Chalet Mont-Blanc

Welcome. I'm Sophie.

You skied today, or you drove six hours thinking about skiing. Either way, your bed's upstairs and the kettle's in the kitchen. Here's the rest in 90 seconds.

What you've got:

• Three bedrooms, a proper fireplace, a boot room that actually dries things
• A deck with a direct view of the Aiguille du Midi
• Lift passes already in the kitchen drawer, labelled by name

The morning booms. On still mornings around 7am you'll hear distant percussive thuds. That's mountain rescue doing controlled avalanche releases before the lifts open. Means the mountain is being looked after. Go back to sleep.

Saturday-to-Saturday bookings exist for a reason, day one finds your legs, day two finds your favourite run, by Wednesday you've got both.

One unsolicited tip: the bakery six minutes downhill opens at 6am. A pain au chocolat in your jacket pocket is still warm at 9am if you leave by 8:30.

Stone walls weaken signal. That's the trade-off for a 1920s chalet that isn't going anywhere. The WiFi has three boxes: one in the lounge, one in the master bedroom, and one in the boot room. All three blink white when they're working.

One practical note: the boot room box is the weakest point. Stone walls on all four sides. If you want to download offline maps before heading out, do it in the lounge the night before. Don't try to pull a 400MB trail map while you're lacing your boots at 8:15am; it won't finish in time and you'll leave frustrated. Lounge, the night before.

The chalet is on a quiet residential street in Les Praz, three minutes' walk from the Flégère lift. Look for the stone facade with carved wooden lintel and the slate roof; the address plate is brass, mounted on the gatepost.

📍 Chamonix town centre is 4km away, an easy navigation landmark. From there, head north on Route des Praz; the chalet is on the right just past the Flégère gondola station.

From Geneva Airport (GVA): about 1h 15m via the A40, the most direct route. The 📍 Aiguille du Midi cable car is your other key Chamonix landmark (16 minutes by car from the chalet, or take bus #1 from town).

By train: the Mont-Blanc Express runs from St-Gervais and connects through to Martigny. Get off at 📍 Les Praz station, a 4-minute walk to the chalet.

Lifts in walking distance:

• 📍 Téléphérique de la Flégère, 3 minutes on foot. Skiing in by 9am.
• 📍 Téléphérique du Brévent, 12 minutes by bus or 5 minutes by car.

Parking: under the chalet (the door at the end of the gravel drive lifts on a remote, on the welcome table).

Check-in is anytime after 4pm. No one to meet, you let yourself in.

Mounted on the wall to the right of the front door, just below the porch light. Standard dial-in.

The boot room is downstairs, three steps down from the entrance hall.

• Boots off before you come up. Solid oak floors upstairs; snow melt eats them fast.
• The heated racks are on a timer: warm by 6pm, off by midnight
• Stand your boots upright on the bottom rail; the inner liners dry overnight

Skis live on the rack outside the front door, left of the entrance. There's an overnight cable lock on it, the key is on the orange-fob hook in the boot room.

Lock up every night. Chamonix is safe but ski theft is opportunistic.

Heating. The lounge thermostat is the master. It's set to 19°C when you arrive, dial it up or down.

Don't go above 22°C. The old radiators sound like percussion instruments above that threshold, and the guests in the attic room will let you know.

Fireplace (the important one)

Every ski chalet host gets the same call at 9pm: "we can't get the fire going." Read this once and you won't need to make that call.

1. Open the damper first. It's the dial at the top of the flue, on the left side as you face the fireplace. Turn it clockwise until it stops. You'll feel the airflow change. A slight cool draft is good, it means the chimney is drawing.
2. Two birch logs in a teepee shape in the firebox. The firewood is in the wicker basket to the right of the hearth. Birch lights clean and burns hot.
3. Kindling underneath. The wood shavings are in the small hessian bag on the mantel. Push a good fistful underneath the log teepee.
4. Light from the bottom with the long matches in the brass cup. One match, from the bottom of the kindling. Don't light from the top.
5. Close the glass door once flames are visible but leave the damper fully open. You want the chimney warm and drawing clean before you restrict airflow. Give it 5–10 minutes. You'll see the smoke pulling straight up through the glass when the draw is established.
6. Halfway close the damper once the fire is steady and the logs have a bed of orange embers. It'll hold heat for hours from that point.

One thing not to burn: there are wax-coated alpine firelighters in the small tin on the bottom shelf of the log basket. They smell terrible. Not a safety issue, just properly unpleasant for the room. The chalet keeps them for the one occasion every three years when nothing else works. Use the kindling and matches; they work fine.

Hot tub

The tub is on the side deck under the alpine pine. Control panel is the small grey unit beside the back door, marked TUB.

• To heat: press the orange button to start a 60-minute heating cycle. From cold (around 12°C) it reaches 38°C in about 45 minutes; from warm overnight it picks back up in 15.
• To use: lift the cover off using the two handles on the long sides (it's lighter than it looks; fold it onto the rack to the right). Climb in. Cover goes back on as soon as you're done.
• Auto-off at midnight. Dark-sky pact with the valley neighbours. See House rules.
• Cover stays on when not in use. An uncovered tub is the single biggest energy drain in this chalet and is the cause of the 50 kWh/day overage charge in the rules. Cover on means warm tomorrow for the same money; cover off means a cold tub and a bill.

Lift passes

The kitchen drawer, second from the left, is labelled with each guest's name. Your pass is in there. After each day on the mountain, replace your pass in your named slot before anyone goes to bed. The next person in the queue at the lift cable car at 8:45am is not the moment to discover your pass is in yesterday's jacket pocket.

The drawer also has chocolate. That's not labelled by name. Help yourself.

Ski locker

The locker is outside, left of the front door past the ski rack. Combination lock.

That's the chalet number: 1786. It's on the door frame. You don't need to remember a random number; you need to remember where you live this week.

• Boots off downstairs. Mountain etiquette and practical, the hardwood floors upstairs are the main thing worth protecting, and snow melt is the main threat. Boot room, heated racks, done.
• No smoking near the wood. Firewood, boot room panelling, mantel shelf, all dry timber. Designated spot is the south-side deck (stone ashtray there). Not the north deck, not the doorway, never near the ski rack.
• Hot tub timer: auto-off at midnight. House pact about light pollution. The chalet is right on the edge of the dark-sky zone that the valley protects. Midnight is the cut-off, no exceptions and no workarounds.

Electricity meter

Resets at 07:00 daily. Normal winter usage runs 30–40 kWh per day.

• Above 50 kWh is unusual but possible if you run every appliance at once or leave the hot tub cover off
• Excess over 50 kWh/day is billed at the end of your stay at €0.30/kWh
• Most common cause: hot tub running uncovered overnight. Cover it when you're done

Avalanche risk

Check the Météo France bulletin daily before heading out to any off-piste terrain. We've bookmarked it on the kitchen iPad as the first tab.

The lift operators also post the current risk level at the base station. In-bounds pistes are managed; off-piste is your read.

Add-ons we can sort to take the planning off your plate.

Ski + boot rental delivery, €120/person/week

Skis, boots, poles, helmet, sized to you, dropped at the chalet on arrival morning and picked up departure morning. No walk to 📍 Sanglard Sports with skis on your shoulder.

• How to request: Message Camille a week before arrival with sizes (shoe + height/weight is plenty)
• Pay: Cash on delivery, or invoice with the booking

Lift pass concierge, €25 booking fee

Save the queue at 📍 Compagnie du Mont-Blanc. Passes pre-bought and waiting at the chalet. We book at the local rate (no resale markup); the €25 covers the run-around.

• How to request: Message a week ahead with names and number of days
• Pay: Lift pass at the official rate plus the booking fee, invoiced together

Private chef in the chalet, €85/person + ingredients

Three-course Savoyard menu, served at the chalet's dining table after a day on the slopes. Local cheese boards a speciality. Vegetarian + gluten-free comfortable.

• How to request: WhatsApp Pierre 48 hours ahead with dietary needs and party size
• Pay: Half up front via bank transfer; balance plus ingredients on the night

Check-out is by 10am. Back-to-back ski bookings run Saturday to Saturday and the turnover window is tight; the cleaning team arrives at 10:30am.

• Fireplace: leave the damper open until the firebox is completely cold. Do not seal the damper over embers; the ash needs airflow to cool safely. If you lit a fire on the last night, check the firebox in the morning; if there's warmth, leave the damper open and the front door cracked.
• Dishwasher running, fridge empty. Anything unopened and shelf-stable is welcome to stay. Anything opened and perishable, out.
• Garbage and food waste: the wooden bear-box is outside, ten metres past the ski rack. Tie the bag, lift the lid, and place it inside. The combination on the bear-box lid is 1786, same as the ski locker, same as the chalet number. Mountain bears wake up in spring; even in winter, the box is standard practice and the cleaners will thank you.
• Lift passes back in their drawers. The next guest may have pre-purchased their own passes and will want to compare; they'll also check that drawer first. Leave yours in your named slot.
• Ski locker emptied, cable lock re-secured. The key goes back on the orange-fob hook in the boot room.

Safe travels down the valley.

Tap any name for the map.

Bakery: Le Pain Au Bois, six min on foot. Opens 6am. The pain de campagne is the morning loaf (dense, slightly sour, keeps to lunch). Take a pain au chocolat in your jacket pocket for the chairlift; still warm at 9am if you leave by 8:30.

Après: Le Choucas, three minutes from the Aiguille du Midi lift station. The real one, not the tourist version. Locals who've been on the mountain since 7am, drinking Génépi at the bar. Order one. It's the local alpine liqueur, herbal, warming, costs what a beer should cost. If you're hungry, the tartiflette on the board is the thing.

Lift strategy for late starters. Aiguille du Midi cable car opens 9am; queues start 8:15am in peak season. If you've had a slow morning, skip it. Take the Le Tour lift instead: opens 8:30am, rarely queues before 9:30am. Quieter slopes on the north-east face until lunch. Come back to Midi in the afternoon for the views.

Pharmacie de Chamonix, 1 rue du Docteur Paccard. Open Sundays, one of the few in the valley. Blister, torn muscle, or a cold that descended on day two? This is the place when everything else is closed.

Snow forecast. Météo France bulletin updates 06:30am. Bookmarked on the kitchen iPad. We trust Skiinfo for hour-by-hour conditions over Meteo Blue for this area. Skiinfo's Chamonix page also shows which lifts are actually running, which matters more than the snowfall number on heavy wind days.

Sophie, your host. WhatsApp: (demo only). I live in the valley, about 30 minutes from the chalet. For anything that needs a person on the ground immediately (a plumbing fault, something mechanical), I'll call the road manager who's 8 minutes away. Message first; call if it's urgent.

PGHM Chamonix, mountain rescue. (demo only). The Peloton de Gendarmerie de Haute Montagne, specialist rescue unit for this zone. Call only if someone is properly stuck in or on the mountain. Save it in your phone before you need it, not after.

ESF Chamonix, ski school concierge. (demo only). If you've pre-booked lessons, this is the number to confirm times, meeting points, or rebook if the lift you planned to use is closed. Walk-in bookings: the ESF desk at the Aiguille du Midi base station.

Quick numbers

• Emergency (EU): 112, any mobile in the EU, even with no local SIM
• Fire and ambulance (France): 18, French national number, any mobile
• Pharmacie de Chamonix, 1 rue du Docteur Paccard. Open Sundays. Nearest with weekend coverage