With the recent snowfall in the Chamonix Valley, the Compagnie du Mont Blanc team have been working tirelessly to prepare the Grands Montets ski area for a partial opening for #skiing and #snowboarding on the weekend of the 23rd and 24th of November.

With good snowfall and freezing temperatures, the snow cannons have been working furiously to top up and increase the snow depths on the pistes. Whilst the opening will be weather dependant, with more snow forecast, next weekends opening looks a strong possibility.

The world famous Grands Montets ski area when fully opened has a vertical descent of over 2,000m, rising from its base at 1,252m to the top station at 3,275m. Attracting skiers and snowboarders from around the world, it offers steep and often deep slopes on and off piste. It is a ski area where the blacks really are for advanced skiers only, the reds competent and confident intermediates, the blues intermediates rather than beginners (the latter being better served at Les Houches or La Tour). The Grands Montets also boasts a fabulous ski park and ski and boarder crosser course for those that want to practice their park jumps and tricks.

Off-piste is excellent too but if skiing or snowboarding away from marked areas, please ensure you have the appropriate competencies or only do so with a suitably qualified guide. The top of the Grands Montets is a glacier with the inherent risks associated with skiing such as crevasses, long-falls, avalanches, etc. Similarly some of the other areas lower down also have risks of long falls and avalanches too, Le Lavancher bowl being one particular prone area at times of snow instability.