Flaine Resort Review

Travel

A fair proportion of this time however can be spent on the very busy exit from the airport which is often jammed with ski company coaches.

The Skiing

At the start there are the wide, gentle blues of Serpentine, Cristal and Olivine, where the inexperienced can enjoy practicing their carving turns. Adjacent to these and running all the way from the top station down to the resort is the more challenging red called Faust. This has just a few short, steepish sections and is very exhilarating.

		One of the bugbears that some people have with skiing in France is queuing for lifts. Flaine is very good in this respect. The only bottleneck that skiers are likely to encounter is the main DMC in Flaine Forum at peak times.

This takes skiers up 850 m to the top station so the gain is worth any potential waiting. Queueing in the resort is further reduced through the use of electronic lift passes.

Flaine is linked to the rest of the Grand Massif domain via the new Grand Vans lift which can seat up to eight skiers. Its high speed ensures that queues are normally very short. Below the lift, the Tourmaline blue piste allows skiers to access the Flaine bowl from the outlying villages. This can get be very busy and is often quite moguled by the end of the day.

Flaine is famous for the 14 km Cascades blue slope to Sixt. Skiers attempting this piste should allow four hours for the return to Flaine if taking a leisurely pace. The free ski bus drops people back at either Samoens or Morillon to get the return lifts and it should be noted that these will close between 4:45 and 5pm. The final bus of the day, around 5pm, runs all the way back to Flaine Forum but payment is required. After this stranded skiers will need to phone for a taxi.