Chalet Lampisterie is located in a charming hamlet of Le Buet a few kilometres from the Swiss border. Going over the Col de Montet (1465m) from Chamonix gives the sense of being quite removed and yet it’s only a short drive from the village of Argentiere and the relative metropolis of Chamonix itself.
Arriving at the chalet is a sheer delight, enhanced by the strange little lane that takes you under a tiny railway bridge. Staying here is not so much like renting a generic ski apartment, more like staying in a friend’s house. The interior of the chalet is warm and welcoming with lots of lovely touches from the pictures on the wall and the quirky light brackets to the sumptuous rugs and sheepskins strewn around. The wood burning stove is simple to use and very effective. The girls loved the mezzanine bedroom and indeed the whole chalet really is as gorgeous as the pictures on the website!
Right in front of the chalet is a beautiful stream crossed by a troll bridge that links into well-signed routes that will take the keen walker all over the mountain. They were still too snowy for us to really explore but they looked like lovely routes.
The nearest small supermarket was in Argentiere which has pretty much everything you might need (there is a small boulangerie and a grocers in nearby Vallorcine but the opening times were a bit mysterious) with a bigger supermarket just off the main road in Chamonix. The charming, family-run Hotel Le Buet has a good restaurant and we can confirm their birthday cakes are excellent too but generally we tended to eat in the chalet as it has all you need for catering. We especially liked the teabags, coffee pods, oils, herbs and such everyday flavours and ingredients that are such a bore to take with you in tiny quantities when you’re self-catering!
A short walk from the chalet and just above the Hotel Le Buet is the useful little ski area of La Poya; two drag lifts lead to surprisingly varied gradient of green and blue slopes, perfect for beginners or a gentle warm-up. There is a little office for the ESF too and it’s all enhanced by the presence of the splendid cafe in a renovated airstream caravan, with brightly-coloured former cable car gondolas as individual dining areas. The burgers there really are “the best on the mountain” as a local declared.
The recommendation to use the local ski hire shop in Le Buet worked very well as they also have a shop at the bottom of the lift at Vallorcine – easy for swaps and returns. The main ESF office is here too, they were really helpful and friendly and our children’s instructor was brilliant. Progress from La Poya to the Balme ski area (above Vallorcine) was straightforward and the ESF instructor was happy to meet in either area.
Despite it being so late in the season and even though the village sits at about 1300m the pistes were in excellent condition in the morning, even at La Poya. We were hoping to ski further afield in Argentiere (lots of reds, not many blues) and Flegere-Brevent but in the end, with our children taking lessons in the Domaine de Balme, we stayed there and there was plenty of skiing to entertain us.
The other advantage of going late in the season was that the roads were clear and were very good for cycling, with a stage of the Tour de France 2016 due to have a summit finish just over the border (under the dam you can see from the Vallorcine lift) in Finhaut, Switzerland. We didn’t use the little train at all but wished we had!
In the afternoons when the snow started to slush up we were able to explore the area a little and can recommend the Montenvers train ride up the Mont Blanc massif from Chamonix. At the end of the ride the station overlooks the Mer de Glace (glacier) which you can (if you’ve got 450 steps worth in your legs aft
