Yesterday Jason Smith, Dave Greenleaf, and I skied a little zone just outside the resort of Flegere. It’s easy to get to the base, easy to get on top, and it has a nice little hut at the bottom to chill out at and eat your sausage and bread while admiring your lines! The ease of access combined with the rolling mini-golf nature of the zone is reminiscent of Donner. With a little new snow we decided to head up and see what we could find in the area. To access the bottom of the zone, it’s a quick traverse out to the lookers fright from the top of the poma Floria followed by a 10 minute skin.
Once at the base you can skin up the gut to lookers right or head up the lookers left shoulder. We chose to head up the lookers left as clouds were moving in quick. About half way along the skin up things became more than a little socked in, but as luck would have it the clouds cleared out when we made it to the top and it was time to go skiing! With this brief pocket of sunshine it was time for photographe Jason to do his thing.
Lap two proved to be nowhere near the quality of the first lap, as the sun had gotten to the zone and turned the new snow to hot Euro mank. Needless to say it was time for lunch. One of the sweet features of this zone is the little hut at the bottom. While the hut itself is locked, the deck provides an excellent spot to hang out and take in the views. The birds around are not afraid and won’t hesitate to come right up and steal your cheese and sausage if you aren’t careful.
After sharing a lunch with our feathered friends it was time to head back to the resort – no skinning involved! During a regular season with average snowfall the turns back would no doubt be quite epic, but being a less than ideal winter a turn or two had to be placed on brush. Despite the very very thin coverage we were still able to ski almost the entire way back.
If you find yourself in Chamonix and are looking for a quick easy tour (borderline side-country) to some really fun terrain, head up to Flegere. It won’t disappoint!