Epic Powder Conditions Around Chamonix (week 5 & 6)

Deep powder skiing in Courmayeur

Kicking off February with a massive dump on both sides of the Mt Blanc mountain range – we got epic conditions for powder skiing! For 2 weeks now we have had amazing off-piste skiing in the Chamonix valley and our neighboring resorts in Switzerland and Italy.

Getting about 60cm of snow 4th-5th, we hit the trees in Courmayeur while it was dumping. The steep couliors and playful forest terrain there is perfect to ski on bad visibility days when is it snowing hard. I think the photo gallery from tree skiing in Courmayeur 5 Feb says it all…

The sunny days to follow opened up off-piste skiing in the high mountains and the possibilities to venture further away from the lift systems.

Punta Helbronner

First tracks on Glacier de Toule

The lift from the Italian side of Mt Blanc up to Punta Helbronner gives us access to so much skiing on wide, open glaciers as well as steeper faces and couloirs (I know we have mentioned this before, but we just love the place). Fast and easy access from the cable car enables a few laps of 1500-2500m vertical before the sun warms up these south facing slopes in the afternoon.

Optional entrance couloir to Glacier de Toule

The calm ambience here on the “other side” of the Vallee Blanche is a nice get away from the powder-race in Chamonix. The last little bin to the summit, taking only 8 persons, is more than enough to handle all its visitors – never any queuing. Coming up in the morning looking out over a perfectly smoth, untracked Glacier de Toule is like standing on a deserted island looking out over a calm sea. Just that the the sea is white and tilted 30-35 degrees. Then your pulse rises to about 180 and the legs starts trembling with excitement and impatience to conquer the lines in front of you. A very nice feeling.

Nice spines lower down on the Marbree

You really don’t need that doppio cappuccino to speed you up on days like this, but you have it anyway because it is just too good. After all we are in Italy, which makes it obligatory to enjoy the taste of food and coffee made with love. We return the next day to ski some more lines that need an extra day to settle to be safe to ski, such as the Marbree and Aiguille d’Entrève.

Le Tour

Classic powder turns in Le Tour

Mean while Wolfgang and our Belgian guests took it away in Le Tour. Being good skiers they really demostrated the joy of doing perfectly symmetric powder turns, leaving 3 beautiful tracks on kilometers of glittery white slopes. Knowing this non-obvious off-piste paradise very well, we can ski long, interesting runs in untracked powder for many days after the last snow fall. On the 6th it was extraordinary conditions (even for very spoiled locals like us), but Le Tour has probably been our favorite place to ski during these whole two weeks. Crossing the border ridges and skiing into Switzerland, landing in various charming mountain villages, adds an extra touch of adventure to the ski day.

Cold winter powder skiing in Le Tour

15cm of light snow, falling on the 10th, and very cold temperatures refreshed the winter landscape ones again. That bit of light snow on a still soft base gave us a few more amazing ski days in Le Tour on the 11-13 of February. Right now, despite having way to cold toes most of the time, I wish the spring will never come…

Vallee Blanche

Glacier skiing on the Vallee Blanche

Many of our guests have had the chance to ski the Vallee Blanche, “the most panoramic off-piste run in the world”, thanks to the clear weather days. Seriously deep powder we had on the 7th, but really, with or without powder conditions the Vallee Blanche is a wonderful experience. The spectacular mountain and glacier scenery alone is a reason to go there, you do not find it anywhere else.

Champex

Champex is tiny resort in Switzerland, just 1 hours drive from Chamonix. Despite having only two chair lifts it is well worth visiting. Skiing there on a bad visibility day we checked out the tree skiing. In places the forest is pretty steep and we had lots of fun. Champex-Lac, being a stop on the classic Haute Route on skis (Chamonix to Zermatt) also offers good ski touring possibilites. We will be back to try it out when the sun is shining. But week 6 the conditions were just too good for ski touring in Chamonix, so we did not bother to do the drive again.

Ski Touring to Glacier Berons

Boot packing towards Point des Berons

On the 13th we climbed to Point de Grands to ski the sheltered Glacier des Berons, which we suspected was spared from the wind that had affected many other north facing slopes the day before. Rightly we found 1800m vertical of soft powder, all the way down to Trient in Switzerland.

Skinning to Croix des Berons

The tour invloves both skinning and climbing with the skis on you backpack. The 200m boot-pack in 1m deep sugary snow was a real endurance and patience test, like walking 2 hours in quicksand. Luckily we had strong mentality and good teamwork in our Swedish group of 5.

Another 800m up on skins. Skiing down on shaky legs we surely had deserved every one of those nice turns! (Photo gallery to come on our webpage)

More…

- Guided off-piste skiing in Chamonix
- Guided ski touring around Chamonix
- More photo galleries from off-piste skiing and ski touring adventures
- Slik Images also posted some really creative boarding photos this week.