SKIING IN FLAINE
Eric,Liz,Jennifer,Kate and Ross are Bairdstravel`s Skiing experts.
January 2011 they enjoyed another wonderful funpacked skiing holiday in France. This time they chose Flaine.
Flaine is about 1 hour and 15 minutes away from Geneva airport, approximately 3 hours drive from Lyon, and 30 km from the A40 motorway (l'Autoroute Blanche). It is close to resorts Les Houches, Les Contamines, large ski area Chamonix as well as the Portes du Soleil region — notably resorts Les Gets and Morzine. Trips to Italy via the Mont Blanc Tunnel to Courmayeur are also possible.
Bus services are available several times a day to Tanninges in the Giffre Valley (where resorts Morillon and Samoëns are situated) where buses to Geneva and Chamonix can be accessed. The bus service is run by Transdev Alpbus and details of the bus services from Flaine can be obtained from
http://www.altibus.com/
Bairdstravel would like to thank the Walton family for their superb photographs from their time in Flaine .
There is skiing for most in Flaine, as the resort enjoys a particular reputation as being all rounded.
The most notable runs in Flaine include Styx (Black); le Diamant Noir (black); Serpentine (blue/red); Fred (red); Tourmaline (blue) and Mephisto (red). The liaisons ski runs which take you out of Flaine, take you to Samöens, Morillon and Les Carroz via the run Dolomie (blue) and to the smaller ski resort Sixt via the long blue, Les Cascades, which has a spectacular view of the Ger Valley.
In Les Carroz, Morrilion, and Samőens classic runs include Marvel; a fabulously long green that goes through the forest, Sairon; a long blue with many jumps and banks on the side of the piste, Lou Darbes; a medium length blue run that is downhill all the way — an excellent run for 'bombing' down, and Aigle Noir, a steep, difficult black run.
The predominantly north-facing runs are very reliable: package companies offering "snow guarantees" often import punters from other French resorts when their pistes have lost the amount of sufficient snow that can be skied on. Flaine was the first resort to feature artificial snow making in Europe from 1973.
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There are 2 free lifts (Pre and Telebenne) which link the up and lower parts of Flaine. Flaine is in the process of implementing an upgrade program to its lifts and trails called Flaine Perspectives 2006–2010. For 2006, new gondola cabins were installed on Aup De Veran, whilst the base station was renovated for 2007. For 2008, the Les Gerats lift was installed to allow better access to the new INTRAWEST village (Flaine Montsoleil).
In addition the Tete Des Verns 6-person detachable chair was installed from the main base area. For 2009, Flaine aim to renovate the Telebenne, installation of a 4-person chair to replace the Bois button, to be called Aujon and the installation of a 4-person chair to link the western part of the INTRAWEST village.
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