Chamonix Bike Blog

Category: Trail conditions

Forever delayed…

I’m beginning to sound like a stuck record (or best-of album), but this blog’s here to give y’all an idea of riding conditions and trails around Chamonix, so I can only say what I see!

Yes, winter is STILL in force in the Chamonix valley.

I’ve been back in Scotland for a wee visit (where I got to ride the excellent new Commonwealth Games track at Cathkin Braes, good work guys. Almost made me wish I was back working in Glasgow. Almost) and had expected that upon return to Chamonix the sun would be shining, the air warm and the trails dusty.

No.

It was snowing in town, with it lying on the ground just a few hundred meters higher. The only thing for it was to get the skis back out the cave and go ride some powder.

In the meantime, the valley tracks such as the Petite Balcons, Trois Gullies etc and clear, and it’s only really been a dusting of snow below 1800m so the slightly higher trails will be fine too, just wear more than shorts and a t-shirt!

With a brief window of sunshine ahead of a forecast 60-100cm of snowfall below 2000m in the next 24hr, a group of us met outside Chamonix Bike Rental in Cham Sud to go for a wee spin round the valley.

Following the petite balcon sud across from Brevent to Les Tine gives a nice chilled out xc ride, and the trails were surprisingly dry. We headed back into town through Les Bois where the weekends XC race has worn in some of the smaller tracks through the trees nicely, plus the in-run to the dirt jumps has been reinstated too. If only any of us could actually do dirt jumps anymore…

Another result of the winter that won’t end is that road cols are struggling to open (not great if you’ve got a road bike) and that Les Gets has had to postpone its opening due to too much snow. Which, in the absence of much riding to write about, seems as good a link as any to give you the opening dates for the uplift around Chamonix. Start planning your roadtrips now…

Chamonix:

PRARION: 15^th June

BREVENT CABLECAR: 15^th June

LE TOUR GONDOLA & CHAIRLIFT: 15^th June

PLANPRAZ GONDOLA: 15^th June

FLEGERE: 15^th June

BELLEVUE: 15^th June

TRAMWAY DU MONT BLANC: 15^th June

GRANDS MONTETS: 29^th June

VALLORCINE: 29^th June

And surrounding area :

Grand Massif, 6^th July: http://www.grand-massif.com/les-tarifs

La Thuile 7th July : http://www.lathuile.net/datapage.asp?id=200&l=3&s=E

Portes du Mont Blanc, 29th June : http://www.combloux.com/en/activities/summer/pass.html

Pila, 22^nd June: http://www.pila.it/en/holidays/tariffe/tessere-a-punti/

Portes du Soliel 15^th June for daily, weekend only from now, maybe (not last weekend!): http://en.portesdusoleil.com/summer-lifts.html

Verbier Weekends in June (when the snow melts) and daily from 6^th July: http://www.verbierbikepark.ch/

28/05/2013
Back out

The last of the piste skiing in Chamonix has closed for the winter and town is now definitely in interseason mode. That means empty bars, closed hotels and quiet trails, though no uplift alas. Normally the train takes the strain at this time of year, however the entire line is closed for renovation until the 28^th June. Everything has a silver lining and it helps move from ski legs to bike legs if you have to get up everything under your own steam.

It got sunny again today so with Sandy, Spencer and Nina we headed out for a wee ride on one of the classic Chamonix valley trails, up on the Promenade de l’Arve to Planet and down on the Petite Balcon Nord.

These are well ridden, popular routes, but the great thing about Chamonix is that there’s always a variation or a new trail to try out, even on the most familiar area. They’re also good for me as after surviving almost an entire winter uninjured I managed to properly tweek my back on piste, so after laying off the bike for a while wanted something not too tech to ease back in on.

This started as we past Le Bois following a narrow section of singletrack round to Le Tines instead of staying on the road past the golf course. The area behind Le Bois is criss-crossed with wee tracks and trials features, worth checking out if you only want a quick blast out on the bike.

The next section of new trail came on the descent from Planet, courtesy of a pair of lads we bumped into who were building it. Keep your eyes open as you descend, if you see it, it’s better than the regular trail down, if you don’t, the regular trail’s still good. The new track is far from finished, but shaping up well with a really nice drop into gully feature low down being the highlight for now.

After a few stops to play on features around the Argentiere nordic ski trails we headed down the Petite Balcon Nord. The snow’s completely gone from the avalanche corridors and it’s a good blast just now before the summer hordes arrive.

The last of the detours came after the fast and loose doubletrack below Lavancher where Spencer took us up a super tech climb (only the third climb after promising Nina it was downhill all the way now…) leading into an engaging ridge line back into Le Bois.

All in all, great to be out in the sun with friends on fun trails, hopefully it’s the start of a long summer of it.

13/05/2013
Winter in ‘fat lady still not singing’ shocker

It might be the end of April, but winter still refuses to loosen it’s grip on the Chamonix valley. Fortunately May looks like it’s going to start with higher freezing levels, some fohen wind and a bit of sunshine which will hopefully help shift the snow from lower down, whilst sorting out the higher mountains for some spring ski touring!

It’s not stopped folk getting out on the bike though, so below’s some shots from some recent rides around the valley with Sandy and also Spencer from Chamonix Bike Rental who has some great plans for the biking community in and around Chamonix this summer, as well as some super nice bikes to have a play on! More details to follow….

What trails are in condition at the moment then? Pretty much anything below 1400m is free of snow, or at least only the odd firm patch, so the petite balcons, Coupeau, Sevoz and everything around Le Fayet & St Gervais is rideable, although remember that the train isn’t running back up.

30/04/2013
Melt. Freeze. Cycle.

Ah, the birds are singing, flowers poking through the grass. It must be spring, and so the bike has been dragged out of the cave it’s languished in for the last 4 months of winter and I’ve been back in the saddle.

Of course, this being the mountains, no sooner had the sun come out and the snow melted then it started to dump with snow in the valley and the big skis came back out of the locker again. This pattern will be set to continue for the next month or so, but at least it means we get to go skiing & biking on the same day!

Much like the skiing is best on the high north facing slopes, the biking is best on lower south facing aspects. With this in mind I thought I’d try the Trois Gullys route above Servoz, but it was too early and I turned round to explore the tracks criss-crossing the pastures on the hill above the village. The trails are pretty mellow, but nice for getting the feel of cycling back and finding out which mechanical niggles I should have fixed properly before putting the bike away…

After attacking the bike with a random selection of tools, I thought I’d give the trails around Coupeau a go. The hill faces south to south west but, perhaps more importantly, the sun tracks round on lower mountains that the rest of the Chamonix valley so the hill has been getting the sun for a lot longer. Despite this by 1200 meters there was still a bit much snow on the trails in the trees to be worth the hassle however you can still get the legs working on the spin up the road and there’s enough trails to be going at from there down to Les Houches, where you can wait for the train to arrive sometime in late summer to take you back to Chamonix.

06/04/2013
Getting cold feet

It certainly ain’t summer any more, but there are still lifts turning and the trails aren’t (always) covered in snow, so there’s still riding getting done.

Folk have mostly been taking advantage of the Brevent lift being open for two weeks. However with the snow line going up and down from somewhere near the top of the lift at 2000m to just above town, the trails around Servoz and down to Le Fayet have also been getting hit, especially since a group of local riders have started work on an excellent new freeride trail near Lac Vert. The mix of rain and snow has put an end to the wonderful dry trails of the last few months, but away from the rockier trails (such as, err, Brevent) the dirt is pretty grippy and the mud washes off! This hasn’t stopped local riders looking further afield to find dust, with groups heading off to Aosta for van shuttle riding and others even off to Morocco.

I’ve had a few runs on Brevent since the last update, including checking out Sentier des Gardes which, as Oliver said, is now much improved with only about 5 trees still down and once again worth the effort. There was also first tracks in a few inches of snow on Le Charlanon and watching the scariest crash of the season when Lorne went over the edge on Plan des Chablettes and ragdolled down the hill for 25 meters…

With the local meteo forecasting as much as 50cm of snow at 2500m overnight and frequent snow showers during Sunday, Jan, Robbie & I headed up Brevent for what we figured would be the last time today. First lap we dropped down the 4×4 track into the main Brevent couloir and discovered that the rocks were pretty slippy and a river was running down large sections of the track. Not wanting to finish the season with injury, we walked a couple of sections that are normally ridden. Before long we were at the junction choosing whether to ride Sentier des Gardes or Plan des Chablettes when, mid photograph, we heard a jet plane pass overhead. Only, it didn’t sound quite right and looking up towards ENSA couloir saw a plume of rising dust. At first it looked like a small snow avalanche, however as the sound of falling rocks got louder, we decided to scarper fast into the safety of the trees on Plan des Chablettes. Looking back we could see and hear rocks bouncing down the main funnel line over the path to Sentier des Gardes and towards town. A rude reminder that in Chamonix, even the biking has objective danger!

The rest of the trail went without incident, though also a bit slippier than usual which kept speeds down a bit till we got back to the lift station. With the PGHM helicopter now circling the Brevent couloir we decided to give that a miss and went up for a lap of Le Charlanon instead. The initial technical singletrack traverse looked fairly clear of snow, but we still decided that it would be a better idea to descend on the 4×4 tracks towards Col Cornu and then push (or ride in Jan’s case) back up to the start of the descent.

This route was livened up by some off piste excursions off the 4×4 track and into the snow, culminating in a megavalanche stylee blat straight down the hill, ensuring fun, swearing and baltic feet & shins for all.

Once onto the trail the snow had pretty much melted away and it seemed as good a track as any to end the summers uplift before the winter. If you’ve not ridden it, make the effort next year, it’s a great ride.

Eventually we ended up in Le Praz at the old north shore trails behind the Rabbit on the Roof workshop. The north shore’s been dismantled but the dirt jumps still remain which gave a last bit of variety to the day, though I doubt any of us will be entering crankworx at L2A next year.

So, an eventful but good day to finish the big descents on for the season, hopefully with more to do lower down. We’ll see.

10/11/2012