Les Gets, FR 01/26/14

jamesdeluxe

Administrator
Even though I've skied several times in the Alps over the past ten years, I'd had such good luck with Austria, I kept going back; however, this season, I decided to make a first visit to the French Alps and chose a ski region with a mind-blowing amount of terrain: the Portes du Soleil, whose literal translation is "The Doors (or Gateway) to the Sun."

My nonstop flight spent an extra hour on the ground at Newark waiting to be de-iced during a snowstorm, but even with a 6:45 pm departure, we landed in Geneva at 7:40 the next morning. Our airport shuttle was a half hour late leaving the airport and after a quick 55-minute drive to the resort, a short breakfast, and checking into my hotel, I was still on the lift at 10:30 am, which is even earlier than if I'd taken the early morning flight to Salt Lake City and sprinted to one of the Cottonwoods ski areas.

Long story short, you don't lose a travel day on the outbound trip and can ski at least four hours on arrival day. Now, some people may prefer to spend the first day taking it easy and recovering from jet lag, but I'll sleep when I'm dead -- I'm there to ski. Due to the six-hour difference, there's no way around spending a travel day on the return trip, but by then, I'll need some recovery time.

I'm headquartering during my first three days in Les Gets, a cute village with family-oriented atmosphere and mostly intermediate terrain.

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They picked up a foot Thursday night. With the large crowds from Geneva along with many destination visitors, the pistes were showing wear in a few places but the offpiste (even five feet from the trails) was soft as could be with piles of lightly chop. Today was really overcast with flat light, so not tremendously photogenic. Welcome to France!
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Dropping into the trees:
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Lifts open at 9:30 and you can ski until almost 5 pm:
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Summit view looking toward Mont Chery:
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Lots of restaurants all over the circuit:
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Lunch on the deck:
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Sunday night and it's snowing hard at valley level right now (hoping for six inches) so I'll probably have better visuals tomorrow.
 
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Jamesdeluxe":bmmioysu said:
Long story short, you don't lose a travel day on the outbound trip and can ski at least six hours on your arrival day.
Not from here. We will consume 3 days in transit for 6 days of skiing (Feb. 9-14) with the Diamond Dogs in Zermatt. One of those is due to us getting on this trip a couple of weeks ago, and thus having 2 plane changes going and one coming back in order to match the timing of the transfers.

The other issue is that Portes-de-Soleil is quite close to its gateway airport in Geneva. We land in Geneva at 9:15AM, but I suspect it's going to take much of the day to get to Zermatt from there.

Overall, living in the West it's not surprising that I only had 2 Euro ski trips while I was working and counting my vacation days. For those living in the East, I agree with James on all counts.

Jamesdeluxe":bmmioysu said:
I'd had such good luck with Austria, I kept going back
Good move on both our parts not to be going to Austria this season, at least now. Fraser Wilkins' reports http://www.weathertoski.co.uk/ for Austria have not been good this year. Supposedly off-piste skiing is very limited.

Any issues with off-piste coverage? Portes-de-Soleil is relatively low altitude and the early season was subpar. The good news is that it's a high snowfall microclimate, so now that you're getting the snow there rates to be a lot of it vs. most other places.
 
Tony Crocker":jtsj1ssa said:
Jamesdeluxe":jtsj1ssa said:
Long story short, you don't lose a travel day on the outbound trip and can ski at least six hours on your arrival day.
Not from here. We will consume 3 days in transit for 6 days of skiing (Feb. 9-14) with the Diamond Dogs in Zermatt. One of those is due to us getting on this trip a couple of weeks ago, and thus having 2 plane changes going and one coming back in order to match the timing of the transfers.
What Tony said. I have a full day of travel logistics just to get to an east coast international departure airport. I suppose there may be something to Geneva out of one of the mid-west hubs, but I haven't checked.
The other thing I discovered on Europe trips is the hard to avoid jet-lag-induced sleep-wall that just slams me around mid-afternoon the first 2-3 days. 6 hours of skiing in Europe on day of arrival? Ha. Not for this boy.
 
For me, the best way to Europe is direct from LAX, though to avoid obnoxious bag fees it has to be Delta partners Air France or KLM. Yes, I'm going through the infamous CDG again. I'm actually pleased that the layovers are 2 1/2 and 4 1/2 hours, giving me a better shot of having luggage arrive with me at final destination. Needless to say I'm using the bootbag backpack for this one.

MarcC":8kv4au3f said:
The other thing I discovered on Europe trips is the hard to avoid jet-lag-induced sleep-wall that just slams me around mid-afternoon the first 2-3 days.
For any these trips it's best to be doing something moderately active and keep yourself awake through dinner local time. In my then zombie-like state I'll usually crash, sleep 10 hours or so and wake up in the morning local time.

I've had no issues with jet lag on the other 3 ski trips.
Jamesdeluxe":8kv4au3f said:
If I remember right, it took us just under 4hrs by train to Zermatt..
That's recipe for zoning out at the wrong time and potentially taking longer to adapt to the time change. We shall see. Skiing has a way of keeping me awake though....
 
Awesome trip report, James! Definitely makes me want to jump on a flight and try Les Gets out. Now...I have to read your other TRs.
 
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