5 Days in Chamonix

The Brévent side of the valley faces Mont Blanc across the Arve, which is the whole reason to ski here. The Planpraz gondola starts on Rue Henriette d'Angeville and carries you to the Planpraz station, from where the Brévent cable car goes on to 2,525 m.

Beginners get two areas before they need the big mountain: Le Savoy at the foot of the gondola, with a ski treadmill, two lifts and two green runs, and Plateau 2000 near Planpraz, with a funicular, a lift and four green runs. Everyone else rides straight up.

Brévent and Flégère are the only two areas in the valley joined by a lift, so you can spend a whole day moving between them. The area faces south and runs from green to black, with about 56 km of slopes by the count of a ski-resort database.

The runs named Charles Bozon on the Brévent side and François Bonlieu on the Flégère side are mapped as difficult. Intermediates will find their day on the reds and blues between. Look for the freestyle area by lift 2000 on the Brévent side and the timed speed track on the Flégère side, La Chavanne, if you want a change from turning.

Flégère has several mountain restaurants by the top of the gondola. The operator's winter 2025/26 brochure lists the Adret de la Flégère for traditional Savoyard cooking, the Refuge de la Flégère and Foehn, which serves set menus made with local produce. Confirm which are running when you arrive.

Have a proper lunch, not a sandwich on the terrace. The slopes face south and warm quickly after midday, so a long lunch costs you the heavy snow, not the good skiing.

The Flégère gondola starts at Les Praz, 3 km from the center of Chamonix. The run back down is mapped as difficult, so if you are tired or the snow is heavy, take the gondola: it is part of the pass, and the last one from the top leaves at 16:45 until 5 February and 17:15 after.

From Les Praz you can walk, take the local bus or catch the Mont Blanc Express, which stops in the village. Whichever you pick, you are in town for a shower before dinner, which is the real advantage of this area over the others.

Walk to Place Balmat and look at the statue of Horace-Bénédict de Saussure and Jacques Balmat, the two names that start the story of Mont Blanc. Saussure, a scientist from Geneva, offered a reward in 1760 to the first person who could climb it. Balmat and the doctor Michel-Gabriel Paccard collected it on 8 August 1786, and Saussure climbed it himself a year later.

Paccard has his own statue a few steps away. He is a fair reminder that Balmat's later telling of the climb was heavily romanticized: both men went up unroped and without ice axes, and the legend grew afterwards. It takes ten minutes, and it explains why a ski town has a statue of a scientist.

Le Monchu has served Chamonix since 1972 and cooks raclette, brasérade (meat or vegetables over a hot fire) and pierrade (cooked on a hot stone). It is at 1 Rue du Lyret in the center and open every day with service from 11:30 to 23:00. Raclette is a dish from the Swiss Valais, but it is just as much a Savoie one, and a table of cheese melted over a heater is the right way to end a ski day.

La Calèche, at 18 Rue du Docteur Paccard, is the alternative for raclette, fondue and hot-stone cooking. Book a table in either in the high season.

The Mont Blanc Express has run up the valley since 1906, when the line from Chamonix reached Argentière, and it carried on to Châtelard on the Swiss border in 1908. It is a metre-gauge railway and one of the more pleasant commutes a skier will ever have. It is free between Servoz and Vallorcine with the guest card your lodging hands you on arrival.

The valley bus is the other option, and Le Pass includes the buses. Both leave you in the village, a short walk from the Plan Joran gondola, which opens at 9:00.

The Grands Montets lost its summit lift in a fire in 2018, when the mid-station was destroyed. The operator is rebuilding in two stages, with Doppelmayr lifts and stations designed by Renzo Piano's workshop. A 10-person gondola from Argentière to the Lognan plateau, at about 1,970 m, is announced for the 2026 Christmas holidays. A new 3S cable car from Lognan to the summit, above 3,000 m, follows in winter 2027/28.

So this winter the mountain tops out well below its old height and the Plan Joran gondola is the way up. That isn't a reason to skip it. The slopes face north and keep their snow, and it is still the steepest and most serious skiing in the valley.

Intermediates will spend the day on the Bochard runs and the long red called Pierre à Ric, which brings you back toward the village. The Marmottons and the Tabé runs are mapped as easy. The steeper lines, Chamois and Pylônes among them, are mapped as difficult, and this is where the area earns its name with experts.

Off-piste is the big draw and the real risk. Several couloirs beyond the groomed runs are mapped as freeride routes, and they are for skiers with a guide, a transceiver, a probe and a shovel. If you are an advanced skier without one, stay on the pistes and look at the lines you could ski with a guide.

Brasserie Les Marmottons (Le Comptoir) is listed at the base of the Grands Montets, next to the main lift station, so it should be the closest place to eat when you come down. The new Lognan hall is planned to have a brasserie of its own, which may change where you lunch.

Confirm what is open on the day. The base of the area is a work site this winter, and the operator promises only temporary reception and food there.

Argentière sits at 1,252 m near the head of the valley, a quieter alternative to Chamonix. It has a supermarket, a pharmacy, ski shops, two bakeries and a Mont Blanc Express station, and the Argentière glacier is the white wall above it.

Spend 45 minutes on the main street before the train, buy a loaf at L'al'pain or Le Fournil Chamoniard, and look back at the mountain. The lift is about 600 m from the center, which is why some skiers stay here.

Big Mountain Brewing runs a taproom on Avenue Ravanel le Rouge, open every day from 12:00 to 23:00, with 20 taps of its own and guest beers from European craft breweries. Happy hour is 16:00 to 17:30, when a pint of the lager, the Blanche Freeride or the pale ale costs 5 EUR.

Food is served from 12:00 to 14:00 and from 17:00 to 21:30, so it works for dinner too. It is a ten-minute walk from the center and a good way to end a day on a steep mountain.

Le Tour is the last village before the Swiss border, 11 km from Chamonix, and the Charamillon gondola leaves from it. The nearest train stop is Montroc and the nearest bus stop is Le Tour. The gondola takes you to Charamillon at 1,850 m.

La Vormaine, the beginners' area, sits at the foot of the slopes with four lifts, three wide green runs and a forest blue, and is the largest of the valley's small ski areas. Everyone else goes up to Charamillon and the lifts above it.

The Le Tour side is wide and gentle, with a view over the whole Chamonix valley behind you. By the count of a ski-resort database the Balme area has about 29 km of pistes and no black runs, so it suits intermediates and families, and experts will be bored before lunch.

There is a filmed slalom course on the slope if you want a time and a video of your run. It is the kind of area where you stop counting runs and just ski.

The operator lists Le Charamillon, Chara and Les Écuries de Charamillon around the top of the gondola, plus the Alpage de Balme. Le Charamillon serves a gourmet menu with regional produce and has a terrace, while Chara is the quick option with soups, burgers and savory pies.

Try a tartiflette if it is on the menu: potatoes, reblochon cheese, bacon pieces and onions baked together. It is a hearty dish that became a fixture on resort menus in the 1980s, and a large plate between two of you is plenty.

The Col de Balme sits on the line between France and Switzerland, and from the top you see the Chamonix valley on one side and the Swiss mountains on the other. The two halves of the area meet here, the Le Tour lifts below you on one side and the Vallorcine lifts on the other.

Take a minute for the view before you go on. The area calls itself a border domain for good reason.

Vallorcine is the other face of Balme: a fir-forest slope on the Swiss edge of the area, quiet, with its own gondola from the village. It is also where you change trains for the Swiss line toward Martigny.

Ski down through the forest in the late afternoon and take the train or the bus back. The last ride down on the Vallorcine side is at 16:30 until 5 February and 17:00 after, so leave margin for the last train.

The valley's sports center has an indoor pool and, next to it, the Richard Bozon ice rink. From 19 December 2026 to 9 May 2027 the pool is open Monday to Friday from 12:00 to 19:30 and on weekends from 14:00 to 19:30. An adult entry is 6.70 EUR, and the fitness area with saunas and a hammam is 14.50 EUR.

After three days on skis it is the best use of an hour. The saunas and the hammam are closed to children under 12. Public skating at the rink runs from 14:00 to 17:00, which makes it an option for a rest day rather than an evening one.

For a lighter dinner after the pool, a crêperie is the move. La Ferme, on Avenue de l'Aiguille du Midi, is a crêperie-restaurant with savory and sweet crêpes, which suits a valley that eats cheese at every other meal.

The crêpe came to the Alps from Brittany, and the savory buckwheat version is called a galette. Ask the staff what they recommend, since the menu is not on a website.

The Aiguille du Midi cable car opened in 1955 and still has the highest vertical rise of any cable car in the world, from 1,035 m in Chamonix to 3,842 m, in two sections with a change at the Plan de l'Aiguille. The ride takes about 20 minutes. You reserve a boarding number, and new tickets are released regularly on the website, often the day before.

Book as soon as your dates are fixed and take the earliest slot. Wear warm clothes and sunglasses, and expect a headache if you move quickly. Children under 3 are not allowed and it is not recommended under 5.

The summit has panoramic terraces, a glass box called Step into the Void (Pas dans le Vide) that opened in December 2013 with the valley 1,035 m under your feet, and the Tube, an enclosed walkway around the central rock that opened in 2016. Both are free once you are up, subject to the weather and the number of visitors.

Walk the terraces first for the view across the French, Italian and Swiss Alps, then the Tube. Mont Blanc is the big white mass beside you. An exhibit on hypoxia shows what thin air does to the body.

The Vallée Blanche is the most famous ski descent in the Alps and it is not a ski run. It is an unmarked off-piste route of about 20 km over glaciers, it starts down a very steep ridge from the Aiguille du Midi, and it crosses crevassed ground where finding the way is a skill. The operator says inexperienced skiers can only do it with a guide. Treat a mountain guide as a requirement.

The Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix lists a group descent at 155 EUR a person and private guiding from 390 EUR for one or two (2025 rates). That covers the harness, an avalanche transceiver and a reserved cable car seat, but not skis, lifts, lunch, a rucksack or crampons for your ski boots. You must be able to ski an ungroomed red run with control, and the minimum age is 15. It is listed from late January to early May, snow and weather permitting.

The Vertical Café at the departure station is a snack bar with hot and cold drinks and fast food, and the quickest way to refuel after the ride down. At the summit there is a sandwich bar and Restaurant le 3842 for a sit-down lunch, both listed in the operator's winter 2025/26 brochure.

If you went up at 8:10, come down for lunch in town and keep the summit for the views.

Le Refuge Payot has sold Savoyard food since 1996 and has two shops in Chamonix, on Rue Joseph Vallot and Rue du Docteur Paccard. It stocks raclette and fondue cheeses, Comté, goat cheese, cured meats, Savoie wines, Chartreuse and génépi, the herbal liqueur of the Alps, plus chocolate.

Buy a wedge of cheese and a bottle of Savoie white and you have a picnic dinner for the room. It is also the most useful stop of the trip for gifts.

Le Chaudron, at 79 Rue des Moulins, is a former mule stable in what it calls the oldest street in Chamonix, a restaurant since 1988, and describes its cooking as Savoyard specialties and creative traditional cuisine. Order the Savoy dishes: a fondue, a plate of diots sausages with potatoes or polenta, or a tartiflette.

Reserve a table, because the restaurant recommends it. The daily suggestions are posted on its Facebook page.

The Montenvers railway is a rack-and-adhesion line that climbs 871 m over 5.1 km, from a station by the Chamonix railway station to 1,913 m. The first section opened in 1908 and the line in 1909. It started with steam and now runs on electricity, at 14 to 20 km/h.

The first train is at 10:00. From 5 December to 12 March trains run every hour until 16:00, and from 13 March to 30 April every hour until 14:00 and every 30 minutes after. The line is closed from 2 November to 4 December. Buy the ticket in advance.

The Mer de Glace is a valley glacier 7.5 km long and 200 m deep, with a view of Les Drus and the Grandes Jorasses. Counting its tributaries it is the longest glacier in France. It was once easy to see from Chamonix and is now barely visible from the valley, because the ice has been shrinking and pulling back up the mountain.

The glacier gondola, inaugurated in February 2024, carries you toward the ice and cuts the walking time. The view from the Montenvers terrace is the part most visitors photograph, and it is worth a few minutes in the cold.

The ice cave is cut into the glacier and reached by the gondola and then a staircase of about 170 steps, so wear shoes with a grip. The Glaciorium is an interactive exhibition on how a glacier is born, lives and ends, and the Temple of Nature, an optical theater near the Refuge du Montenvers, shows the first alpine refuge, built in 1798.

Children from 12 months can go, but the cave has no access for wheelchairs. The last descent to the ice cave is at 15:00 until 12 March.

The Refuge du Montenvers is a hotel and restaurant at the top, with a view of Les Drus. Le Panoramique Mer de Glace is the restaurant with the panoramic terrace, and the Bar des Glaciers sells sandwiches and sweet snacks to take away. Reserve a table at the refuge on +33 4 50 53 87 70.

Pick the refuge for a proper meal and the bar for something quick before the last train.

The Mont-Blanc Museum is the old Alpine Museum, 100 years old in 2026, which reopened under its new name on 11 July 2026 after five years of renovation. It has 1,800 m² of exhibition space and is the valley's museum.

Its hours in December 2026 are Wednesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00, closed on Monday and Tuesday and on bank holidays, and closed every day from 2 November to 15 December. Winter 2027 hours were not published on 12 October, so check before you go.

Finish at La Calèche, at 18 Rue du Docteur Paccard, a Savoyard restaurant decorated with objects from grandmothers' attics. It does raclette, fondue and hot-stone dishes, and serves lunch from 12:00 to 14:30 and dinner from 19:00 to 23:00, continuously in high season.

If you didn't have raclette at Le Monchu, have it here. If you did, order the fondue.