 Poster: A snowHead
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Resort: Morillon
Country: France
Domain: Grand Massif
Author: LCD80
Date: 9th-16th Feb 2019
Our holiday: A party of 4 - two middle aged snowboarders and two young (9&7) skiers.
travelled from Glasgow (via Manchester to save £700 on flights!) to Geneva with Jet2.
Website (Useful Links) :
https://winter.grand-massif.com/
Lift pass information / Lift opening schedules / Piste opening schedules (Very useful)
just back from a great week in morillon and the grand massif.
day one (Sunday) was a bit of a wash out, turned up ready for first lift. 9am passes and some rumblings of 'fermetures' and 'tempete'. much Gallic shrugging and 'maybe the other lift will open', so we shlep across to the other lift. but no, that wasnt opening either. morillon was closed for the day because of the impending storm. the whole area would be shut apparently. Grand Massif app showing les carroz as open. more shrugging. definitely people on slopes on webcam, so we jumped in the car and drove the half hour to les carroz. got a couple of hours on the slopes then they closed too as the wind was really picking up.
woke up Monday morning to 20-30cm fresh powdery snow and still falling. awesome day! Tuesday - Friday, bright blue skies and warmer each day. pretty much perfect bar the first day! was getting very heavy and slushy by the end of the day Thursday and Friday.
slopes were busy in places, popular or linking runs especially. lift queues generally not bad - maybe 10 minutes worst case, but often none or just a minute or two. avoiding going down to base lifts helped. we had our sandwiches early and skied through 'lunchtime' 12-2 was quiet and had the slopes to ourselves at times. Colouvrier lift mega busy one time and the DMC in Flaine also.
terrain wise, the grand massif was perfect for us, blues and reds galore with lots of variety and not too many dreaded flats for us elderly snowboarders to have to deal with, though found Perce neige to be a terrible link from the tete des saix and opted to avoid as much as possible. spent most of our time in morillon and les carroz but popped over to samoens a couple of times and had a day in Flaine too. kids had 2x2hr private lessons with ESI, not sure how much learning went on but gave us a couple of child free periods!
stayed in a lovely little apartment just below the sairon lift in morillon 1100. rented through home away. reasonable price given the time of year and had everything we needed.
stocked up at Lidl in Cluses an route from the airport, so didn't eat out at night. had crepe/waffle/hot choc stops a plenty, le beu and chalet d'clair were our favourites. had one lunch out at l'anfionette in les carroz in the blazing sun, lovely! very pricey though, but isn't everywhere?
travel was simple. jet2 flights dead on time both ways. car hire from budget (Swiss side) on advice received here, rejected the offer of snow chains, then found them in the boot anyway. also rejected sat nav. car had it anyway, though was in polish. got it back to English this morning! woman at the desk laughed at me when i said i had 4 people a suitcase and big board bag - no way would we fit in an opel astra! no problem at all! journey very straight forward, bit busy on the way there but nothing major.
All in all a great holiday, fabulous weather, excellent time had by all. time to plan next year. thank goodness our half term is the week before the English again next year 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Thanks LCD80 - with four weeks to go until we go to the Grand Massif that was just what I needed to get me even more excited.
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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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if you haven't already, I recommend downloading the GM App, gives you live lift/run openings and webcams.
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FAQ