 Poster: A snowHead
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Getting there
Sleazyjet from Luton at 6:25, arriving at Geneva around 9am. Travelling with Handluggage only; I got my boots, helmet, clothes all into a soft sports bag that fitted the Easyjet Handluggage dimensions. We booked a car from Europcar (Swiss side, came with Winter tyres as standard). St Gervais is only 1 hr drive along the E25, so without needing to wait for the luggage carousel we were sitting in Gervais having a coffee on the high street by 10:30. St Gervais is only at 800m so there aren't loads of switchbacks to negotiate before you reach village level
Ski hire
We hired from Loca Sport in St Gervais. No special reason for this, and therefore I couldn't recommend it or say it was any better or worse than anyone else. It was easy to find (next to the supermarket) and had on street parking outside... But none of the St Gervais ski-hire shops are near the gondola
The Hotel
We booked into the Hotel Val Joly. It was the only place with vacancies for the weekend we wanted (still French school holidays). It is a basic hotel, family run but no real frills. The ski-locker is a wooden hut outside the front door. Not terribly secure, and not heated....so we kept our boots in our room. The hotel is a 15 minute walk from the town centre, which was just enough to work up an appetite (we didn't eat in the hotel, although it did have a restaurant. Breakfast was continental and functional, with no option for a full fry-up.
The free ski-bus picked up and dropped off right outside the hotel, and took 5minutes to get to the gondola.
St Gervais is an historic alpine town. Lots of restaurants and brasseries... The only 'pub' is the Pur Bar; which had live music on Thursday night. The pizzeria was ALWAYS booked, and even a table for 2 required a 1hr wait...but the food was great and worth waiting for. There are more traditional French bars where one could sit and drink if the hipster style of the Pur Bar is too intimidating.
Day 1
They have an option of a cheaper lift pass from 11am onwards, or from 1pm onwards. We were in time for the 11am onwards pass. There was high winds and many lifts were closed. Due to this, they were giving a further 20% discount at the chaos heirs desk. We took the gamble... And found that all the local lifts around St Gervais (and Bettex) were open and we had plenty of skiing.
St Gervais is reputed to have a single Red run that comes down to the village.... But it is hard to imagine there being enough snow for that to be open. Instead the gondola takes you up to the 'Bettex' level which is where the skiing begins
Day 2
With the wind dropping it was a clear blue sky. We were first up the gondola (8:30) and then first up from Bettex (9:15). Over to the Mont Joux area and continual circuits of the Reds around here. We did venture down the blues to the villages of St Nicolas and Les Chattrix, but due to the warm conditions this lower snow was slushy and it wasn't worth the effort. Similarly the journey down to the bottom of La Princess is only worth it if you had to! The food and drink over here at all the Gervais/Nicolas restaurants was very reasonable with prices similar to drinking and eating in a London Pub.
Mont Joly was still closed, and remained so for the duration of our trip, which was a shame, because we'd been told it is good up there.
Day 3
Today we went over to Megeve, and then over to Cote2000. This area was being prepared for the Ski-cross and Moguls World Cups later in the week. This meant that one of the black sections was closed, but the rest were open. On the whole, we didn't feel that the blacks were very 'blacky' and some of the Reds were decidedly 'Bluey'. This might have been down to the warm conditions turning the snow to a sticky slush by early afternoon.... Which certainly made the Blues worth avoiding (unless you enjoy polling yourself along a flat field of white glue!).
The two criticisms of the Megeve-Cote2000 side of the resort were
- the two blue button pulls of Lanchettes and Rochefort are both very slow and had really long queues.
- the food and drink on this side is stupidly expensive. €30 for a burger and chips! We looked at loads of restaurants and they were all charging similar amounts.
Day 4
We checked out the hotel and drove to the gondola by 8:45am. This time, we bought a lift pass for the morning (until 1pm) at a reduced price. The warm weather was clearly having an effect on the slopes, and while nothing was closed or becoming bare, the snow cover was sticky by 11:30 which had the unintended effect of enticing learners onto Reds.
Journey Home
The curse of a short ski trip struck me again... This time with a broken plane and a 5hr+ delay in Geneva.... I'm still waiting for a plane while I write this.
In summary
I would go to St Gervais again... It is very 'unBritish' which is nice, and the village has character, although not an après-ski heaven, it was a nice place for two middle aged people to ski, drink, eat, and sleep! It is close to Geneva, so handy for a sneaky trip.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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How nice to have a report about St Gervais, for a change. I love it, but have only been there in summer and autumn. Yes, Megeve is very expensive - I had lunch yesterday in Praz sur Arly, just one valley along on a mountain terrace with a stunning view, less than £12 for a salade savoyard, a beer and a coffee. I think you'd like Praz sur Arly, too. Out of French holidays it has very quiet slopes, no queues and a fast 6 man chair from the bottom, with a big free car park. Some stiff drags in the area, though, which keep the riff raff away....
I am very impressed that you got all your stuff into hand luggage. Way to travel!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@pam w, a friend of mine never travels with checked in luggage, which made a 3 week trip from Australia including a formal wedding and a week's alpine hiking all the more impressive...all in hand luggage...I have no idea how he does it.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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@jamescollings, as @pam w, says, lovely to have a report for St G - we too, love it there, and have had several summer and winter holidays with the summer especially lovely.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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A key part of the motivation for doing this report was because I couldn't find a recent report when I was booking this up a month ago. I'm sure there will be others along soon adding in more useful tips for future visitors (like where you can get a coffee in Megeve without needing a mortgage!!)
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@jamescollings,
I've skied a fair amount in St Gervais (several weeks based in Bettex). Your review is very fair I think. But I'd add/reiterate a few points:
St Gervais is a lovely town I think but relaxed and charming rather than party central as you say.
The transfer from GVA has to be one of the easiest going - vast majority of the journey is autoroute then a few switchbacks up to 800m meaning that it is rare that the road is difficult.
ski hire - you could consider hiring from a shop in Bettex - think you can leave your skis up there which would save a bit of faff to and from the hotel. Suspect it is a little more expensive though. Claude Penz in Bettex is a good shop (service and kit).
ski down to St Gervais - you are right, this is normally closed. It was open quite a bit in Jan and Feb this year. I skied it once (day trip from Les Contamines) and it is quite good fun, not pisted and winds its way across fields, past gardens and across roads in an entertaining fashion. Problem is that most people will only consider it as last run down and it is probably not a good idea for intermediates with tired legs
ski down to Princess - it is low so in mild conditions or thin snow cover it is best avoided but often earlier in the season it is very nice indeed. There are some lovely meadows and bits of tree skiing between the pistes on that side which are not obvious to get at. I could tell you but I'd have to kill you  (if anyone wants to know I might be persuadable)
Megeve - agree that the piste-side restaurant arbitrage between St Gervais and Megeve is mental, almost funny (until you pay Eur 32 for sausage and mash). Megeve does seem to be very popular with a type of wealthy French skier who feels that they SHOULD go skiing but doesn't really like it that much. We tend not to get over to Cote 2000 side because of restaurant pricing and queues for the linking cable car at the end of the day. The skiing is perfectly nice over there but not better than the St Gervais side.
Mont Jolie - quite often closed for avalanche risk. It has steep grassy slopes which are very avalanche prone. It is the high point of the area so has allure from that point of view but the main piste is nothing special - contrived winding trail but the black on the shoulder is never pisted and remarkably steep in places - fun if you like that kind of thing. But I think the main point of Mont Jolie is the off-piste straight down to the chair. If neither that or the black sound your kind of thing then you didn't miss much.
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Thanks Jedster.
As a frequent visitor to the area... you might be able to confirm for me..... I'm not an "off-pister", but looking at the extensive amount of smooth flat meadowland that stretches between pisted runs, it looks to me as though the Evasion area is really rather good for off-piste skiing... and especially so if you are trying it out for the first time and want to just "have a go" in relative safety?
Sadly they hadn't had a decent dump of fresh snow for over a week... so it was all tracked-out... but it did look like it would be appealing.
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but looking at the extensive amount of smooth flat meadowland that stretches between pisted runs, it looks to me as though the Evasion area is really rather good for off-piste skiing... and especially so if you are trying it out for the first time and want to just "have a go" in relative safety?
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definitely the latter point. It's not got huge quantities of off-piste and the biggest areas are up around Mont Jolie / St Nicholas but the pleasant, safe stuff on Mont Arbois is a great place to start. Of course there is a LOT of off-piste potential in the Evasion but most of it is up the road in Les Contamines
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FAQ
