Chamonix

Town Centre

Summary
Chamonix is far more of a town than the vast majority of ski villages. It is an all year round resort, with just as many visitors in the summer as winter. It offers a bowling alley, a small movie theatre, an indoor rock climbing gym and plenty of restaurants and bars to choose from with live music being played somewhere every night of the week. The static population is about 15,000. 15% English speaking, 15% Swedish speaking. During peak season the town hosts up to 45,000 visitors.

History
Until the 1700's Chamonix was a small rural village, cut off for most of the year with snow. It became a popular destination in the early 1800's with the advent of mountaineering and Victorian exploration. It is now almost wholly dependent on tourism with winter & summer being equally popular.

Nightlife and Activities
Chamonix is a thriving and vibrant town with lots going on for aprés-ski as well as late into the night fun.

Our favourite Bars

• Chambre Neuf
  wild aprés ski with live music most every night. Chambre Neuf is very Scandanavian with an excellent value-for-money lunch menu. It is located just opposite the train station.
• Café Terrasse
  A two story bar which hosts good bands on the main floor and has an excellent wood panelled upstairs bar with views over the main square in town and lovely views of Mont Blanc.
• The Jeckyll
  a pretty chilled, laid back bar that is a good place to watch rugby and listen to live music
• MBC
  lively micro brewery, Canadian influenced. They host live music every Friday night and offer, great home brew, burgers, nachos and other types of North American food. It's located close to the ice rink.
• La Cantina
  lively night club, pretty local scene. They host a variety of DJs. Located close to the Super U in town.
• Le Garage
  highly cheesy nightclub that is open till the wee hours of the morning. Located close to Aiguille du Midi lift.
• Les Choucas
  if you are looking to extend your partying, Les Choucas is one of the only bars that has a license to stay open until 4am. They offer live music most weekends and a great DJs late at night.

Lots, lots more bars in town to suit all tastes; plan your après-ski carefully around the various happy hours!

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

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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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Ski Ability

Beginners
there are several dedicated beginners areas such as Planards, which is located in Chamonix town centre, as well as Les Chosalet, which is located right near Les Grands Montets in Argentiere. There are also beginner slopes in all the ski areas other than Les Grands Montets.

Intermediates
Le Tour, Flegere and Brevant are greatly enjoyed by intermediate skiers as they offer great blue and red runs - you might find the red runs a bit steeper than reds in other resorts.

Experts
will love the vast off-piste areas of Grands Montets as well as its long and steep pistes. There is a good snowpark at Grand Montets for freestyle skiers and snowboarders. Experts will also enjoy some excellent routes on Flegere.

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Our Top Tips

The must do in 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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