La Grave has a similar problem. Work on replacing the cable only began on the 11th of November and will take a month. The cable car is schedule to open on the 23rd of December, if all goes well. Just in time for Christmas.
I hope that they decide to open Domaine de Balme or Brevent in early December then, since historically the Gds Montets is the only/first station to open in early December . . . . snow allowing of course. Our nice dump from last week has nearly all melted thanks to the blasted foehn wind . . . .
I have heard that the Tour Operators are not happy as some have sold holidays from the 16th and are faced with no skiing. CmB is saying that it will try to open other areas if the snow cover allows. Given that there should be some snow this week, 30-50cm in total at 1500m this should be a possibility.
So far nothing open in Chamonix. And we have snow now. Oh, and the new CdMB website in English is STILL not up. Amazing. Viewing the new site in French, the new design involves PHP scripts on nearly every page, which take a long time to load over my fast ADSL line. Pity anyone on dial up trying to look at the site.
I think the new site is prettier, but yet it is just very very slow, which is the opposite of what you want out of a utility site which you use to find real time information daily about which lifts are open before heading out the door . . . someone must be learning web programming at the expense of the CdMB it appears.
I’ve got to agree with you on this. A lot of French ski domain websites are maintained by half-wits. Why do I want to download a huge flash plug-in just to find out (or usually not) what the snow condiitons are like? You know it is not hard, people want to know what’s open, what the conditions are like, a web cam that works all year round not just in February, accomodation search and how to reach resort by road or public transport.
Anyway GM may open on Saturday 16th with the following lifts:-
Plan Joran Chairlift
Tabé Chairlift
Marmottons Chairlift
Bochard Gondola
It is not 100% certain yet according to CdMB.