This was the year I rewarded myself with a trip to Chamonix after missing the entire ski season last year with a broken ankle. The Chamonix area was home to the first winter Olympic Games in 1924 and has been on my wishlist for several years. A friend and I signed up with the Atlanta Ski Club (ASC) to take advantage of their pricing, which I couldn't beat when pricing out the trip myself. The ASC members tend to be of retirement age, but I've found some excellent skiers among them and the beauty of tagging along with them is you can do as much or as little as you like with the group.
I flew a Delta/KLM flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam, then to Geneva, and then took a chartered bus Chamonix.
This is the view from my room at the Hotel Alpina in the heart of Chamonix. The package included breakfast and dinner at the hotel (or at one of two other sister properties in the city). The tents below belonged to the Swatch Freeride World Tour which was in town that week. The primary pedestrian walkway through the city was also directly across the street from this hotel.
The mountains from my balcony. The primary method to gain access to all of the resorts in the valley is to ride a gondola up the sides of these mountains from the valley and then use lifts at the next level to access the actual ski runs.
Draft hamme choices were limited at the hotel.
Les Houches ski area. Due to 'too much snow' all of the other resorts were closed down the first day and we had to start here.
Le Tour ski area. This area skied similarly to Valle Nevado in Chile (no trees), but there were plenty of powder stashes to be found off piste.
We skied down to this excellent restaurant in Vallorcine - L'Arret Bougnette.
Back in Chamonix for a little apres ski.
Brevent/Flegere ski areas - a tram car connected the areas.
Another tram took us to the very top of the highest peak (the building at the top of the photo).
Apres ski wall art (I think this place was called Chambre Neuf).
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The messageboard is now in read-only mode and no new posts or topics can be created. We will leave the messageboard up for historical purposes, but you will not be able to make new posts or comment on existing ones.
We have started a Discord server and hope that you all will join us on there. Technology has changed over the years and maintaining the messageboard has become somewhat of a pain in the butt and Discord offers many features for users, the main one being a very polished mobile app.
We really hope you all will join us on Discord and think you will like the platform. Use the invite link below to join.
https://discord.gg/skisoutheast
Part 1/3 - Chamonix, France - January 2012
- teledave
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This trip is on my lifetime bucket list. Aquille de midi, please?
Plans for 2015: To ski more than you
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This should go to the Hall of Fame thread and I've only seen part one!