Argentiere

Town Centre

Summary
Argentiere is a compact village with just a few hundred permanent residents. In the winter and summer seasons it becomes vibrant & busy with a reasonable selection of shops, bars & restaurants for a small village. If you are in need of a bigger town experience and fun, Chamonix is just a 15 min bus ride away. The main advantage to Argentiere is that the Grands Montets ski area is just a short walk away.

History
Argentiere has been a popular destination for the period of "modern skiing" over the last 50 or so years. Previously it was popular as an alpine retreat within a rural farming community.

Nightlife and Activities
Argentiere offers a few fun bars:

• Rusticana
  Pop your skis/ boards onto the back patio and warm up inside into a relaxed and chilled environment with great staff and food. Posh John and Jerome will take care of all your beverage needs!
• The Office Bar
  Popular après-ski venue also does "gastro" pub grub. It usually has live sports on two, large screen TV's and offers live music a few nights a week.
• The Stone Bar
  Italian restaurant and bar, great place for a hand tossed pizza and homemade pasta sauces. They have a pool table and darts in the back.
• Savoy Bar
  A small, lively bar that hosts a fabulous après-ski on a daily basis.

Argentiere has a great après-ski but not much of a busy nightlife so if you would like a busier night out, just pop onto one of the buses to get down into Chamonix. Night buses run till fairly late, and a taxi can always take you back if you've found yourself in Les Choucas and are very late!

Other Things to Do
Indoor swimming pool, indoor climbing wall, hiking, snow shoeing, bowling, gym.

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Ski Areas

Brevent
accessible from the Chamonix town centre and also linked to Flegere. It has been newly refurbished this year with a fast and slick access lift. It's generally known for its quite wide slopes with beginner and intermediate grades, along with a couple of good steep runs suitable for advanced skiers as well as some nice off-piste. The ski area faces south so is excellent for sunny days early in the season, but late season it can get a wee bit slushy in the afternoons.

Flegere
accessible from Les Praz and also linked to Le Brevent ski area. Flegere has the widest slopes in the valley, with quite a selection of grades - nice reds, blues & greens. There are lots of possibilities to ski in amongst the trees so an excellent place for advanced / off-piste skiers in bad weather. Scene of chest deep powder skiing during 2007/8 season! The cable car access can get quite crowded so it is well worth getting there before 09:00 in the morning, or access it by taking a few runs over from Brevent. Flegere is South facing so it is good for sun, but it's high enough that the snow stays really quite good for most of the day. Some great ski touring can be accessed in the Aiguilles Rouge via the Index lift.

Le Tour (Domaine de Balme)
offers a huge ski area which is great for all levels of snow enthusiasts. There are good beginner slopes at the very bottom of the ski resort as well as higher up. Intermediates appreciate the wide open runs with cruisey blues & reds. Advanced skiers have access to some excellent off-piste, although some areas are highly avalanche prone so if you see an area that hasn't been tracked out, it's probably for a very good reason! The area links into Vallorcine, with some really nice off-piste tree runs on that side.

Les Grands Montets
arguably offers the best off-piste skiing in Europe and possibly the World. There are huge areas accessible from the Bochard Lift (Lavancher Bowl) and of course from the Grands Montets top lift skiing down the Grand Mur or onto the Argentiere Glacier. Many parts of this area are on glaciers and / or have significant avalanche risk so it's a good idea to have a guide. Within the marked & patrolled pistes there are excellent reds & blacks well suited to intermediate & advanced skiers. This is not the best area for beginners to learn skiing as the runs are steep and long. Les Grands Montets is North facing so it stays really chilly and shady in the morning, but offers fabulous snow for most of the day without the slush of south facing resorts.

Les Houches
is excellent for beginners & intermediates. It offers some wide, open pistes with plenty of green, blue & red slopes and lots of sun! Les Houches is home to the Kandahar World Cup downhill race - easy enough to ski with plenty of turns, but straight line it after it has been iced for the race and it is best just to spectate!

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Our Top Tips

The must do in Argentiere/Chamonix is to ski the Vallee Blanche - it's a 22 km off-piste run all the way from the top of Aiguille du Midi, which is at 3842 meters. It's a 2800 meter climb up from the valley floor, fortunately, all you have to do it pop onto to the telepherique to reach the top. The run is all off-piste on a snow covered glaciers with crevasses so it's essential to ski with a guide. It's accessible to most strong intermediate skiers and above.

Even if you don't want to ski the Vallee Blanche it's well worth going up the Aiguille du Midi lift just for the amazing views over the glacier, down onto Chamonix and up onto Mont Blanc. If you fancy popping over to Italy for a coffee, you can take the Helbronner ski lift from the top of the Aiguille over and down into Courmayer.

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