Weekend skiing in Flaine, France

After a 2 – year break due to lockdown, I was able to finally get back to the ski slopes by late winter this year, in the ski resort of Flaine. The resort was small and quite modern (not a typical Alpine ski village), but still a good experience. I think it was getting back on the slopes after two years which felt so amazing, that we didn’t really mind the lack of cosiness at the resort. It was still fun to be back zipping through the snow, and we enjoyed the trip a lot.

Flaine is a small-ish ski resort, near the French Swiss border, about 1.5 hours drive from Geneva. We took a cab from Geneva to get there late at night and were surprised by the lack of snow for most of the drive. Even the last 20 mins through the mountains, where the roads were totally curvy, there still was no snow. The resort is just a collection of loads of high rise modern concrete apartments at the bottom of the ski slopes, and felt quite out of place in the Alps. It also felt like quite a quiet place when we reached, as there wasn’t a lot of activity going on.


Skiing

Mont Blanc ridgeline

The next three days, we just skied across the resort and the connecting valleys. The first gondola we took up got us to a picturesque panoramic view of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps, along with all its neighbouring peaks. And there were loads of people there just clicking pictures of the mountain.

The weather was sunny and extremely warm that day. And for the rest of the trip too. So it was comfortable to ski, plus all views around of the mountains and the valleys were quite clear and stunning. From the mountains, we could see till far into the valleys, and it was all green. And the last night, it snowed all night but the day still was sunny. So we got to ski on some fresh powder snow, while still enjoying a warm clear day.

Valley views

The slopes were quite nice to ski on too, with more reds than blues or blacks. It was good as it pushed me early on to try the red slopes, which I wouldn’t have done otherwise as I was getting back to skiing after 2 years. The slopes here had names instead of numbers. And two interesting ones were called Satan and Lucifer – these were some of the toughest slopes which though red had huge moghuls. These were the unmade slopes and quite tough to navigate – totally deserving their names.

There were lots of chairs and gondolas everywhere. Plus some really long bum lifts, which I haven’t seen anywhere. They just went on and on, and got quite tiresome. Also unlike some other resorts, all the lifts did not have a blue slope to come down, so we had to be quite careful to go up only the ones which had some easy way of coming down. There weren’t as much crowds as we have experienced on most trips, so we didn’t have to wait a lot for our turn at the lifts either. The restaurants on the slopes had pretty expensive food, even more than usual. Also, the food had limited French options and so wasn’t appetising either.

The first day, we stayed on the Flaine slopes. The second day, I went the other side towards Moulins. And there was lot of good skiing there. We could also see a lot more villages (with no snow) in the valleys there. But the last run of the day, when I was coming back to Flaine was the worst of the whole day. Though it was a blue run (tourmaline), it was just soooo full of moghuls, that I kept falling all the way back. It was quite a nightmare run, but somehow I was able to make it to the bottom. Other than the last run though, the rest of the day was quite a lot of fun.

And the last day we got some fresh snow but it turned out to be tougher to ski on the unmade slopes in the morning than we expected☹. The weather was again gorgeous though – lot of sun, so it was fun to ski. I had done a red slope the previous day, lapiz which had been an amazing run, smooth like a breeze. And today, it turned out to be a nightmare, it almost felt like I was skiing off-piste, with my skis having to make their way under the fresh snow!

End of cascades - Sixt

In the afternoon, we decided to do the 14 kms cascades run, which was supposedly a scenic ski run through the forests. It was actually quite a nice one, smoothly flying across different mountains and passing through some gorgeous forest scenery all the way till the town of Sixt. But the last 2 kms was a nightmare. It was just an unmade moghuly and slushy narrow slope all the way down till the village. And I think it took us more than 30 mins just to get through it. I fell thrice on this last stretch, and there was no real way of getting through it unscathed!

View of the Samoens valley

Thankfully though, right where the run finishes, there was a restaurant where everyone stopped to recover from the run. Everyone was sitting there in the sun, just enjoying the moment of peace after the moghuly ride. We also sat there a bit just staring at the mountains and getting our sanity back. Then it was a long trek back to where we had started – we took a bus till the village of Samoens and a trolley up the mountain to start skiing again. This valley was pretty and had lot of villages, but it definitely wasn’t as picturesque as the Swiss and Austrians alps. And then we did a few more slopes to come back to Flaine that day. We again went on the blue tourmaline but it was better today and we had lesser falls😊.


The resort

The resort was made up of modern apartment buildings, mostly run by apartment companies. It felt too sanitised, too modern. Also, as soon as you were at the bottom of the slope, there wasn’t a lot of snow in the resort, this winter had been quite a low season. So it definitely didn’t feel like a typical ski resort.

For dinner, we tried new restaurants every day, and though there were a few options, they weren’t really like the cosy ones that you can find in a village kind of ski resort. There was a row of small restaurants near the gondolas. The first day, we went to a small pizza place – Chez Lili - which was so small, it was a surprise how they had guests and the kitchen in the same location. The next day we went to one of the highest rated and most popular restaurant in the area – Les Chimes. And we were shocked by how tasteless the food was, we just couldn’t even finish it! (Note to myself: Stop trying out French cuisine, it doesn’t work for me). So the last day, we just went to a small Spanish place next to the pizza one and had a simple dinner.

But overall, I can say I wasn’t impressed with the food here. Or the French hospitality either. It is something that will never change I guess, though I keep expecting it. Everyone in the restaurants, at the information centre and so on has too much attitude. And just does not want to help you. We read, hear and experience it all the time, but every time its just such a surprise that French service can be so bad.

I guess all in all, we had a nice time skiing here, though I wouldn’t rate Flaine as one of the places I would like to go back to. I just missed the cosiness and activity of a ski village – I realised on this trip that that experience is also so much a part of skiing. But anyways, I was very happy to be back on the slopes again, and thats what counts😊.