AMP Blog

 Great news for everyone who likes to ski Chamonix. The ice age is coming!

The forecast for this week is getting colder with some snow on Tuesday then on Friday a cold wind from the north will bring temperatures down to glacial conditions with -13 in Chamonix  over the weekend with up to 1 meter of snow expected on the ski areas.

  This is the start of the season we have all been hoping for. The long range forecast is also saying that this snowy period will be the first of a series of cold snowy fronts expected to hit the Alps over the next 2 weeks.

 This is great news for our early season kick off. We have courses running from the 13th of December and if this early snow happens we will be running private ski lessons in Chamonix as soon as the ski lifts open.  The companie du mont Blanc have said they will open the Grande Montets at weekends in November snow permitting. So come on ski Chamonix this ice age. Its going to go off!

Learn to ski powder

Dont miss out join one of our all Mountain ski courses or reserve your very own private coach to take you to all the best spots on the mountain. We will teach you various techniques for skiing powder snow, windblown snow and anything else he mountain throws at us.
Learning to ski deep powder snow can be quicker and easier than you may think. Our courses will teach you the correct movements and technique to ski powder snow. We use a series of innovative tasks and exercises that really work. We will teach you initially on the piste to ski clean short turns developing your ability to feel support from both skis against the snow. once comfortable with this on piste the chances are you will be able to link turns in the powder. Then its just a bit of millage to crack it.

AMP British ski school Chamonix

In the last few years the French Alps have seen a number of new British ski schools setting up in many resorts. Their reputation is excellent with smaller groups and highly skilled coaches who are equally as good at skiing. Better still its ski coaching at its very best in English so clients can now develop a better understanding of the sport and their skiing.

We at AMP are proud to be the Chamonix local specialists for all Mountain development for advanced and expert skiers. Now into our 5th Year operating in Chamonix, our reputation as a British ski school for enthusiasts is growing from strength to strength. So if you are looking for a ski school with a difference come to Chamonix and see what new school ski school is all about.

Its not ski school how many people would imagine it. What we do at All Mountain Performance is very different to a typical ski school experience.

Our ski coaching can dramatically improve a skiers level by developing all aspects of their performance in a Variety of conditions and terrain. By use of  more modern ski coaching methods involving not only development of skiing technique but also improving tactical, physical and psycological skills. In fact these 4 aspects of skiing performance are aparent in  every sport. More too oftern than not ski schools and ski coaches in the past have focused very much on a technique focused aproach. which actually is only a quarter of an over all performance.

Imagine these four strands of  performance in sport.

Technique, Tactical, Psycological, physical. 

We call these the 4 aspects of performance. Now imagine how much better you will ski having developed all 4 strands through stratigicaly designed exercises and performance ski coaching that really works.

It Is the job of a good ski coach to be able to quickly identify which performance strand needs develping the most in any given situation or task. For example if a skier is working on imroving their performance skiing in the bumps.  Lets say that their bumps technique is pretty good, as are their tactical skills and they are not scared so psycologicaly they are fine,but still they are finding it hard when they need to  make quick agile movements. In this situation a good ski coach will work on improving the skiers physical performance strand as it is the weekest one. More specifically quick agile movements will need to be developed in short turns. This can be done outside of bumps on a smooth not to difficult run before reaplying the overall performance back to the bumps.

The result is wow! 25% better bumps skiing in one lesson!

It may then be that one of the other performance strands needs developing, and as we ski around the mountain your ski coach will improve all aspects of your skiing performance prioritising the most important one for you.

Modern ski coaching has no bounderies or limtits. The possibilities for your improvment are endless as there are so many ways you can improve. Its not all technique!

 Well its true that the weather in the mountains changes quickly. in the last 3 days we have seen the snow line around Chamonix drop from 2700 meters down to 900 meters. We woke up on Saturday morning to a 5cm blanket of snow. Of course its very early for snow at that altitude and its not going to stay for long. It may however be enough up on the ski areas above 2000 meters to create a bit of a base. I can remember in late October Novemeber 1996 it snowed a total of 2 meters in the Chamonix valley over a 2 week period leading way to the best start of a season I have ever seen. The only problem was that a dry spell followed which lasted until Febuary.

Some Chamoniards Say that a lot of early snow falls can oftern lead to less snow during the peak of winter. Personally I think the weather is too unpredictable over a long period to really say. I have lived in the Chamonix valley for 13 years now and ive seen many freaky weather changes like 23 degrees in February followed quickly by  - 23 and loads of snow. Ive even seen it snow in the town of Chamonix in mid September when just 2 days before it was 26 and sunny!

One thing we can be sure of is that  it snows every winter!  The question is always how much is coming?

So, maybe this'll be a good start to the winter as it's due to snow very low tomorrow which is early for recent years! 1200 metres is below Argentière so  it could be skiddy on the roads. Maybe I ought to think about snow tyres or just carying chains but it seems too soon.

It's getting exciting now with not many weeks to go before it all kicks off and a trip to Tignes amready in the pipeline.

After several months in development, we can finally announce the launch of the new All Mountain Performance website.

The new site has a fully featured user system allowing our clients to participate in forums and add comments to pictures and blog posts.

Sign up for a free account here  and get involved in the forum to tell us what you think.

We were keen to get away this weekend, what with one thing and another.

So we decided to execute a plan we shelved in favor of relaxing last weekend. We went mountain biking in Les Portes du Soleil. It's well set up for Mountain Biking numptys like us. For one it's easy. The paths are well defined and not covered in rocks, roots or shale. All three of those things are death on a stick. Even when it's wet, it's dry enough. Even more importantly, there are no walkers. Blacks, Reds, Greens - just like skiing except for no blues. But no-body wants blues. They're boring.

What I did notice, though - was that everyone else who does this sport is very much younger than my tender 32 years. These kids are just that. You only do this sport if you're 16-20. Otherwise? You're just not rubber enough.

So also, we're starting to see how GPS is useful. now that it's built into our  iPhone I'm starting to get that hang of it. See some of our new waypoint data on Google Maps, here.

AMP is pleased to welcome a new member of the team, Sarah who will be our Logistics coordinator this season.

The weather finally broke giving us a full perfect week of sun, packed powder snow, gates and cat suits!

With our very own reserved lane for setting our course each day Mark Gear head coach for AMP set Giant slalom courses. We worked on modern GS techniques and tactics using a blend of open hill and gate training. By the third day the group were flying down the hill and looking more and more like racers.

We used a series of strategically designed exercises and drills to develop the right movements and techniques outside of the gates before then applying it to the gates. We then worked on getting the right racing line to get even more speed.

Each day we had a race to see how we were doing and to help raise the adrenaline!

Well done to all you racers!