About Mountain Bike Trails on the French Side of the Portes du Soleil

Avoriaz has the downhill black rated track into Les Linderets, a bike park and a four cross course going for it. When you have had enough of that you can head for the winter home run, Les Crot, which is more commonly known as the Gravelanche in the summer. This is super fast and gravely, hence the name, and brings you out at the head of the Prodains valley where you can indulge in a freewheel race all the way back to Morzine.

The downhill course into Linderets from the top of Avoriaz is a relatively new addition to the area and hosted a French cup downhill race as its inaugural event. So if you fancy testing yourself on the same course negotiated by the likes of French star Fabien Barrel, give this a go. It is super technical and a little bit demanding for all but full on downhill rigs. Again there are plenty of trails traversing the mountain in a less vertiginous fashion, pick them out if you’re more of an all mountain rider. From Linderets there is a great trail down to Montriond via the Parchets piste and onwards back to Avoriaz via the river trail – a most pleasant way to return to base. To access Les Crosets, try the Mossettes lift up to the high point of the Portes du Soleil. From here you can either drop down the fire roads to Les Crosets with a couple of obvious more technical trails dropping through Planachaux. Or try the Swiss cup downhill course from the ridge line - Grand Conche. This super steep black drops 470m in just 3km.

Plaine Dranse
There has been extensive trail building activity in recent years in this area, accessed via the Chaux Fleurie chairlift. The runs are graded as per a ski area, blue, red and black in order of ascending difficulty. There is numerous north shore dotted around the red and black runs with easier runs leading all the way to Pre-la-Joux. In terms of difficulty, the reds would suit an accomplished rider, the blacks are super difficult so be sure of your ability before tackling them.

Chatel
Chatel is accessed from the Plaine Dranse area via the terrace trail. There are two green runs (we recommend the Panoramique as it's fast and flowy and has great views of Lac Montriond) four really nice flowy blues, five red tracks, and eight black tracks. Over the past couple of years the bike park shapers have been busy putting in extra gap jumps and fun features, so definitely worth checking out. Find the trail map here.

Find more trail maps here.