Portes du Soleil (Morzine / Les Gets, France ): February 8, 2023

[ChrisC]

After skiing Grand Massif, I drove the short distance (30 min) from its Morillon base to Les Gets/Morzine over a minor mountain pass. After wandering around Morzine a bit, I arrived at my inn located in Montriond - specifically Lac du Montriond. The setting was exceptionally beautiful, great on-site restaurant and the price was right during the week ($65 USD). I was about equal distance from Morzine and the Avoriaz/Ardent portal.

The next morning I decided to park in a garage under the Pleney gondola (13 Euro) since I wanted to walk around Morzine village after skiing - and did not want to deal with parking rules. A free lot is available at the Nyon cable car but it is far removed from Morzine. My entry point was at the Pleney Gondola to the Morzine/Les Gets ski domain setting up a natural clockwise progression.

Again, Morzine/Les Gets is only one small part of the overall Portes du Soliel. However, it is quite cut off from the majority of the ski domain and requires a bus to get to Avoriaz, Chatel, etc. It really exists independently.

My phone died near the end of the day but recorded 90%+. Not a massive vertical place, but still made good stats regardless.

This is the most appropriate shot of Morzine - snowmaking. I tried to ski the steeper terrain off of the Pleney Gondola - but no. Either closed for racing or just no snow with temps in the lower 10s. I skied Olympique to the the D'Atray lift.

However, Morzine/Les Gets is really bad at infrastructure. Horrible. Lifts are mostly old with a few exceptions. Snowmaking is s**t - need to get schooled by Sun Valley, Dolomites, Austria. Morzine/Les Gets bases are likely to close in 15-20 years since they do not have snowmaking to support a modern resort below 1500m. Try being Courmayeur, Mayrhofen, and other reports that have basically given up on ski pistes to town.

I took the Nyon cable car to the La Pointe lift Pointe de Nyon 2019m. Nice views to Mozine.

However, it's all kinda bad. There is one very narrow bowl that is north-facing. Anything else falls off a bad exposure with low elevation. Unimpressive.

Mont Chery view from Nyon

Below is Chamossiere 2000m. The right is the piste Les Creux and left is the official Zone Freeride ( I guess it's avy controlled?)

Now a westward view from Chamossiere to the Arbis piste. Again, lots of bad lifts until this one. And let me get warmed up about the bad skiers.

Chamossiere lifeline - is usually good.

Chamossiere Freeride Zone - nice, but not amazing.

Overall view Chamossiere. The issues: low elevation (mostly under 2000m), not really all that open, bad exposures (a lot of west and south). Just not impressive.

I next went to the large Les Gets bowl. It's Mid-Vail...possibly on steroids. Home to French ski schools snaking down pistes. And Brits who just don't care. They all nominate themselves for "Jerry of the Day" since they cannot carve a turn for their lives. I like they wear a crap hats on their helmet so I can avoid them.

View of Les Gets view - La Rosta 665m

Views of Ranfoilly 1826m

Views of Grand Massif from Ranfoilly

The French trying to communicate with the Brits

View to Ranfoilly from La Rosta. Again, it's Mid-Vail.

OK. I have held my tongue so far. Morzine/Les Gets is a Keystone, Colorado hell! It's really not great - stupid Texans having fun/stupid Brits having fun. Why do any of them ski here - it's crap!. This is the only ESF/Franch Ski School snake that does not take up the slope. Bravo! Now I just need the drunk Brits to do similar.

Looking to Mont Chery from La Turche pi

 

[Tony Crocker]

Not a massive vertical place, but still made good stats regardless.

Now up 137K in 3 days, mind blowing because:
1) All 3 days were at places never skied before, and in the Alps where trails maps are often so distorted as to be misleading.
2) Two of the days involved a decent amount of off piste exploration.

I've had exactly one comparable day, first day in Saalbach with 40,500. But that's Austria with all state of the art lifts, as opposed to several antiques in ChrisC's TRs. And my day was 90+% groomers.

I have to ask, in this particular season, why Morzine/Les Gets? Surely Avoriaz would have gotten you higher up and north facing to where there was more base.

Nonetheless we skied the exact same 3 days in Alpe d'Huez, Les Deux Alpes and Sybelles, totaling less than half the vertical.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

I have to ask, in this particular season, why Morzine/Les Gets? Surely Avoriaz would have gotten you higher up and north facing to where there was more base.

I was about equal distance from Morzine and the Avoriaz/Ardent portal.

Why didn't you opt for Door #2? In different seasons, Tony and I both parked at Ardent, with good results.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I did not park at Ardent but should have. Ardent gives you an easy choice between Avoriaz and Chatel for skiing.