enjoy the super long descent all the way down to the car park in the sun."

Charlie Boscoe made for an Italian job of his weekend with some skiing in Courmayeur on Saturday...
"Tons of fresh snow but with acceptable avalanche conditions added up to an excellent day which just got better when the sun appeared for a couple of hours in the afternoon."
... and Helbronner on Sunday...
"Unfortunately it wasn't quiet and we ended up queueing for over an hour and only getting to the top at 10.15. By this stage it was heating up far too fast to go for the Marbrees so we went for a quick run down the Toula Glacier, which turned out to also be pretty spicy due to some funky slabs and extreme heat."
Read more about the conditions and routes on Chamconditions.blogspot.fr

Bon ski and stay safe.