Anyone been to Chamonix?

Have to say if you are not planning where to ski (argument for linked resort) then you are not planning to ski offpiste. Last thing at night at first thing in morning you need to be checking weather/avalanche bulletin and decide altitude, aspect and slope angle.
Good heli-skiing withing 45min of Chamonix, have heard that is pretty reasonable ~100 Euro a drop if you can fill the helicopter.

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Heli-skiing

out of Croix de Coeur is certainly not cheap at CHF 380+ per person, including a guide for the day. But it would be an experience. For example:

http://www.tzoumazbooking.com/web/?page_id=1618&lang=en

Looks like you have to be 7 people plus guide to get that rate. I'm assuming it's actually CHF 2'660 for the 8-seater helicopter including guide, then split pro-rata between up to 7 people.
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Mountain Cabins

Another option might be to stay up in a mountain hut. The Cabin du Mt.Fort is the one in the Verbier ski area, but it's only one of a string connecting Mt.Blanc to the Matterhorn. This certainly would be a novel experience ...

http://www.cabanemontfort.ch/

It's CHF 52/person per night or CHF 92/person, half-board. I don't think that you'd necessarily make this your main accomodation, but it could be something worth trying out for a couple of nights. This is the one I'm familiar with, but I daresay there would be some in most of the larger Alpine ski Domaines.

Ranchero_1979 wrote:Have to say if you are not planning where to ski (argument for linked resort) then you are not planning to ski offpiste. Last thing at night at first thing in morning you need to be checking weather/avalanche bulletin and decide altitude, aspect and slope angle.
Good heli-skiing withing 45min of Chamonix, have heard that is pretty reasonable ~100 Euro a drop if you can fill the helicopter.

This is not necessarily true. We check bulletins and conditions so generally have an idea where and when it can be OK to go (with care), but that gives us many options so the rest is often decided on a spot. Yesterday I thought we'd stay on itineraries as conditions were amazing so no need to venture far, at most I thought Mont-Gelé would be our fun for the day, but after seeing the queues when we reached top of Mont-Fort (which took us some 1.5 hour and Mont-Gelé doesn't usually open till late morning)the decision was to go off the backside - at least in this way we were not to see any lifts for couple of hours and we knew that we were having a good window of opportunity to use: relatively stable - the main danger there is at the exit, so it has to be cleared before 1 pm - and we had this time, good weather, and we also saw guides headed that way with clients. And we still managed to get up Mont-Gelé later in the day when crowds of fair weather skiers were having lunch and the queues to get back to the resort were minimal. This is what skiing in linked resort gives you - options and an easy way to change them and still have an amazing day. But Verbier is very special in this respect due to ease of access to some spectacular terrain. One of our friends is an amazing skier from Tyrol, who has been skiing since he was 2, but above that he is also full of knowledge, can read terrain and spot any danger and know how to get out of it.

https://youtu.be/zMBCYDp_79I

Nice little snow report giving an idea of the terrain available. Offers a mountain experience like no other resort in the world.

Skied the Breche Puiseux yesterday, physical ascent (and some pretty steep kick turns required) but good conditions on way down. Slightly heavy spring snow but still very pleasant.

http://www.chamonixtopo.com/breche-puiseux