About Morzine.
Comprising 650km of linked ski runs, The Portes du Soleil the biggest ski area in the world! Morzine is at the centre of this vast web, making it a winter holiday destination that is hard to beat. The town itself retains a traditional Alpine village feel, with artisanal cheese and sausage shops, intricate wooden chalets and delicate pastry shops.
Morzine is the perfect base to explore the huge Portes du Soleil area and there are many outdoor activities to enjoy.
For access to the ski runs, the Pleney bubble operates next to the town centre. From the top you can access the very attractive and tree-lined slopes of Morzine and Les Gets. You can even cross the lovely alpine village of Les Gets to enjoy the sunny, quieter slopes of Mont Chery.
Across the other side of Morzine, about a five minute walk in ski boots (or a two minute ride in the little train) is the Super Morzine telecabine, where you can find some lovely and quiet tree lined blue runs, or ski across to Avoriaz and into Switzerland and the sprawling Portes du Soleil area.
About Les Gets.
Les Gets is an attractive, small, family-friendly resort with a very French feel to it, partly because of appetising food and wine shops lining the main street. The area of slopes it shares with Morzine is the most extensive local network in the region, and in some respects Les Gets is the better base for that shared area.
If you have a car, you can quite easily access the main Portes du Soleil circuit by driving to the gondola at Ardent. If you don’t, the circuit is much more easily accessed from Morzine, with its quicker access to Avoriaz.
About Avoriaz.
Avoriaz is ideally located in the middle of the Portes du Soleil ski area, with access to high-altitude skiing for everyone among the prettiest panoramas in the Alps. You will ski through stunning countryside, with open panoramic views of the Dents du Midi and Dents Blanches.
Whether you like to take it easy or push yourself to the limits, you will find a wide choice of routes on varied terrain, skiing down into broad, open valleys on pistes running through the trees. It’s a family skiing experience that appeals to skiers of all ages! The altitude guarantees snow cover from December to April, with an average of 8 meters of snow every winter.
About the Portes du Soleil.
For skiers and snowboarders, the Franco-Swiss area known as the Portes du Soleil, or Gateway to the Sun, has a few tricks up its sleeve. First, there’s its size. The area jostles with the Trois Vallées and Paradiski areas in France, and the Franco-Italian Milky Way, for the title of “world’s biggest ski area”. The Portes du Soleil’s 650km of pistes and 197 lifts make a convincing case when it comes to scale.
The fact that Portes du Soleil is the closest major ski area to Geneva airport gives it a definite edge: the transfer time to the village of Les Gets is under an hour. For Brits driving there, the Portes du Soleil’s glistening mountain tops are the first snow visible after the 10-hour drive south from Calais.
For those looking for freestyle kicks, the Portes du Soleil boasts seven parks, four free-to-use airbags (kickers that give way to inflatable landing areas, so you can practice your backflips) and a huge superpipe in Avoriaz (the same dimensions as the halfpipe used at the Olympics). And then there’s “The Stash” a freestyle ski and snowboarding run carved among the trees of the Lindarets area, on the French side. Here the jumps and rails are made from tree stumps and rough-cut timber.