Chamonix is one of the biggest European ski resorts in the magnificent French alps that offers a heady mix of sensational skiing, food and wine.

Chamonix – Mont Blanc ski resort:

Overall

Chamonix is a big, busy, mega ski town which provides access to 5 ski areas (all valid on the Ikon pass) within Chamonix Mont-Blanc Valley: 1. Grands Montets, 2. Balme (Le Tour/Vallorcine) 3. Brévent  4. Félgère (you can ski between these two) and 5. Les Houches – Saint-Gervais (we could not use our Ikon base pass at St Gervais and didn’t try Les Houches as it was closed due to lack of snow).  Chamonix is a large ski town packed with bars, restaurants, cheese, and wine shops (of course) and high fashion stores. It’s lively but you can get away from the raucous crowds by ducking down some of the secret side streets (i.e. Rue des Moulins – great little cocktail bars) or staying on the outskirts of the centre ville (like we did in Avenue du Savoy).

Highlights: Skiing: Vallée Blanche (pictured above) Village: The cheese and wine shops and little bars in Rue de Moulin.

Tip: avoid the US/Europe ‘ski-week’ holiday period typically early February when all schools in Europe and many in US have two weeks off and it seemed like they all headed to Cham so it was very busy with families and big ski school lesson-groups. 

Getting around

You can drive in to Chamonix – but good luck with parking! There’s a free jammed car park near the entrance to town and free (muddy) spots to park around the railway station further down. There’s also paid parking but costs a fortune! You want to avoid driving to the ski areas as roads are packed and parking gets full. Best to take the free bus to access all of the ski areas in Chamonix (except Le Brevant/ Flegeres which you can walk to from the town). Be warned that the busses are extremely packed so be prepared to push to get on (or off) and be crammed in like sardines for your journey. There are no announcements on the bus when it arrives at each ski resort and you can’t see out the window to see where you are so it’s easy to miss your stop (we did the first time) – particularly if on the bus that stops at both Les Grand Montets (first) then the Domaine du Balme ski area which includes three resorts: Le Tour / Vallorcine / Balme Ski Resort. Took us half the day to realise we were not at Les Grand Montets!

Summary of ski areas:

All of the Chamonix  ski areas use the blue (easy) red (intermediate) and black (difficult) piste colour code system but the conditions and grooming can turn a blue into a black or a red into a blue so don’t assume the run will be suitable – ski to the conditions. There’s very little marking of hazards or even edges of runs so take care in white outs or blizzards and don’t ski off piste unless there’s plenty of fresh and you know what you’re doing as it’s easy to get lost or fall down crevices or boulder or tree wells.

Le Brevant and Flegeres

You can walk up quite a long steep hill from Chamonix town centre, to the main Planpraz gondola lift or take the rope tow from the Savoy nursery slopes behind the Folie Douce hotel – this drops you off right at the main ski lift.

Le Brevant joins up with Le Flegeres another ski resort and we skied them both in the one day, totally lost as to where we were at any given time as there is very little signposting but we enjoyed just skiing wherever we found ourselves on a beautiful sunny day. Only downside was there were too many people- making the runs crowded and dangerous and the ski queues long.

Aguille Du Midi and Les Vallèe Blanche

You can walk to the Aiguille du Midi (Europe’s highest cable car) from Chamonix town and hikers and skiers can take this lift which goes up to 3,842m. to go to the restaurant or walk around the viewing platforms to see the glaciers and take in the panoramic views of the valley below and the peaks of the Mont Blanc massif.

We took it for another, more incredible experience: to ski the famous Vallée Blanche – one of the most insane ski runs in the world, with 2,780 vertical metres of descent and a 22km long run – the longest run in the world where you ski down France’s longest glacier, the Mer de Glace.

You have to go to the Vallee Blanche with a guide (we used the Companie de Guides)  and we joined a group in the car park to get kitted out with harnesses and carbines so we could be roped together for the icy ridge descent into the Vallee from the top of the Aguille Du Mid cable car plus avalanche beacons!  We had hired backpacks to carry our skis and crampons to go over our ski boots the night before. We then caught two very packed cable cars (thank goodness we couldn’t see how high we were going) up to the top at 3842m. 

We had to put on our crampons in a crowded corridor (it was difficult to bend down to reach our ski boots with the harness and gear on – plus less flexibility than when we were younger!) and fixed our skis to our back packs and get roped together to walk out on to a very skinny icy ledge with steep descents on both sides. We walked, slowly, with the aid of a rope,  for about 200 metres until we reached the mouth of the first bowl where we took off our crampons (again quite a feat with all the gear and stiff) and put on our skis and began our descent skiing in the most incredible fresh and light snow and blown away by the majestic views and the vastness of the glacier and being so high up and in such wilderness. Despite the crowds getting up to the area we hardly saw another person all day as our guides chose a route down away from others. We often had to keep in line and behind our guides as there were many steep cracks/crevasses opening up in some places – but in some parts we got to free ski some amazing powder that tested the quads!

We skied non-stop, only pausing for others to catch up, to take a photo and have some water or snacks. The glacier has shrunk remarkably due to climate change and we had to hike up 400 stairs to board a chairlift then take the Montenvers train that descends the mountain to get back to the outskirts of the village of Chamonix where we hiked back to our apartment, exhausted, delirious and on a massive ski-high!   We were on our feet hiking and skiing for 8 hours straight and by the time we got back to our apartment at 4pm we were truly shattered!

Grands Montets

Almost 40cm of fresh snow fell in 24 hours the day before we arrived at Les Grand Montets and the sun came out to reveal a majestic landscape. Only problem was that every skier in the world seemed to be out to enjoy the fresh snow and sunshine and the crowds on the bus and lifts were horrendous.

Les Grand Montets was true to its name and offered up immense bowls and some great skiing stretching across three mountain sides (Argentière, Lognan and La Pendant), including a glacier above  the treeline which opens up into some incredible wide bowls. You can reach this via the Bochard lift or the Herse chair. There’s also the Grand Montets cable car which takes you to backcountry to ski (but you need the right gear as crevasses and avalanches common!)

Le Tour / Vallorcine / Balme Ski Resort

It is said that Le Tour – Vallorcine and the Balme Ski Area/Resort is the best for beginner/intermediates as most of runs are easy blues or reds but on the day we went it was a total whiteout so everything was a challenge and we ended up upside down in the terrain park and flailing down every run!  Take the bus from Chamonix and get off at the last stop. Then you can get up the mountain from a cable car from either the village of Le Tour or the village of Vallorcine. It’s meant to be the best area on a sunny day after fresh snow if you want to access some good back country and powder skiing and like to ski with views of the Chamonix Valley.