The Avorinet.Com Avoriaz Snow Report

Gee Atherton

The big event of last weekend was the Champery UCI World Cup round, both cross country and downhill events were held in the Swiss town. The weather was not so kind with heavy rain on the Friday meaning the down hillers got to race in very deep mud even if the skies had cleared by Saturdays race day. Things were not massively different for the cross country brigade on Sunday. It a bit of a shame really as last time the race was held here the weather was the same, let’s hope that the 2011 World Champs will get some sunshine.

We went to check out the downhill racing on Saturday. Lots of work has taken place on the course prior to the winter and the access/spectator trail so we were not too perturbed by paying ten Euros for the privilege – I guess that covered the use of the Grand Paradis lift also. The course pretty much follows the Paradis lift line so if you’ve ever been up there in the winter you’ll know how steep it is!

It was great to watch the super stars of the sport doing there thing. It was all the more impressive given the depth of mud they had to ride through. Apparently one pro mechanic, Greg Minaars I think, weighed the bike after racing and it was a full ten lbs heavier with accumulated mud. It didn’t seem to stop people getting impressively airborne over the jumps though.

The Norco team of Fionn Griffiths and Bernard Kerr returned impressive results of 9th and 21st respectively. Fionn also had time for a crash so not a bad result all in although I’m sure the racer will not see it that way. The races were won by Gee Atherton of the UK and Emmeline Ragot for France – good work!

Locally the weather has been sunny for the last few days, Monday through Wednesday evening although this run of first class biking weather did come to an abrupt halt last night with some seriously torrential activity, fortunately we were all safe and sound in the pub enjoying a few après beers at this point.

And they were well earned beers. After a couple of local days riding we decided to head a little further afield and get into the Grand Massive area. We headed out of Morzine on the first Pleney lift making our way to Les Gets and the Chavannes Express. From the top of the latter the Col du Joux Plane road took us to the short singletrack climb to the Ponte du Bourgeoisie. Things started to get really interesting at this point with a 1000m vertical descent into Samoens, it’s one of the best around and this was only the start of the day!

The telecabine at Samoens allows bikes these days and there is some great riding just off there but we headed on to Morillon. Two very slow chair lifts later, not a worry when the Grand Massive lift ticket sets you back 15EUR, we were ready for the climb over to Flaine. Half an hour of climbing and another half of traversing and we were descending down to the DMC lift out of Flaine which would take us up to the Grand Platiere.

Usually the views from here are very spectacular but low cloud was obscuring Mont Blanc and the surrounding mountains. Still it’s a stunning place to be with all the huge limestone formations around. We didn’t hang around too long on account of the cold and we were all eager to get going on the huge descent back to Samoens, all 1800m of it.

Initially you set off down the piste which has been dynamited out of the bedrock, very very rough. This gives way to technical, steep, over grown and loose double track and eventually one of the best bits of singletrack descent around all the way into Samoens. It’s got everything, roots, rocks, drops, loose loamy soil and natural berms between a corridor of trees – fantastic.

Normally all that fun would be book ended with a massive climb up the Col du Golese, 1.5 hours all in but today we decided on a more leisurely approach and arranged a van to take us back to Morzine town- perfect.

Bon ride!

Weekly reports will commence from the first week of July, just in time for peak season – tune in.

[1] Generally described in more detail in the resort avalanche bullettin (e.g. altitude, aspect, type of terrain etc.)
[2] Additional load:

• High: e.g. group of skiers, piste machine, avalanche blasting
• Low: e.g. skier, walker
• Steep slopes: Slopes with an incline of more than about 30°
• Steep extreme slopes: Particularly unfavourable in terms of the incline, terrain profile, proximity to ridge, smoothness of underlying ground surface.

This is an indication of status at time of writing. Please check latest situation at the lift stations before setting out.