December 7th, 2008 - Posted by: Powder Monkey
Skiing is Believing
The Grands Montets sector of the Chamonix ski area opened a week ago for weekend skiing. Chamonix is the latest French ski resort to open ahead of schedule thanks to heavy and frequent snowfalls across the Alps in November. It began snowing again in Cham on Thursday and it dumped in earnest on Friday, so the snow up at Grands Montets was sure to be deep come the weekend. However, people-in-the-know know that the GM is not necessarily the best place to be on a powder day because the steep terrain attracts swarms of snow-hungry, powder-pillaging skiers and boarders. What’s more, Saturday’s forecast announced 0% visibility so, since there aren’t too many trees at GM to help you judge the lay of the land in a white-out, we decided to head further a field.
Courmayeur, Chamonix’s Italian resort partner, is just a short drive though the Mont Blanc Tunnel: if the out-of-town Val Veney cable car is running you can be there in 35-40minutes. We had to forego our Friday night out in order to get there for first lifts but it was well worth the sacrifice. We couldn’t quite believe the notice board at the lift station that announced 1m of fresh but skiing is believing: check out the smiles on these faces.
Joe Grinning
Trig Gasping
Debs, AKA Powder Monkey, Giggling
With the snow already lying deep across the Alps it looks like it might be a record breaking season. Visit our webcam pages for the accumulative snow depths in our favourite French ski resorts. And look out for more snow reports from the Alps as the ski season really gets going.
Tags: Chamonix, Courmayeur
Posted in News from the Alps, Weather & Snow Conditions | 1 Comment »
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:11 pm
[...] reports of the Grand Montets opening ahead of schedule due to a early heavy snow fall in Chamonix, the early season snow just keeps coming. Tignes and Val d’Isere were the recent benefactors of a [...]