Les Gets + Morzine, FR 01/27/14

Even though I've skied several times in the Alps over the past ten years, I'd had such good luck with Austria, I kept going back; however, this season, I decided to make my long-awaited first visit to the French Alps and chose a ski region with a mind-blowing amount of terrain -- 400 miles of marked trails, to say nothing of the offpiste acreage --the Portes du Soleil, whose literal translation is "The Doors (or Gateway) to the Sun."

First, a bit of logistics. Many U.S. skiers go on about how much they'd love to go to the Alps, but never get around to it because the logistics are too daunting; you lose travel days; it's easier to fly out west, etc. Here's some food for thought and praise for the Geneva airport, which is incredibly convenient for many of the largest lift-served ski areas on earth. How convenient?

My nonstop flight spent an extra hour on the ground at Newark waiting to be de-iced during a snowstorm, but even with a 6:45 pm departure, we landed in Geneva at 7:40 the next morning. Our airport shuttle was a half hour late leaving the airport and after a quick 55-minute drive to the resort, a short breakfast, and checking into my hotel, I was still on the lift at 10:30, which is even earlier than if I'd taken the morning flight to Salt Lake City and sprinted to one of the Cottonwoods ski areas.

Long story short, you don't lose a travel day on the outbound trip and can ski at least six hours on your arrival day. Now, some people may prefer to spend the first day taking it easy and recovering from jet lag, but I'll sleep when I'm dead -- I'm there to ski. Due to the six-hour difference, there's no way around spending a travel day on the return trip, but hey, by then, you'll need some recovery time:



I'm headquartering during my first three days in Les Gets (pronounced LAY SHJAY), a cute village with family-oriented atmosphere and terrain (mostly intermediate). The map above makes it look a lot smaller than it is. They picked up a foot Thursday night. With the large crowds from Geneva along with many destination visitors, the cut trails had been scraped down to a hard base in many areas, but the offpiste (even five feet from the trails) was soft as could be with piles of lightly chopped pow. Today was really overcast with flat light, so not tremendously photogenic. Moreover, I was alone: no in-action pix. Here's what I have:





Lifts open at 9:30 and run until 4:30 or 5:00 pm:





Lots of atmospheric restaurants all over the mountain:







Sunday night and it's nuking here at valley level right now so I'll hopefully have better visuals tomorrow.

You're hardcore, no sleep, foreign land 5.5 hrs of skiing..
The terrain looks Colorado esk..Even a hint of ParkCity..

Niiiiice...
Keep the TR's coming James.  I got 5 days of work to that will need some quality distraction.

TD

It snowed hard for several hours last night, which resulted in 4-6 inches that refreshed things nicely. I met first thing with the press and communications director of Les Gets, who took me and a couple Spanish journalists on a tour of Les Gets and a good portion of Morzine, which has higher and steeper terrain at upper elevations with correspondingly deeper snow.



On-piste was nice and soft with lots of loose snow:





At one point, we took Le Petit Train (the little train) to connect us with a lift on the other side of the village: a nice variation of a bus.




By late morning, the sun finally came out and we lapped some bootcuff-deep untracked in the Chamoissiere sector, which had a nice steep pitch.






And then it was time for a proper French on-mountain lunch.


Le Vaffieu


Fried Camembert For Me


A Home-Plate-Sized Puff Pastry For My Host


Dessert: a double shot of espresso with creme brulee, raspberry and blueberry tarts, and chocolate/coffee pudding.


After lunch, it clouded up and we kept going through a thick flurry of graupel, which always skis well for some reason. At 3:40, it was time to head back to Les Gets:



After two days, I've skied maybe 10% of the total terrain here, if that. This place is bloody huge.

Arrrggghhhh ....

PLEASE.... No more !  You're killing me...  

Ok, not really.  Just jealous.  
You may now continue with your regularly  scheduled broadcast.  

TD