 Poster: A snowHead
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Hello Snowheads!
We are looking to get a weeks snowboarding in France at the start of March and were looking at the Grand Massiff area and possibly Morillion for accomodation. Can anyone let me know:
What the area is like?
Does it get very busy? Any french holidays at the start of March.
Who would be the best people to get board hire from
What is the best transfer company to use from Geneva Airport?
Any help would be great!!
Cheers
Jon 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Does it get very busy? Any french holidays at the start of March.
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Yes. Paris holidays that week, and the following one.
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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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Does that mean long queues? Or should it be ok if you time the lifts outside ski school times ??
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jonm2014, very busy in paris hols, if there are2 weeks to avoid thats the ones
Morillon has a bit of a pinch point in high season, the only fast lift from morillon 1100 is sairon, and its is a high speed lift, its only a 4 man, so gets rather busy
I have used gomassif for a shared transfer and lescarroztransfers for private one. Both good
for what GM is like see the snow report thread will give you some idea
as a boarder, how about la thuile in french school hols??
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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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Action transfers good price and service.
Grand massif great skiing/snowboarding. Flaine bowl lovely, high if snow poor lower down. nice reds and blues on the Morrilon and samoens side. pretty tree skiing in les carroz. Peak retreats has a good selection of accommodation in Morrilon at ok prices. two choices in Morillon, les esserts or morillon village. Les esserts is the higher, and skiing possible to door. whereas i think the village might be too low for skiing down most of the time. But no doubt more apres.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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jubnut, The red and blue down to the village are usually never open, this season have been more than most, still have to cross the road. Sairon is dire in high season, the queue area is not big enough and its only a 4.
You can get up via the 2 very slow chairs, to the right of sairon as you look up, bergin is the higher one, and then a drag lift, but its really really slow.
The other drawback is lanche chairlift to get to tete des saix, its a slow 3 man, and is often shut due to wind.
The only time i ever used action transfers had a 3 hour wait for a driver.............never again
Morillon is great, but not in high season, one of the others would be a better choice.
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| carroz wrote: |
jubnut, The red and blue down to the village are usually never open, this season have been more than most, still have to cross the road. Sairon is dire in high season, the queue area is not big enough and its only a 4.
You can get up via the 2 very slow chairs, to the right of sairon as you look up, bergin is the higher one, and then a drag lift, but its really really slow.
The other drawback is lanche chairlift to get to tete des saix, its a slow 3 man, and is often shut due to wind.
The only time i ever used action transfers had a 3 hour wait for a driver.............never again
Morillon is great, but not in high season, one of the others would be a better choice. |
Thanks Carroz ,Jubnut and Pam for your replies.
it sounds like it is going to be too busy there for us to have a good week. Do you have any other suggestions for other resorts that are a max 2 hr transfer from Geneva, it does not have to be france. we just want somewhere not too busy but with good blue and red runs for snowboarders and somewhere where we can self cater food wise for at least a few of our days there.
Is Les Coches or la plagne be too far as a transfer from geneva? sorry for all the questions!
Any ideas would be great!
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jonm2014, the French resorts will all be busy, so maybe best to head somewhere else (Austria or Italy) if you want to go in early March. Or wait till w/b 16 March.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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would the bigger resorts like Morzine/ la plagne be any better with faster lifts? and by busy do you mean 1hr queues for lifts or less? or just busy on the slopes?
thanks
Jon
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jonm2014, All french resorts will be very busy, queue for lifts and very busy slopes. You don't get a 1 hour queue these days very often, in fact the last one of those i can remember i experienced was in la plagne!
as pam w, states Italy would be good, and you can get to the aosta resorts from geneva as they are just other side of mont blanc tunnel. http://www.aostaexpress.com/
another suggestion would be swiss resorts, (expensive with state of £ v CHF at the moment) but easy access from geneva
Why does it have to be geneva?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Hi
Thanks for the information
it is ideally Geneva that we want to fly into due to it being much easier for us using easyjet flying from bournemouth as the flights are cheap and is only 15 mins for us to get to the airport.
How far are the italian resorts from Geneva would there be transfer companies that would run there?
with the Swiss resorts which i presume are nearer, which one would be good and reasonable in price as we are looking for a studio appt so we can self cater or maybe a b &b?
cheers
Jon
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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HI jonm2014,
we are going to Morillon 1100 the week before you. It's the fifth time running we have been there for the same week. We chose to go there despite the French holidays as we meet up with friends coming in to Geneva. They get a taxi transfer. We drive as we're in Switzerland. We rent a very comfortable duplex appartment in the Refuge De L'Alpage which is perfectly positioned by the slopes.
In the previous 4 years, we have had to battle it out with Paris in 3 of those. I just looked and it looks like this year we still have 2 zones to share with but not Paris.
We just get the Massif pass and don't bother with Flaine. Recent lift upgrades in Samoens (Chariande Express) and Les Molliets mean that even large looking queues there are not too bad. The Sairon lift in Morillon can have a 10 min queue a lot of the time. We mostly chose instead to take the 2 slow chairs up instead. The ski back down the Bergin piste is normally fairly empty. It only seems to get pisted every other day though which is a shame. The Lanches chair can have bad queues and it is a dead end so if you go down there you are stuck but last year there was a queue warning sign at the top. The lifts out of Les Carroz never seem to have a queue.
We tend to plan our day like this.
Try to get to Sairon before the ski school starts. Otherwise if there is a queue already take the 2 slow chairs up then the 3 man Biollaires. This is much slower than sucking up the Sairon queue and then geting on the fast lift but we prefer to sit on a slow chair to standing around in queues.
If we want to go to Samoens then we go there straight away to avoid queues on the lifts up to Tetes des Sais
We stop for a late morning coffee and then ski until after 1. The lifts and pistes are much quieter over lunch time.
We take a leisurely late lunch, mostly back in Morillon 1100 or down in Morillon village if the snow is good enough.
The last run is down Marvel because the kids like all the tracks and jumps followed by a Crepe in the Creperie above the Sairon lift.
So if you are flexible you don't have to do much queuing. If there is a bad queue at some lift, ski on past and go to the next one. I guess we spend a lot of time sitting on slow chairs but that's ok when the weather is nice and a 9-5 day gives plenty of time. I cannot comment at all on Flaine.
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