Les Gets Luxury Ski Resort

Les Gets is situated on a mountain pass 6km from Morzine. The resort forms one of the resorts of the giant Portes du Soleil ski area. It has a further extensive ski area with upgraded lifts. This attractive old farming community has expanded almost out of recognition, boasting a large and under-used floodlit piste.

The village of Les Gets has an appealing mixture of old chalets in distinctive Savoyard style and tasteful modern buildings which blend to create a character not always found in French resorts. Five lifts at Les Gets take you effortlessly into the ski area, and pistes run back to the resort centre. Les Gets offers visitors an almost inexhaustible choice of runs, venues and views, the Portes du Soleil is amongst the very best skiing in Europe. Not an idle boast, most of the wonderful tree lined ski runs in the area are above 1600 metres and north facing, ensuring they hold the snow well and deliver good skiing throughout the season. Its location on the western edge of the Alps, also guarantees the region some of the most envied snowfall records in Europe.

The Portes du Soleil is an uneasy marketing consortium of a dozen ski villages, ranging from large, internationally recognised resorts to the tiniest of unspoilt hamlets, straddling the Swiss border and comprising some 207 lifts on a single lift pass, serving 650km of piste.

Les Portes du Soleil takes its name from a mountain pass just above the Swiss hamlet of Les Crosets. The trans-frontier ski area dates back 40 years. Jean Vuarnet from Morzine, gold medallist at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, was given the job of creating the futuristic resort of Avoriaz on the cliffs above the town. Vuarnet, better remembered for his sunglasses than his skiing prowess, saw the potential for expanding his ski area across the Swiss frontier down to Les Crosets, and the first link was installed in 1968 and a regional lift pass introduced in 1974.

The skiing is based in the main on both sides of the ridge which runs from Le Pleney to Le Ranfolly with connected skiing at La Turche beyond Les Gets and up to Nyon above Morzine. Les Gets also has a separate ski area at Mont Chéry with an interesting black run down to the Col de L’Encrenaz. The skiing has plenty to offer beginners and intermediates.

If you’re eating out in Les Gets, Le Flambeau and le Tourbillon are both recommended, along with Le Vieux Chêne.