CHAMONIX SKIING: PART ONE OF FIVE

The ice tunnel entrance framed alpine wonders that froze me in place in 1997, as in 1957. Forty years seem forty centuries from the 3842 meter outlook on Aiguille du Midi. Mt. Blanc and other 4,000 meter peaks climbed as a young man cut the crisp blue alpine sky across the sea of dirty summer glacial snow of Mer de glace. Mt. Blanc remains the mother of European mountains. Alpinism takes its name from here. Glaciology started just above Chamonix on Mer de glace, the largest glacier in Europe. Skiing followed from Scandinavia to reliable glacial snow as the British, French and Italian upper crust discovered the long downhill runs after local guides hauled them up the hill in comfortable carriages long before lifts.

Some of the world’s best climbing, and what many feel is the best climbing guides in Europe, still attract those not vertically impaired, but the main lure for the modestly fit and frisky remains the skiing. Just consider 2,850 acres of beginner slopes, 5850 acres for intermediates and over 15,000 acres of the off piste, or unimproved skiing.

What makes Chamonix skiing so special? It’s a unique combination of geography, getting there, go for it and what one Aussie called “goodies and grub.” The long, deep slash of the 16 km Chamonix Valley acts like a European Yosemite with the creature comforts at 1,000 meters for easy access, and the skiing at 2,000 metes and higher for reliable snow on some of the longest and biggest glacier runs in the Alps. That you have to lie on the street to see the top of the looming alps steps from town insures both vistas and vertical!

Getting there starts with easy access to the valley – see sidebar – and more cog railroads, trams, cable cars, lifts and rope tows than you can count to get you to snow in and just out of town. “Goodies and grub” include first class food and lodgings in the best hotels and restaurants with a hospitality history going back over 200 years long before the province of Savoy became part of France. Napoleon III and his Empress discovered access so poor that “ten strong men” had tote his carriages through washouts and over rough glacial fields. He got the roads fixed, and according to a local, “we’ve been repairing them ever since.”.

These days most of the local “strong men” seem to work as ski instructors or mountain guides. That’s fortunate for Americans used to wide, gentle runs with well-marked out of bounds areas and padded lift towers to reduce risk find French alpine skiing a bit of a shock. It’s even more of a shock if you don’t arrange ski insurance when you buy lift tickets! In France you pay for rescues!

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