Quote:
Originally Posted by kaby
winnercircle,
Mainly the off piste. Just so much cool lift-accessible stuff to do. Multiple natural half pipes & glades.
In addition to that, the runs themselves are fun and have a lot of variety.
Suggestions for better ones? My sample size is only 6 or so
Portes du soleil is usually good in January-February and gets good snowfall most of the time. There's usually not much snow or good snow quality at other times though so unless you like riding park, I wouldn't suggest going at other times of the year (unless it's a particularly good season). Avoriaz especially has a lot of good spots which are almost untracked but are accessible with a tiny bit of walking which puts a lot of people off. I went this year and found like 5 untracked runs that were all <5-10min walk. Also for some reason everyone wakes up late even when it snows a lot during the night so the first 2 hours you can get good runs.
La clusaz is really good for off-piste when it snows well. Tons of easily accessible yet somewhat hidden spots which allow untracked or almost untracked runs. Again max altitude is about 2.4k or so (then again that's a problem for most french resorts, except 3 valleys, les 2 alpes and tignes).
I haven't been in les 2 alpes and tignes in the winter but they both have a lot of coverage and are quite high (3.x km) and have friends riding winters there and say it's good.
I don't go to the southern french alps a lot but definitely look into it since they are kind of on/off. You either get tons of fresh snow or very little snow, but when they get a lot, they really do get a lot, and they are also less crowded (limited experience).
If you're into park, then portes du soleil, les 2 alpes, 3 valleys are all good.
The main thing about french alps is that a lot of the resorts usually have decent powder spots but the problem is that unless it's a good season, it doesn't snow that much and you get these random temperature spikes where it's really warm for a week and the snow turns to **** and melts really quickly (like this week, +15c at 600m, was +7 at 1800 the other day)
Although it's more expensive and it's switzerland, zermatt and verbier have very good off-piste spots and have tons of beginners so the off-piste isn't as crowded as other places. They're also both 3.x km so snow is a bit better. Be careful if you're gonna go to hidden/untracked spots without a guide though (duh), a few of my friends have had close calls in verbier at spots that initially looked OK.
Last edited by Dr.FatCat; 03-07-2014 at 05:15 PM.