
Two climbers traverse the iconic Aiguille d’Entreves, along the border of Italy and France, on the Mont Blanc Massif. Photo: Rob Coppolillo.
Chamonix gets hyped a lot — host of the first Winter Olympics in 1924, site of the oldest mountain guide office (1821) in the world, and of course, “Cham” claims a circus of some of the best climbers and skiers on the planet as its “local” crew. No wonder this town of 8000 in the French Alps routinely pops up in the mags and on film.
I had visited Chamonix a dozen-or-so times before moving there in 2019. In 1996, when “The Cantina” was still serving Mexican(ish) food and before the tunnel beneath Mont Blanc burned, I shared an evening with family there. On leaving, I promised to come back. Over the ensuing years, I would visit to work and see friends. I recall hearing someone refer to the little valley as “The Madison Square Garden of Guiding.”
Huh?
To the Garden …
My family and I relocated to Chamonix in August of 2019, as I was finishing The Ski Guide Manual. Writing consumed my autumn, and I spent most of January in Canada, returning to Cham in February 2020. A few weeks of work and … well, you know the rest: lockdowns, viruses, general global upset.
After living there for just over two years, I’m still a huge fan and realistic about its shortcomings, too. Madison Square Garden might go a little far, but it’s pretty great on balance.
Access to world-class rock and alpine terrain, five different ski areas, and a motivated community make it pretty hard to beat. It’s one of the few places in the world where you can walk the kids to school in your ski boots (or ride!), then book over to the tram and be on a glacier a half-hour later, stepping into skis. A couple of laps, and you can pick up the kids, have dinner with the family, and sleep in your own bed. And the wages are way better than the States, too — I miss it!
Another bonus: the region takes care of its guides — a season pass gets you on all five ski hills (for the whole year, not just the winter), as well as the tram up the Aiguille du Midi, for just 230 euros. Travel with your guide card, and you can get a ticket just about anywhere in the Alps for 15 euros. And touring out the gates? Just about anywhere, any time. Ride the lifts, save your legs for skiing!
I sincerely enjoyed watching alpinists, skiers, and guides from all over the world work. Occasionally you’d see something spooky, but for the most part, working alongside an international community of guides exposes you to new techniques and mindsets. Watching Brits short-rope, the Swiss lead guests on a knife-edge ridge, and the Euro-based Americans ski-guide pushed me to reevaluate my skill in the mountains. I hope I picked up a few of their tricks and improved.
All this, and you’re 12-kilometers from Italy, where the fruit arrives daily from the south and everything costs 30-percent less. The promised land!
And hey, taxes were lower for us, the benefits way better, too … yeah, it was good.
But …
Despite the hype, Chamonix, like any legendary mountain town, has its blind spots. You’re probably a skier/climber, like me, so imagine living in a place with so many mountain professionals working daily … and you can’t get the overnight weather history from the ski hills, nor the Aiguille du Midi. Moreover, there’s no professional data-sharing platform for the hundreds of mountain guides living between Aosta, Chamonix, and Zermatt. After living and working in North America, especially Canada, it feels downright crazy to head up the tram, 2800m, and not know what the wind did overnight. No clue what the Italians are seeing on their side of the mountain.
Guides broke into camps, often sharing weather and snowpack observations amongst themselves, which could be helpful if you knew whom to contact. By the end of our time there, I had met a nice mix of British, Eastern European, Italian, Spanish, and a few French guides, so I could ask for beta from them. It was fractured, though, between texting, WhatsApp groups, and the usual panicked phone calls (mostly from me!) about where to go if we woke up to unexpected weather, for example.
It was great having a posse of Americans who’d been there for years, but you can only text them so much before you become a pest. Most of ‘em have families, too, so there’s sick kids, school runs, and the like to contend with. A resource like the Canadian InfoEx — the most comprehensive observation tool for ski professionals — would be so cool in the western Alps, but the idea just hasn’t gained traction.
We found the schools to be less-than-stellar, too. Kids with ADHD and autism weren’t afforded the latest in teaching methods and research. Rather, more rules, and “be more strict,” seemed to be the mindset. Our kids are typical learners, but watching some teachers yell and humiliate their classmates, bummed them out. By year’s end, they were pretty discouraged, and when schools in France started talking about closing again in 2021, our boys had run out of gas for it.

Erika Birkeland and Henry Coppolillo on their way to skiing off the summit of Mount Shuksan. Photo: Rob Coppolillo.
Finally, after 18 months of covid, on-off lockdowns, we cracked and moved back to the States, to an island just west of Seattle. While it’s not my first choice on the planet, our little dudes, and my wife, are definitely happier here, so far.
And the Cascades. The Cascades! My first trips here, just a decade ago, made me a believer. I remember saying to a climbing partner, “These mountains are so underrated. They’re awesome!”
Growing up in Colorado, you hear about “14’ers” and “champagne powder,” and the legendary Eldorado Canyon for rock climbing. Start traveling, though, and you realize the marketing folks in Colorado tend to exaggerate a bit.
“Puny” Mount Shuksan (“only” 9131ft) has wonderful, glaciated ski-mountaineering and superb trade routes for alpine guiding, despite its diminutive size. The north face of Mount Buckner (9114ft) offers a proud ski line, as cool as anything in Colorado and on par with a north face in the Alps. And you make those first, 50-degree turns, lower than the parking lot at Bear Lake, in Rocky Mountain National Park. It also snows a ton up here, especially during a La Nina year like this one — storms accumulate in feet, not inches.
Add to that true wilderness like the Pickets, Yosemite-quality rock at Index, and of course, the mighty Mount Rainier, with more than two-dozen independent ski lines on a glaciated, 4000m peak. Oh yeah!
Of course, the Cascades and Pacific “NorthWet” suffers, too. North Bend, just on the west side (the wet side!) of Snoqualmie Pass, receives 75 inches of rain annually. The access can be tricky too — four large guide services hold exclusive permits on Mount Rainier. You’ll see vastly more uncertified, rather than certified, guides working on a Rainier.

Racing the sun! The final minutes of frozen snow, just below the summit of Mount Shuksan. Photo: Rob Coppolillo.
If you take account, though, the mountain biking, trail running, skiing, climbing, and the world-class food-art-culture scene in Seattle, and the PNW’s proximity to Canada, man … another tough-to-beat location!
Lucky … and Where’s My Stuff?!
Ah, any way you slice it, Boulder, Cham, or Seattle, they’re all great places. I’m lucky to have landed here, close to my wife’s family; with a welcoming, friendly guide community established, and work to be had.
Our only glitches now — our container of stuff from France has gone missing and … does anybody have a million bucks we can borrow for a house?

Henry Coppolillo belaying the final meters to Shuksan’s summit. A bountiful winter snowpack meant turns right off the top. Photo: Rob Coppolillo.
We shipped one-third of a container on August 26, from Chamonix. Epic packing, a lucky sale to good friends furnishing a house, and we pared out stuff down as much as we could. That said, our container arrive at the Port of Los Angeles sometime in early October, sat for a couple of weeks, then cleared customs towards the end of the month … and during November we haven’t heard a peep.
Skis, bikes, sweaters, and knick-knacks … I need my stuff!
The shipping company promises it will arrive, someday, and in the meantime, if anybody has a million bucks they want to drop on a house in Seattle, let us know.
Rob Coppolillo is the author of The Ski Guide Manual and The Mountain Guide Manual and an internationally licensed mountain guide. He’s now based in Seattle, Washington and owns Vetta Mountain Guides.
Rob Coppolillo is an IFMGA/AMGA full mountain guide, newly based in Chamonix, France.
22 comments
Spent a month in a tent at Snells Field near Chamonix in 1969-‘I can truly relate to your great write up– got some Rossi skis at the factory and headed to Mammoth Mountain where I did dynamiting for Dave McCoy
No way — you should write us a great post on the Snells scene in the ’60s/70s! That was before my time, for sure … our landlord had gone through the guide program in the 60s, had great stories of the “old wild west days” of Chamonix … he was a character. Throwing bombs in the 70s for Dave McCoy — you have made the rounds!
Nary a mention of Poco Loco… Welcome back to the states, Rob!
They are still killing it at Poco Loco! I was too scared to eat in the upstairs during COVID, but I had a couple good throw-downs there towards the end of our time. Low tide in your ‘hood, eh?! Hang tough, brudda!
Not quite MIN or LAWIS but not entirely accurate description of conditions/data/info sharing either. The list of sites below took about 10 minutes of googling and some prior knowledge.
http://www.data-avalanche.org/
https://regobs.no/
https://meteofrance.com/meteo-montagne/alpes-du-nord/observations
http://skitour.fr/
https://wepowder.com/en
http://www.metaskirando.ovh/
Maybe I’m missing something, but couldn’t find much more than very general info. Given that there are anemometers at every ski hill in the Cham valley, and none of that info is avail to professionals outside that ski hill’s crew, seems a waste!
The observations sharing platforms you shared are hit or miss and nothing regular, so, for example, if you’re headed to the Aravis to tour, there *might* be an ob from there the day(s) prior, but maybe not, and you don’t know who shared the ob, too, so pretty limited usefulness. I still get the data-avalanche.org emails, but again, nothing regular, just what random people report. SLF does a bit better, but again, very few obs compared to North America.
The folks at the Meteo France office in Cham knows there’s a blind spot with info-sharing and are looking into it, or so says a buddy who’s working for ANENA this coming winter … but for the time being, pretty dark.
I don’t know MIN or LAWIS — do tell! These are North American platforms?
MIN – Mountain information network in Canada. https://www.avalanche.ca/mountain-information-network/
LAWIS – Austrian weather info & avalanche/incident reporting https://lawis.at/
My point was that the tools for sharing are there. Why they’re not being used is a separate matter.
Rob, like all your writing, this is a great read, thanks for submitting it.
Thanks Slim — you skiing yet, or are you south of the dreaded La Nina jet? Ouch! Colorado is desperate at the moment. I just drove back (bought a truck in Denver, snagged some gear at a buddy’s place in Breck, then raced back to the PNW) through CO, Utah, ID, and it’s frickin’ dry down there.
Welcome home! Let me know if you need anything while you wait for your STUFF! Can’t help with the new house tho 😉
I’m not as PNW as you but I dig the maritime snow and how it sticks to stuff instead of blowing off to Kansas like in the Front Range. The lack of real wind is nice…those Chinooks are brutal!
Send me one of those sexy bikes you build?!
Indeed, sticky snow here and mostly stable, too. Our rain line has been jumping up to 6K lately, but I imagine the higher peaks have gotten a few meters of snow already. Somebody sent me a headline recently: Seattle received more rain in November than Vegas has had in 13 YEARS. WTF!?
Keep on it, brudda!
As an american ex-pat in France, my family and I have found the move to be the best choice we could have made. We live down in Chambéry, which is 90 min to Chamonix and within about 2 hours of almost every epic ski area in the french alpes.
Yes, growing up in a town that was 50% Mexican, and then living in California and Colorado for most of my life, I dearly miss good Mexican food (bastards serve Doritos at “Mexican” restaurants here. It’s just wrong…). And, yes, the approach of French teachers to humiliate students and try to funnel them into a cookie-cutter, data-regurgitating, mass of interchangeable future workers is mind-bending. And don’t get me started on bureaucracy here…
But – home is where home is. If you find it in the Sierras, great. If you find it in the French Alpes, or Slovenian Alps, or Southern Alps in New Zealand, then great as well. There are always things that are difficult about any place. And then there are deal-breakers. We had too many deal breakers in the US (wrong culture, health care, social schism, 3rd-world level governmental breakdown), and the things that are a mess in France are things we can deal with. This is home to my family, to my startup (which is provided exceptional support because it is designated as an innovative company and ecologically-focused), and to all the things that we are looking forward to in the future.
And, I have friends in Italy, and Spain, and Norway, and Canada, and the US who all have found a place that feels right to them. I understand the desire to “up” the place that you choose, and to poke holes in the place that you decided didn’t work for you. But what is the point? Everyone needs to find their own place, and the fact that everyone feels like different places are ideal for them is great – otherwise overcrowding would be horrific.
I know, it’s fun to bag on the French. It’s easy too. But make a French friend – a french person who calls you a friend, not the other way around – and you will realise that there is something truly great about this place. And it has nothing to do with Chamonix. (Plus, I’ll take Les Écrins over the Mont Blanc Massif; if you stayed just around Chamonix, you missed a lot of the best stuff here…)
Hey Lance, I certainly didn’t mean to say one place was better than another. I meant to say exactly that each place has its great traits … truth be told, I wanted to stay in France and would even prefer Italy, in fact. That said, where we are is a better fit for our boys and my wife … so I’ll have to just get back when I can.
I’m not sure I’d take the Ecrins over the MB zone, but yeah man, it sure is nice down there! I spent a few days working on a writing project with Joe Vallone, skiing in La Grave. That was a blast, 100%.
Glad you’re digging it, I’ll track you down when I get thru Chambery next time!
Rob, sorry if I went on a bit of a tangent. “Ah, any way you slice it, Boulder, Cham, or Seattle, they’re all great places…” – clearly you are not saying that one is “better than.” I was more endorsing your point that every place has positives and negatives and that people need to find the “home” that works for them rather than following an external or arbitrary path to what they “should do”. (Which you may know is actually a bit of a problem in France – there is an enormous amount of pressure on a lot of people to ‘not fail’ and to take the path that has been deemed to be ‘the best way’ by some amorphous arbitor…)
Anyway, would be great to catch up next time you’re in the Savoie, we can go to Annecy and have some good Mexican food…
And if Lou Dawson is ever in Chambery, try the extra long vanilla eclairs at Pinson.
Looks like you are getting plenty of snow at the mo Lance!
Some places have nearly 2 meters already. It has been a prodigious snowfall so far, but it warms up next week so we’ll see what remains after some warmer, rainy weather. Hopefully up high it is cold enough to stay snowing. But we’ve seen this before where a December dump is the best snow you get for the year and it can get pretty lean for a month or two after…
Now about those extra long eclairs…
Mexican food and eclairs?! I needed this info last year, people!
Lance — hit me on FB or at my biz email, info@vettamountainguides.com and let’s stay connected. I drove Chambery several times, but never stopped. Now I have a reason! RC
Happy to Rob. Also, if you’re around Seattle in Feb, maybe we can catch up there. I do a road trip after OR that brings me there visiting ski and snowboard builders. Also, if you don’t know it, I highly recommend the Toulouse Petite Kitchen in Seattle.
How is your commute to the mountains from the west side of Seattle? Thinking about moving up to the area from Reno and I feel pretty spoiled getting to ski tour within a 20 minute drive from work!
Hey Michael!
At the moment, West Seattle is a hassle at rush hour times — the West Seattle bridge (3 lanes each direction) is currently closed. They found structural problems with the thing. Woops. I’m sure the contractor who built it will be happy to fix it for free. Or not. Damn! Should be closed for a couple years, minimum. All that traffic gets routed on to surface streets now. If you can avoid peak times, it’s workable, but what used to be a 20-minute commute into downtown is now 40….so living on Vashon, I have to take a 25-min ferry, then battle W Seattle traffic. Needless to say, I go early and come back late, avoiding the carnage!
If you can get thru before rush hour, commute to the mountains from Fauntleroy Ferry Terminal (where I land, coming in from Vashon) is 1:15 to Snoqualmie Summit. Just did the drive yesterday with my kid, over to Cabin Creek, where he’s turning into a monster on Nordic skis.
On the whole: it’s workable, but if you’re coming from Reno, Chamonix, Carbondale … yeah, it’ll feel like a hassle.
Hope you get some snow down there! RC
Ah, so many American guides come to Chamonix in search of the dream. So many American guides go after 2 or 3 years. Pretty similar to Californians moving to Oregon to ski during a benign, but skiable winter, only to return to the south when the weather shows its true might.
You just don’t understand France, Chamonix….
Chamonix is over hyped and overrun thanks to the internet. And talk about the posers, ugh. Still the mountains are badass and when events align skiing 6 thousand plus vert is fun.
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