"Climbing, Hiking, Mountain Biking,... " a Chamonix-Mont-Blanc Travel Page by firechick

As this is my home town, I will try every season to put some recent updates on this page.

In addition to the detailed tips here on VT, there is a page of links I maintain for another web page, and it has some ways to find even more great information on Chamonix and the surrounding alpine region including the border sections of Italy and Switzerland.

Winter 2008/2009
An amazing winter with tons of snow - 2nd good winter in a row following a warm one and a few cold but lacking in snow. Skiers have been well treated in Chamonix the past 2 seasons. For current Chamonix weather, the best site is: Chamonix Meteo.

Get real time listings of lifts in town from the Compagnie du Mont Blanc website for most of the valley's hiking access, and also from the Les Houches website. which a lot of people use for mountain biking, as the hills there are not as extreme as in Chamonix. New mountain biking trails have also been put in at Vallorcine and that lift now runs in summer season to accommodate the bikers.

Argentiere is just up the valley from Chamonix (10 min) and is part of the same commune. The town is much smaller, but has in my opinion a more beautiful old section. It is at a higher altitude than Chamonix (by about 600 ft) and so gets more snowy in the winter.

Skiing in winter at the Grandes Montets is just amazing and this ski area is almost too well known for 'extreme' skiing and off-piste. In fact, it gets tracked out quite fast in high season!

In summer, hiking up to the Argentiere Glacier is a very cool thing to do (you can also hike on it and ice climb on parts of it in winter). You can also quite easily hike from Argentiere to the Swiss border.

By hiking up the trail at the right side of it, you can get good (and safe) views of this glacier, and see the enormous crevasses that could swallow a house...... If you sit and watch it for awhile, you can sometimes hear the glacier moving with large 'cracking' sounds or even get lucky enough to see a large chunk of glacier fall from the big seracs near the end where it spills over a steep edge, down towards the valley. A very impressive glacier!

I have included Argentiere activities in these pages, rather than create a separate page for this town.

Other nearby towns also in the commune of Chamonix are (from down valley to up valley) Les Bossons, Le Mont, Les Pelerins, Les Praz de Chamonix, Les Tines, Argentiere, Le Tour & Vallorcine (which is the last town before the Swiss border). Anything in the Chamonix commune will be covered on the Chamonix page and the commune of Les Houches, which is just next to Les Bossons (ie 'down valley') is also included.

What else is there to say?