Things to do in Chamonix for non-skiers: the day off the slopes with a group

Not skiing in Chamonix is not second best. The valley's two most visited sights, the Aiguille du Midi and the Mer de Glace, need no skis at all. Doing them fourteen at a time is the hard part.

Chamonix without skis: what the valley gives you, and what winter takes away

Chamonix-Mont-Blanc is a working valley with a town in the middle of it, not a resort built around its pistes. You can therefore spend a whole winter week here without putting skis on. In a purpose-built resort that would be a wasted trip.

Neither of its two most visited sights needs anything more of you than a seat and a ticket. The Aiguille du Midi cable car climbs to 3,842 m, with a lift to the summit terrace and the Step into the Void, a glass box hanging off the rock face. The Montenvers train, a small red rack railway, climbs from Chamonix to Montenvers at 1,913 m in twenty minutes.

Neither has anything to do with skiing. You take them the way you would visit a museum, and they often fall on the day the skiers hand their skis back.

Winter does take things away. The high trails are under snow, mountain biking and climbing are out of season, and some of the valley's café terraces shut for the season. That leaves the high-mountain sights, the things you do on snow, and everything that happens down in town.

It also takes away certainty. A gust of wind can close the Aiguille du Midi cable car, sometimes for a whole day. In practice you do not pin that outing to a fixed date three months ahead; you keep it for the first clear morning of the week.

Read also: Things to do in Chamonix, winter and summer

Things to do in Chamonix for non-skiers when there are ten or fourteen of you

Skiing needs no timed ticket, no minimum age and no booking. Fourteen skiers buy fourteen lift passes and ride the same gondola without anyone organising a thing. Off the pistes, almost every outing imposes at least one of those three, and a couple cap the number of people as well.

You drive a sledge in groups of four to six, with a qualified handler, in forty-five-minute slots. A tandem paraglide is one passenger per pilot. So fourteen people who want to go dog sledding need three to four separate runs.

Here are ten winter outings and what each one demands of the group. Where an operator publishes nothing, the table says so rather than filling the gap.

Outing	How many at once	Age and access	Price per person	Times	Booking
Montenvers train, ice cave and gondola included	The whole group	170 steps down into the ice cave, no wheelchair access	€49.70 adult, €28 aged 5 to 14 and 65 plus, free under 5. Group rate for parties of 20 or more only	Opens 8.30am, last departure 3pm to see the cave	No
Aiguille du Midi, stopping at the Plan de l'Aiguille middle station	The whole group	Barred under 3, not advised under 5. The limit applies to the cable car, not just the summit	€43 adult, €36.60 aged 5 to 14 and 65 plus, free under 5	First car up 8.10am, last 5.15pm	Yes
Aiguille du Midi, up to the 3,842 m summit	The whole group	Same	€60.20 to €83 adult, €51.20 to €70.60 aged 5 to 14 and 65 plus, free under 5	Same	Yes, with a boarding slot
Ice rink at the Richard Bozon sports centre	The whole group	All ages	€11.30 adult, €9.50 child, skate hire included	2pm to 5pm outside school holidays; 2pm to 6pm plus one late session a week at Christmas and in February. Desk shuts 45 min early	No
Swimming pool at the same centre	The whole group	Under-10s must have an adult with them	€6.70 adult, €4.90 child	Winter hours not published, check before you travel	No
Wellness area, four saunas and a steam room	The whole group	12 and over, under-18s accompanied	Charged on top of pool entry, rate not published	Same	No
Marked snowshoe trails, twenty in the valley	The whole group	Depends on the trail	Free to walk, kit hire extra. Guided outing from €50	Daytime	No, unless guided
Toboggan runs, seven in the valley	The whole group	All ages	Usually free, a few sit at the top of a lift and need a pedestrian pass	Daytime	No
Dog sledding	4 to 6 per run	Not published, ask	€95 to drive your own team, €120 as a passenger	9.30am, 10.15am, 1.30pm and 2.15pm at one operator. 45 minutes	Yes, and early
QC Terme, the valley's big spa	Not published	14 and over, under-18s accompanied	Not published; group rate for 10 or more	Daily, evening entry from 5.30pm	Compulsory

Six of those ten need no booking: the Montenvers train, the ice rink, the pool, the wellness area, the snowshoe trails and the toboggan runs. Snowshoeing and tobogganing cost nothing. The rink and the pool cost under €12 a head each.

Both Aiguille du Midi options have to be booked, and the summit is the dearest item on the list after the huskies. Dog sledding and the spa are the two that set the group's rhythm rather than the other way round, and dog sledding is the only one on the table with a hard cap on numbers.

Age rules out as much as numbers do

Numbers are not the only constraint, and they are not the hardest one. An outing can take fourteen people at once and still be off limits to two or three of them.

The Aiguille du Midi is the obvious case. The ride is barred below 3 and not advised below 5, and that is not just red tape: you go from the valley floor to 3,842 m in twenty minutes, into air at minus twenty in winter. A four-year-old, someone who is short of breath after a flight of stairs and anyone prone to altitude sickness do not all belong on the same lift.

The Mer de Glace poses the same problem differently. The ticket covers the gondola down from Montenvers towards the glacier, but you still walk down 170 steps into the cave, which is cut fresh into the ice every year. Neither the steps down nor the climb back can be avoided, and there is no wheelchair access.

Sort people by what they can do rather than by what they fancy. The Montenvers train stays open to everyone, including those who will not go down to the cave: there is a restaurant and a viewpoint at the top, and waiting there for the others is no great hardship. Nobody has to go down who cannot manage it.

The outings that take the whole group without booking

Four of them fill a day for fourteen people, and the first is not on the table above because it is a pass rather than a place.

Start with going up to meet the skiers. A pedestrian pass opens the lifts to people who are not skiing, which is what lets you have lunch up the mountain with the ones who ski. That only works if they are skiing an area the pass covers.

You buy that pass per person, for two days minimum, from €113. It covers the Brévent-Flégère and Balme lifts, but it does not cover Les Grands Montets or Les Houches, and it includes both sections of the Aiguille du Midi cable car, so the summit as well, plus the Montenvers train and the valley buses: what the pedestrian pass covers, and how a group uses it goes through it sector by sector.

The sums are worth doing before you buy anything. Single tickets for the Aiguille du Midi and Montenvers come to €92.70 if you stop at the middle station, but €132.70 if you go to the summit in high season, so the €113 pass only pays for itself in the second case, lifts and buses included.

Next comes the Richard Bozon sports centre, in the middle of town. It has an ice rink that runs all year and a pool with four saunas and a steam room. It is the easiest place in the valley to put fourteen people of different ages under one roof, as long as you allow for two age limits: under-10s must be accompanied in the water, and the wellness area takes nobody under 12.

You still have to turn up at the right time. The rink never opens before 2pm, and outside the school holidays it runs for three hours only.

There is also the snow itself. The valley has twenty marked snowshoe trails and seven toboggan runs, free to walk and free to sledge, except for two or three runs that sit at the top of a lift and so need a pass to reach.

These are the only snow activities that take a whole group with no cap and no time slot, and some valley-floor trails take under an hour, with no climbing, and children manage them. Kit is easy to hire, and a guided outing with a qualified leader starts at around €50 a head.

And there is the town itself, which is easy to overlook. Chamonix has a pedestrianised centre, a Saturday market, a cinema, restaurants that will seat a party of fourteen if you give them notice, and two museums a few streets apart: the Musée Alpin, and the Espace Tairraz, which covers crystals and mountaineering.

Getting around when the skiers have taken the cars

The cars leave in the morning with whoever is skiing, and the people staying behind have to sort themselves out. The valley bus and train solve it, as long as you know which ticket you are holding.

A valid lift pass counts as a ticket on the valley buses, and so does a pedestrian pass. Anyone holding neither pays the fare: €1.70 a single, €5 for the day, €19 for the week.

The guest card changes that arithmetic. Your host hands it over on arrival, and it is worth asking for if nobody offers. It makes the train free the length of the valley, from Servoz to Vallorcine and every halt in between, Chamonix included, and it gets you reduced bus tickets online: €5 for two days and €10 for the week, compared with €19 at the full weekly rate.

Read also: How you move between the valley's ski areas

What to book before you leave

Everything else needs sorting in advance, and a group has less room for manoeuvre than a family of four.

Dog sledding is the tightest case. Runs go out in groups of four to six, on four departures a day at any one operator, at 9.30am, 10.15am, 1.30pm and 2.15pm. Fourteen people therefore fill three to four slots, which is a whole day at one operator: the first two departures follow each other, but the third leaves three and a quarter hours after the second.

The valley has three operators, and that is the way round the problem. You split the group between two of them on the same morning rather than stretching one outing from 9.30am to 3pm. That gets agreed when you book, not the night before.

Tandem paragliding books up for the same reason, only worse: one flight, one passenger. Fourteen people who want to fly need fourteen separate flights, and take-off depends on the wind and the cloud base. Plan it with a spare day, never for the last day of the trip.

The valley's big spa, QC Terme, requires booking and offers a group rate for parties of ten or more. Two limits are worth knowing before you take a family there: nobody under 14 is admitted, and 14- to 17-year-olds must be with a parent or guardian. That is the real difference from a rented chalet's own spa, where no age limit and no opening hours apply and the group sets its own rules: our guide to chalets with a hot tub covers what to check.

And then there is the restaurant table, which does not look like a booking and is one. A mountain restaurant that will seat fourteen on a Wednesday in February has to be booked weeks ahead, not the evening before. It is often the hardest seat to get all week.

February half term changes the timing of all this

British families come out at half term, which falls inside the French February holidays. Those run for about four weeks across three regional zones, and half term sits squarely inside that stretch whichever week you pick. It is the busiest stretch of the season in this valley.

Everything in this article holds that week, except the timing and the prices. Morning slots go first, operators are fully booked several weeks ahead, and the Aiguille du Midi boarding slots disappear soonest of all. Half term also sits in high season, so budget the top of the Aiguille du Midi range, €83 rather than €60.20.

That turns the advice above on its head. Outside the school holidays you can take a boarding slot the day before for the morning after, and wait for clear weather. Over half term you fix the day in advance and take the weather you are given.

Read also: Planning a ski trip with a large group: who decides what, and what to book first

One last thing to settle when you book, rather than after: what happens if the weather cancels the outing. Terms vary from one operator to the next, from a rescheduled date to a credit note to a lost deposit. Asking before you pay takes a minute and saves an unpleasant conversation on the spot.

What to do in Chamonix when the weather decides for you

On some days none of the above works at altitude. Wind shuts the lifts, the cloud base sits at 1,500 m, and going up the Aiguille du Midi would mean paying up to €83 to look at grey.

Those days have a simple rule: go down instead of up. The sports centre, the two museums and the cinema are not weather-dependent, and the town still works when the lifts are shut.

One caveat, because everyone has the same idea on the same day. The rink never opens before 2pm, and the pool fills up as soon as the lifts shut. A bad morning is better spent in the museums, in town, or back at the chalet.

It is also the day when staying in a working valley beats a high-altitude resort. There is a town down below, with shops, a cinema and cafés that do not live off one week's holidaymakers alone.

You make the real decision the evening before, not in the morning. Météo-France bulletins give the wind at altitude, the thing that closes cable cars, and the twenty-four-hour forecast is far better than the three-day one. A group that keeps two options open and picks one over dinner rarely gets it wrong.

Then there is the day the group wants nothing planned. It comes round most weeks, and there is nothing to organise for it. That day, what the chalet itself holds is what counts.

At Bonami it goes one of two ways: indoors, using the spa on the ground floor and the cinema room and gym in the basement, or out, with the Aiguille du Midi or the Mer de Glace in the morning and the town centre after lunch. Both happen, often in the same week. If you are after a chalet that holds a whole group on a bad-weather day, tell us your dates and we will come back to you within 24 hours.

Chamonix without skis: common questions

The questions that come up when part of the group is not skiing.

How much does a day in Chamonix without skiing cost?

Anything from nothing to over €130 a head, meals aside. The snowshoe trails and toboggan runs are free to use, and a day taking in the ice rink and the pool comes to €18 a person. Altitude is another matter: €43 per adult for the Aiguille du Midi's middle station, €60.20 to €83 for the summit, €49.70 for the Montenvers train with the ice cave, and €95 or €120 for forty-five minutes of dog sledding, so a day taking in the summit and Montenvers tops €130 an adult.

How old do you have to be to go up the Aiguille du Midi?

The ride is barred below 3 and not advised below 5, and the limit applies to the cable car rather than to the summit alone. You go from the valley floor to 3,842 m in twenty minutes, into air at minus twenty in winter. For a group with young children the Montenvers train is the nearest thing to a high-mountain outing without an age limit, free under 5, provided anyone who cannot manage the ice cave's 170 steps waits at the top.

Can fourteen people go dog sledding on the same day?

Yes, but not in the same place. Runs are driven in groups of four to six and one operator has only four departures a day, so fourteen people fill three to four slots and spend the whole day there. The valley has three operators, and splitting the group between two of them on the same morning solves it, provided you book several weeks ahead, or earlier still over half term.

Do you need a lift pass to use the valley buses if you are not skiing?

No, but you do need a ticket: a valid lift pass counts as one, and so does a pedestrian pass. Anyone holding neither pays €1.70 a single, €5 for the day or €19 for the week. The guest card you are given on arrival makes the train free from Servoz to Vallorcine and gets you reduced bus tickets online, €5 for two days and €10 for the week.

What is there to do in Chamonix without skiing when the weather is bad?

Go down instead of up. The Richard Bozon sports centre, the Musée Alpin, the Espace Tairraz, the cinema and the shops are not weather-dependent, whereas a cable car closes in wind and a high-mountain sight shows nothing under cloud. Watch the clock, since the rink never opens before 2pm, and decide the evening before: the twenty-four-hour wind forecast at altitude is far more reliable than the three-day one.