Ski Grand Massif

A luxurious catered chalet in the French Alps

les Carroz VTT Sunday 31st july

18

Sep

2011

This years Les Carroz VTT (mountain bikes) saw some excellent new courses. I opted to do the expert course with my old mate Warren. Course was 55km with about 1200m of climbing and 3000m of descent. Warren used my santa cruz nomad, its a bit heavy but he’s well fit and still managed to kick every ones ass up the hills. We took about four hours or so to get around the course, there was numerous food and drink stops en route. This is a great weekend of cycling for mountain bikers of all levels. There are four courses from a gentle 10 km up to the extreme course which is about 70km and 3500m of climbing.

Day trip to ski the Vallée Blanche

19

Apr

2011

7 of us set off from Chalet Andelain and drove to Chamonix (40mins) where we met up with two guides, Jean-Luc and Francois. We took the cable car to the Aiguille du Midi at 3800 metres and, from there, skied down the Vallée Blanche, tracking the famous Mer de Glace glacier all the way to the Montenvers railway for the ride back to Chamonix.

The start is a walk down a fairly precipitous ridge but, with ropes each side to hold on to and all roped together with a guide, it was a relatively easy walk down to start skiing. We split into two parties, with three doing the classic route with Francois, and four doing a more adventurous route with Jean-Luc. We all met up again for lunch a bit lower down on the glacier itself and then skied the rest of the route together.

Skiing was fantastic with the most amazing scenery. On occasions the guide would tell us to stay in his tracks and he really meant exactly in his tracks as there would be a crevasse maybe no more than 1 metre off his track. We all finished about 5 hours after the start, tired but full of memories of a wonderful day out.

For guests of Chalet Andelain we are able to arrange day trips to snowboard or ski the Vallée Blanche. Contact us for more details.

Bearded Vulture seen in Les Carroz

31

Mar

2011

Bearded Vulture

Bearded Vulture

During a recent visit to Chalet des Tronchets we were graced with the presence of a very large bird. One of the party identified it as a bearded vulture, also known as a lammergeyer or, in French, a Barbu. According to information on the internet, there is only about 200 of these birds in Europe. They have a wing span of about 9 feet and feed on bones. If a bone is too big they will carry it into the air and then drop it onto rocks to break it into edible portions. Not sure what this fellow was after but there was a small dog running around!

Late season powder in Flaine

30

Mar

2011

This morning we were treated to about 6 inches of new snow at Flaine. Myself and Dean spent a very happy few hours laying down new tracks. The Grand Massif is very quiet this week so there was lots of untracked new snow to go at. With more snow forecast tomorrow and then a sunny day after that, we should be in for another perfect day on Friday.

20″ of fresh powder in the Grand Massif

02

Mar

2011

40-50 cm of new snow arrived on Saturday night and during the day Sunday, giving us some of the best skiing of the season so far. We had a great day skiing on Monday with untracked powder to be found everywhere. Cascades piste from Flaine down to Sixt (below 800 metres) is open, which means the snow is good right down to 800m. A snow mail alert also came in today with snow forecast for Les Carroz in the next six days.