If you stay in the Portes du Soleil, the thing to do is the circuit, basically a circular route around the lined resorts. There are of course many variations, we chose to go from Avoriaz, to Les Crosets, Champoussin and Morgins on the Swiss side of the border then back in to France at Chatel, and into Avoriaz. If you fail to make it in time for the last lift back to your own valley of course you are faced with a rather long bus ride or an expensive taxi… We cut the corner a bit and did not go down into Les Crosets and Champoussin to make sure we made it back. I have attempted to mark the route in purple below.
Morgins is an old traditional resort and so we had to get a bus from one side to the other. Literally 5 minutes. Frustratingly they don’t pull the buses up right by the lifts, they stop 100m away and make you clump along the road in ski boots. It is bizarre that we can put multi million pound lift systems up breathtaking cliffs, but we don’t seem to be able to paint a bus stop on the road in a convenient place?
Chatel has come up with a particularly extreme solution to the problem, at the top end of the resort they have 2 lifts that take you from one side to the other. Confusingly these lifts go up over a ridge, and then down the other side. We are very used to going up in a chairlift, the sensation of going down again is really very odd. It would probably be pretty disturbing for anyone afraid of heights!
In the evening the resort had a carnival. We checked the tourist information and were told that it would start at 6:15 for a particular hotel. We rushed to get a good spot to watch the fun, but were a little surprised that nobody else had a sense of urgency….. About half an hour later the promised procession appeared. Think a combination of Mardi Gras, Chinese Dragons, the Padstow Obby Os, but all done at -5C on snow in the dark.
Somewhat at random a couple of guys poured some liquid into some metal frames and lit them to make these interesting flaming things (they are about 8 feet height). They tried to stop some small children sledging down a steep slope towards them, but when they carried on anyway nobody seemed to mind.
After a while the dragons arrived to dance by these… Now I am no expert but paper dragons being held aloft by children in ski boots in close proximity to that many flames feels like a bad idea? Anyway, with no unplanned additional fires, they let off some fireworks as a finale. Of course in the UK this would require large amounts of orange fencing, and men in hard hats and yellow jackets, but these seem to not be needed in this part of the world.