Chamonix is more for the ski-mountaineer type. For a regular inbounds
skier it'd be terrible. Much better to hit one of those mega-piste
resorts like Trois Vallees or something.

My favorite thing is hiking up stuff and skiing down. In Chamonix,
many of the trams take you so high you don't even have to hike up. You
just traverse sideways for a half hour or so on your skis. It's really
incredible. I skied about 110 days with people who'd lived there for
years and I barely scratched the surface of what's available as far as
off-piste terrain. Every single day, whether it's snowed lately or
not, you can find an awesome descent.

One day we descended into Switzerland and then rode the train back to
Chamonix. It's unreal!

The other thing is they let you determine whether you should be skiing
whatever you're skiing. People die there a lot. You get so used to
hearing of people dying that you start to not really react unless it
was 2-3 people who got avalanched all at the same time or something.
My roommate was skiing a normal backcountry line which leads down to
the village and came upon a recently killed snowboarder who had been
avalanched.

Imagine if 20 people died this year in Vail--- they'd probably close
the mountain permanently.

Everybody likes different places but my two favorites are Whistler and
Chamonix.

Chris