Chamonix-Courmayeur Feb. 2014

Following up on CMR's TR of our day at Vallee Blanche, I'm posting a few pics from the rest of our week in France/Italy. We spent the week based in the center of Chamonix, and traveled around to 5 different areas in 6 days.  We had a rental car, which helped a lot - the buses looked packed and miserable.  We were there during President's week, which also coincided with UK and Paris school holidays, and I had heard that it would be crowded,but we never had any problems. We hardly ever waited in lift lines and had many runs with very few people on them.  

Day 1: It was snowing hard, and the visibility was poor, so we went to Les Houches, which is a lower elevation area under the tree line. It was a great day - most of the people stayed on the blue runs and we had tons of powder between the trails all day long.


Day 2 was bright and sunny, and we had over a foot of new snow from the day before.  We had planned to go to Grands Montets, and I even had a reservation for the upper tram, but it seemed that everyone within a 100 mile radius was going there as well.  Rather than spend the day waiting in lines, we decided to head to Brevent-La Flegere, which was right at our doorstep.  It was a fantastic day:






Lunch with a view:


Day 3:  We headed through the Mont Blanc Tunnel to Courmayeur in Italy.  



Courmayeur is on the other side of Mont Blanc from Chamonix, and the trip took only 20 minutes.  We had the Mont Blanc Unlimited ski passes, which let us ski at every area in Chamonix, plus Courmayeur, Verbier and Megeve.  It also gave us a 50% discount at the tunnel, which was great, because the toll was obscene.  There was even a family discount - pay for 2 adults and one kid (under 16) and every other kid is free.  I think we averaged about $45 per day per person in lift ticket prices - a huge difference from what we would have paid in lift tickets in the US.

We got an early start, and had most of the mountain to ourselves for the first hour or so.  It was some of the finest grooming we had ever seen. It was a welcome change from the days before, as our legs were pretty tired.



Courmayeur has a lot of little restaurants all over the mountain. We had a great lunch at one of them.


After 3 full days, we were pretty tired, so we planned to take it easy on day 4. This was a good thing, because it was another white-out day with fog as well. We did a few runs at Brevent-Flegere and headed back home to watch the Olympics in French.



Day 5: Vallee Blanche - See CMR's trip report. Amazing day!!!  There is a new exhibit at the top of the L'Aiguille du Midi tram called "Step into the Void". It's a glass box that hangs over the Valley. It was a little disturbing looking down from in there.


Day 6: We finally made it to Grands Montets, and even had our guide from the Vallee Blanche so that we could ski the off piste at the top.  Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate - it was another white-out day with zero visibility. We did a few runs on-piste and then took the tram to the top, but it was tough going on the way down. The moguls were hidden under a blanket of new snow, which was coming off in slabs as we skied down.  We decided to quit at lunchtime and enjoy our last afternoon back in town.  I would love to go back there on a clear day though, the mountain has over a 6000 foot vertical drop and is mostly red and black runs. I'm not surprised that it is the most popular mountain in the area.

Overall, this was a fantastic trip - great skiing, beautiful scenery and a really fun town. The main shopping area is pedestrian-only, and is very pretty.  

The mountains jut up on both sides directly from the valley floor, giving spectacular views in every direction - this was the view from the deck of our apartment:

And the food was great. It seemed that every meal involved cheese and some kind of pork product.  The signature dish is something called Tartiflette - it's a casserole of cheese, bacon, potatoes and onions. Most of the other dishes were variations on that theme.  All washed down with some good French wine, of course.  I can't wait to go back.

Excellent report! Now you see what's so shocking in the Alps for Americans -- easy off-piste pickins because a large percentage of the people don't leave the groomers.


That "Step In The Void" thing is becoming popular at Euro ski areas. I wasn't comfortable on it either.

+1 for the Tartiflette.

Fantastic!!!
any problems going to different areas? and did the language difference cause any issues?

Hopefully next year will be my year there..hopefully

Here's the Chamonix review from Where to Ski and Snowboard Worldwide, which confirms several of Poindexter's observations.

We had no problems navigating all of the different areas. The maps and street signs are pretty good, and we found plenty of parking at the lifts.  I would definitely recommend a rental car rather than relying on the bus system, especially if you go during a holiday week.  People were complaining that the buses from Argentiere to Chamonix were only coming about once per hour, which wasn't enough to handle the crowds.  Parking in Chamonix itself is difficult too, so our solution was to stay in the center of Chamonix, where we could walk to everything in town, and then drive to the outlying areas. I made sure that our apartment had a guaranteed parking spot so we wouldn't have to worry about street parking. As far as the language, it helps if you know a little French. I took some  Pimsleur lessons on my iphone and CMR had some middle-school French from 30 years ago, and we were able to get by just fine.  My kids take Chinese in school so they were no help. Most people working at the ski resorts speak English, but many shopkeepers in Chamonix prefer to deal with you only in French.  I did a lot of pointing and gesturing to get by.  Most of the staff in the restaurants spoke English as well.  

There were some interesting differences between the US and France that I noticed - 1-Nobody shovels the sidewalks. 2- People park on the sidewalks; and 3- People don't pick up after their dogs.  1+2+3 makes for some treacherous walking!

Too late to get adopted but if I see one more of these Euro TR's I might have to start playing the lotto.

I have driven  around France and part of Switzerland. The tolls prices can be shocking..

Might be the TR of the season..

Brevent-La Flegere are so underrated.  There is such great skiing there and there are huge in their own right.

Sorry you hit two low vis days - those are the one to go to the lower tree lined areas the one you mentioned and the other i cant recall the name but its right on the Swiss border.  Too bad you did not get to experience Grand Monte in its full glory.  That place rocks but you need to be able to see.

I don't think the skiing is that great over the border in Italy but darn the lunches are crazy good and apres ski is great too in town.