It was a bright sunny day at the end of April and surprisingly warm. When I
arrived at my rented chalet, my hosts, Andy and Andie Symington, told me
that this wind had a name. “They call it the föhn,” said
Andie. “It’s warm and dry because it comes from the Sahara.”
“Sometimes it’ll deposit sand on the glaciers and turn them a yellowish
colour,” said Andy. “It doesn’t usually blow for more than a day
or two, and I’ve never seen it blow as hard as this.”
The idea of coming to Chamonix in the spring – the inter-season, as they call
it here – was to avoid crowds and high prices. You can rent a chalet for a
third of what it costs in winter, ski until the second week in May and, as
the snowline recedes up the mountains, take advantage of some of the best
hiking trails in Europe. It was bad luck, perhaps, to arrive with the föhn
blowing so hard, but I wasn’t going to let the wind get in the way of a good
time.
In the garden outside my giant luxury chalet, a hot tub was percolating, and I
was determined to sit in it with a drink and soak up the view. I got into my
swimming trunks, poured some local white wine, opened the sliding glass
doors and walked outside into the wind-strafed garden. As I lifted the lid
of the hot tub, it reared up, smacked me in the head and went scudding away
across the lawn.
No matter. Not a drop spilt. I climbed into the hot water, settled back and
feasted my eyes on the scenery. It was dominated by the massive bulk of Mont
Blanc, the highest peak in Europe, with a long, blue, rumpled glacier
descending its flank and dense pine forests lower down. Next to it was a
fantastic spire called the Aiguille du Midi, the Needle of the South, or of
Noon, and the surrounding peaks pierced the sky like fins and arrowheads,
their dark granite streaked with ice and snow.
The wine tasted of lemons and honeysuckle, the jets massaged my back, I felt
delighted to be alive, right here, right now. Meanwhile, the wind was
ricocheting around the valley, gathering force. I heard branches snapping.
Leaves, twigs, grit and other debris rained into the hot tub. Water exited
in a fine stinging spray. I thought of my father, whose mood invariably
sours and darkens in presence of rain, wind or cold. Perhaps in reaction to
him, I’ve gone the other way. I’m a lover of storms, blizzards, heatwaves
and downpours, a man who can sit happily in a hot tub in a gale-force wind.
When the wine was gone, I retrieved the hot tub lid and weighted it down with
four heavy wooden garden chairs. I got dressed and walked into town along
the river. Unusual objects floated past me: a shop mannequin, a blue rubbish
bin, a cloth cap, a drainpipe. In the town centre, where vehicles are
banned, I wandered with other windswept pedestrians along streets lined with
cafés, bars, fondue joints and adventure-clothing and gear shops.
Chamonix is known as the “death sports capital of the world”. The
mountaineers, ice-climbers, extreme skiers and paragliders drawn there have
been joined recently by high-altitude slack-liners, who walk loose
tightropes in improbable places, and wingsuit base jumpers, who leap off
clifftops and fly long distances in bat-like suits. But in this wind, not
even the golfers were out.
I watched a 10-year-old boy turn a corner and get knocked down. A set of loose
shutters banged three times and then splintered. When wooden tiles started
flying off the roofs, and the first big trees started coming down, I hurried
back to the chalet for shelter. The lid of the hot tub had scattered its
chairs and travelled 40 yards into a hedge.
Soon afterwards, I heard an almighty crash and rushed to the window. The wind
had ripped off one half of the neighbour’s tin roof. It had sailed through a
tree, knocking it down, and was now on the lawn next to my hot tub. Andy,
Andie and another Englishman named Andy were out there looking astonished,
talking on phones, as the other half of the roof flapped crazily in the
wind, tethered by a chimney. We piled rocks on the roof that had landed, to
prevent it getting airborne again, and watched with our hearts in our mouths
as reckless French firemen scaled the neighbour’s pitched roof and wrestled
with the bucking, rearing sheet of tin. Eventually they prised it loose and
tied it up with ropes.
When a wind blows at 73 miles an hour, it has officially reached hurricane
strength. That night, the wind in Chamonix was measured at 110 miles an
hour. The power went out and I wandered the chalet using the torch function
on my phone, nervously drinking wine, stoking the wood-burning stove and
looking out of the big windows. The night was full of rending, ripping,
crashing, howling noises, and civilisation seemed like a puny, temporary
thing. It was hard not to think of the wind as a fury, or a punishment,
rather than air moving at freakishly high speeds.
The next morning, the power came back on and the wind was merely brisk. Across
the street, a four-storey tree lay across the crushed roof of a house, and
walking through town I saw many more uprooted trees and at least a dozen
roofs that had come off. There were cars with crushed roofs and smashed
windscreens, but, miraculously, no one had been killed or injured. Nor had
anyone slept, and this added to the sense of camaraderie in the streets. We
had come through something extraordinary together.
I bought a baguette and a local saucisson flavoured with hazelnuts, and went
walking in the mountains. I climbed into the Aiguilles Rouges on the other
side of the valley from Mont Blanc. It was hard going, with steep slopes and
many downed trees that had to be clambered over, and it was intensely
beautiful. I passed through loamy-smelling forests and meadows full of wild
flowers and birdsong. I startled a deer.
When I got hungry, I sat on a boulder and ate, gazing across the valley at the
fairytale peaks and glaciers. Here was the Chamonix experience I had come
for: springtime in the Alps with no one else around. I hadn’t seen another
human being in hours.
Win
a 14-night trip trip for two to Chamonix
Then it dawned on me. There was probably a good reason why no one else was
here. Look at all the downed trees. There were probably hundreds more
loosened by the storm, and poised to topple with the next big gust of wind.
I made my way back down, and the sound of chainsaws and hammering rose from
the valley to meet me. Chamonix was putting itself back together again.
In a few weeks, the summer hordes will start arriving. Traffic will crawl,
queues will form outside restaurants, profits will accumulate. After a brief
autumn respite, the winter season will begin again. In a few short years,
the massive windstorm of April 30 2012 will be largely forgotten, although
not by me.
PS: A day or two either way can make all the difference in off-season travel.
Immediately following my departure, the föhn wind died away completely and
Chamonix basked for a week in calm and glorious sunshine – a reminder why
travelling out of season, with Lady Luck on your side, can be such a joy.
- Follow Richard Grant at: richardgrant.us
and twitter.com/richardgrant4
Chamonix out of season essentials
Richard Grant stayed at Chalet Chimère, which was booked through Pure Holiday
Homes (pureholidayhomes.com).
The chalet (ID: 1386), which sleeps six, is available from £835 a week
(self-catering basis), rising to £2,700 in the peak ski weeks.
Other great-value options for out-of-season stays in Chamonix with Pure
Holiday Homes include a one-bedroom apartment in the town (ID: 1407) from
£270 a week, a two-bedroom apartment (ID: 1442) from £375 a week, a
five-bedroom chalet with whirlpool bath (ID: 15348) from £400 a week, a
four-bedroom chalet (ID: 37128) with glorious views of Mont Blanc from £825
a week and a luxurious five-bedroom chalet in the heart of the town (ID:
1129) from £1,600 a week.
