April delivers more powder for Chamonix! Yesterday it snowed quite a bit during the low visibility storm day, with flakes down to town again, and about 30cms overnight at mid mountain, with lots of wind.
Today the sky cleared eventually, and though the Brevent and Flegere were shining beautifully with the new snow this morning, I felt compelled to enter the Grands Montets powder zone once again. It turned out to be a good decision, as some of the other Chamonix ski areas did not get a chance to bomb the avalanches until this evening.
The Grands Montets opened up after avalanche control, with the Bochard and Herse lifts providing some very nice powder, windbuffed in places, and very fluffy and deep in other places. It was not a really consistent cover of new snow, so you had to search for the good stuff, but there was lots of it, and when the top lift finally opened at just after 1 o clock, we got a great smooth line on perfectly wind-buffed powder. The day started off cloudy, but cleared to give us great visibility all morning, and a warm sunny lunchtime terrace session, despite a chill to the air.
After only a brief calm spell earlier this week, we seem to be in a storm cycle again, with fluctuating temperatures - warm tomorrow with snow above 2100m or so, and then cold again tomorrow night with lots more snow set to fall in the mountains. What an awesome winter!
