Morzine, France
Morzine is part of the mighty Portes du Soleil ski area which spans two countries (France and Switzerland). We have just come back and loved it …
Our family of two adults & two children (6 & 11) had never been to the area before. It was much better looking and easier to get to then the usual places we go. We usually go to hardcore resorts renowned for the excellent grooming and terrain. Purpose built and ugly. Morzine, Avoriaz and Les Gets were such an improvement.
On the down side (no pun intended) there are LOTS of flat or long, long gentle linking slopes. Not so much trouble for skiers although they have to skate or push for a long way. However, for snowboarders (my wife, myself and our eldest son) they were extremely tedious.
That being said; what they led to was paradise. Helped in no small way by a huge dump of snow the day we arrived and glorious sunshine most of the week, the runs were challenging and varied. As this was our first full-on family snow holiday (i.e. no child care and no lessons for the kids) we knew we would spend most of our time catering for the abilities of Ethan (6). Blues and wide reds were all we could expect. And we needed little more. Every run we did was wide enough to be skiable by Ethan whenever it got steep, had plenty of of piste get-aways allowing Jake and myself to board off into the woods, take a few jumps and ride a few walls before rejoining as a family on the same run.
The opportunity to explore and have fun seemed almost endless. In Avoriaz alone they had the Stash a maze of snaking routes through the trees with rails, jumps and even a tree house. Then there was the large jump park with graded jumps for beginners to experts, a kids park with easier jumps and rails. By the end of the holiday Jake was hitting the slightest bump and getting air where he could. There were so many opportunities for fun.
It could be said that grooming was erratic at best but we loved it, loads of powder every day if you went looking for it.
Lifts throughout the area were good, lots of express chairs and even though the second half of our holiday was in the French and English school holidays the crowds were swallowed up by the vast area by 11am.
Accommodation is rarely close to the lifts and ski-in/ski-out is all but non-existent. However, we found where we stayed (on the East side) we simply cut off the piste (Piste B) at marker 4 and headed to the road. that landed us only a couple of hundred metres away from our apartment.
A quick look through the visitors’ book in our apartment (rented from an owner) revealed that holiday home swapping is alive and well. If you want to know more you will just have to swap your holiday home with this one or others and read the visitor books.
Prices in the resort were reasonable by ski resort standards, even on the mountain, and there was plenty to do away from the slopes if you had any energy left over … but no public pool.
Tags: avoriaz, france, les gets, morzine, ski, skiing, snow, snowboard