Switzerland

More snow on Thursday, which was good news, but it did mean that we could not do the full Portes du Soleil tour via Switzerland. Nevertheless, an excellent days skiing led by our guide, Ed.

Today was our final outing, and with a clear blue sky and perfect snow conditions we decided to go for the grand tour to Switzerland, via Avoriaz. The scenery was if anything even more stunning than in Morzine/Les Gets, and the pistes on the Swiss side were so well groomed that we skiied down what we thought was a blue run for some way before we realized that it was actually a black. After a long morning's ski, with a brief coffee stop at the top of a long run through the trees, we eventually returned back into France, via the notorious Swiss Wall mogul field run. Fortunately we were going up on the chairlift rather than skiing down, and were well placed to see other brave (crazy?) skiers attempting the descent of the fourth most difficult run in the world, with varying degrees of success.

Eventually we got back to Avoriaz for a late lunch in the sun, followed by the last runs of the holiday, including an interesting diversion down some skicross terrain. We ended the day with a large and well deserved vin chaud, before heading down in the cable car to Morzine and to our hotel.

It has been an excellent week and has certainly justified trying out the Portes do Soleil ski area.

 

 

Morzine

I would not normally have opted for Morzine for a ski holiday as it is fairly low and does not have a reputation for good snow coverage later in the season. However, this year the whole of the Alps has experienced an abundance of snow, and Morzine was no exception. So a good opportunity for a skiing holiday in the heart of the Portes du Soleil ski area, supposedly the largest interconnected ski domain in the world, stretching from Les Gets via Morzine and Avoriaz all the way to Switzerland.

Our first three days have been superb, with a great snow base topped up by some fresh falls on Monday. Our first two days were spent in the Morzine area and today we headed up to Avoriaz for an excellent day's skiing on some perfect pistes.