Just back from Cham

Just back from Cham, left Wed night, skied Thursday in sunshine and high
clouds in Brevent/Flegere. The black down from Brevent was shut but
everything else was open.

Snow was pretty good with icy patches around, off piste hadn't melted as
much as I'd expected in the sun, hence not much fun! What was noticeable
was the lack of snow cover. Off piste areas I've seen skied in early
season were very rocky. From speaking to the SCGB rep this is due to the
high winds that have blown away the fresh snow as it has fallen.

Friday skied Grand Montets with the SCGB rep, was cloudy as we got the
cable car up, and it started to snow lightly as we got about half way
up. Snowed all day, on and off lightly, and was still snowing in Cham
village at 5pm. Skiing was good, and getting better by the hour with the
fresh snow. Vis wasn't good at all, had some nice off-piste runs, and
spent most of the PM in the trees. The odd stone around on the red run
back to the car park, but all in all good snow. The wind was picking up.
Wet snow down to resort.

By 6pm it was p*ssing down with rain in the village, which turned the
place into an ice rink, it was very amusing trying to walk home!

Still pouring down Sat morning, snowing above 1800m, but very wet snow,
and very heavy with very poor vis again, experienced a few nose dives as
I completely failed to see drop offs slightly off-piste! Skied back down
at lunchtime as the missus new boots needed attention. She bailed out in
the pm, but I went back up, and once again stuck to the trees, where the
powder was now knee deep and coming down strong. It was very heavy and
hard work, imagine it'd be good higher up, but the vis was very poor.

Skied down at the end of the day, very slushy with the piste being
saturated. Raining in Chamonix as we left at 7pm, got to Geneva and
Easyjet has cancelled the flight, so had a night in Geneva. Despite
leaving the gloves out overnight they are still wet when I got home this
afternoon, which just shows how wet it was!

Should be fanastic out there once the cloud clears, as the temp was
dropping in the village as we left, and was forecast to snow down to
500m Sunday.

Great service from Steve in Footworks. We went with a custom liner for
my wife's boots, and therefore they knocked off the cost of the standard
liner! all the boots have a "shell only" price. He also re-used her
existing footbed, by reheating it and packing it up underneath.

cheers,

greg

Greg Hilton wrote:
Still pouring down Sat morning, snowing above 1800m, but very wet
snow,
and very heavy with very poor vis again, experienced a few nose dives
as
I completely failed to see drop offs slightly off-piste!

Yep, you certainly have to watch out for those drop offs off-piste,
however slightly, or hope for the best if you're out there in very poor
vis. Helps if you know the area, but not much.

Sammy