Morzine, Portes Du Soleil Ski Routes

Once upon a time ski hosting was a thing. This is where chalet hosts would ski/board with guests and show them around the ski domain. It was a free service and was great for guests to get to know thier way around and have good restaurants/pistes/lifts pointed out. Then someone raised the good point that chalet hosts are not qualified or insured to do this, there was a bit of an Anglo-Francais hoo ha and the whole thing got made illegal.

One of our guests commented that they missed a good ‘Turner Tour’, Turner being my surname. And asked if we had any itineraries we could suggest, ideally with a .GPX map that they could follow and this is how we got here. In lieu of me skiing with guests, thanks to the power of technology, I can share some of my favourite routes so you can have the benefit of my knowledge and even better none of my chairlift bants! though it is here if you want that too.

If you have a smartwatch like a Garmin that you can upload a .GPX map file to, you can download the routes, upload them to your device then follow them. Or simply click on the links to get the maps and the GPS on your phone will guide you.

1. The smallest loop of the ski area

I am not sure what it is that is so appealing about skiing a loop of the area however if we were to only ski 1 day together this is most likely what we would do. The pros are you are going to see a lot of the area, the cons (for some) there a couple of bus links :

One is when you get to Morgins, just a short hop across the village from the bottom of the cable car.

The second when you get to the bottom of the cable car in chatel you have to walk 5 minutes to the bus stop and get the bus to Linga or Plane Dranse.

Here I am trying to get a sub 2hr time so I chose to get the bus as far as possible, though you can certainly get off in Linga.

Of note is that you can also do the loop in reverse and come round the back of Morgins and avoid taking the bus through Chatel as you can use the up and over chairlift. You may still want to get the bus through Morgins though as you can’t always ski through it. This way takes a fair while longer.

You can see the way back from Morgins on #2 https://www.regiondentsdumidi.ch/en/activities/highlights/our-winter-highlights/7-day-tripping-tours-to-explore-les-portes-du-soleil-45433/

2. Touch Meleze, point to point of the far end of the domain (with a few extra pistes too).

Meleze is one of all time favourite pistes, worth the journey to get there and ski and as a bonus you get to explore the other side of the domain.

3. Touch Torgon, point to point of other far end of the domain.

One of our owners, jokes about the ‘myth of Torgon’ how it exists you just can’t get there. Here is how you can 🙂 You can also get the bus there from Plain Dranse if you wish. Or if you really want to push the envelope, you can get the bus to the furthest points like Chapelle D’Abondance and Abondance though you will want to make sure you don’t miss the bus back as a taxi would be €€€. The black run Barbossine is not everyone’s cup of tea and can be avoided.

Bonus round : Mont Cheri

I hesitated a bit to put this one on here as Mt Cheri is sort of a local secret because it is generally quiet here. You have to take the little land train to get there which seems to stop a few people getting here however once you do the pistes on the back of Mt Cheri get the chefs kiss!

Tours from the Tourist office!