Whitest time of the year in the high mountains.
Nobody is planning their weekly off-piste skiing holiday to Chamonix in May… but in fact, powder skiing is now as good as it has been any week this winter, and only a few keen skiers are still meeting up at the lifts in the mornings.
It has been raining heavily in most parts of central Europe for the last 10 days, hence it has not been much else for us to do than to enjoy ourselves above the rain-snow limit. The high mountains have accumulated large amounts of snow that stick to the steep faces, making the mountains look even whiter than in winter. With fresh snow above 2000m every night, the main activity for us in Chamonix is still skiing – not ski touring in creamy spring snow, but simply skiing powder off the lifts.
Skiing Off The Lifts
Grands Montets powder day, 6 May.
The options to ski off the lifts are of course limited in May. Only the Grands Montets and the Aiguille du Midi lifts are normally running since the snow is long gone from the lower lift systems in Chamonix. Grands Montets alone is enough to handle the small amount of people (mostly Chamonix locals) that is still hungry for the powder after a long winter of skiing. Unfortunately it closed 9th of May, but luckily we have Aiguille du Midi operating throughout the year.
The return of powder conditions made the closing week of Grands Montets a successful one. Even though visibility was low at times, many mornings offered sunny powder skiing in wintery conditions. The weekends were actually fairly busy.
Deep snow on Aiguille du Midi, 10 May.
Skiing off Aiguille du Midi has also been great when the visibility has been good enough to go there. The snow cover still stretches more or less down to the Montenvers train (just a few meters of scrambling on the moraine down to the stairs). The ropes on the snow ridge from the top of Aiguille du Midi have been removed though (or buried in the snow), so the exposed ridge must now be skied.
Ski Touring
Since getting 10-30 cm of fresh snow almost every afternoon/night for the last 10 days, and never 2 days in a row without precipitation, ski touring has not been a great option. If ski touring, especially with this much fresh snow, one must consider the warm temperatures this late in the spring. To be on the safe side, skiing down should happen very early during the day (at the time the sun hits the face or before). However, pre-dawn starts have not been so easy lately, since the clouds have most often been dense throughout the nights. Nevertheless a lot of lines are in great condition and the mountains are absolutely wonderful just to look at.
Watch the scenery of the north faces in the Argenitere basin on the 8th of May. Seldom does the Triolet look that white…
Due to the fog lifting way too late in the morning, skiing any of those lines was not possible that day. Instead we have been just watching the active north faces, taking photos, and feeling the calm but impressive atmosphere of the empty basin.
