Reasons to ski the Portes Du Soleil

With so many ski areas to choose from, how do you choose where to have your ski holiday? There can be many factors to consider and here we have put together the reasosn for choosing the Portes du Soleil for your next ski trip. Firstly, a few facts:

What is the Portes du Soleil?

The Portes du Soleil is a vast ski area with 12 ski resorts and 600km of pistes covered by one ski pass.

The first ski areas of the Portes du Soleil to open are usually Avoriaz and Chatel. These are both considered snow sure resorts and generally open about the 9th December – or earlier if the snow arrives.

Geneva airport is the closest to the Portes du Soleil. The airport transfer time is between 70 and 90 minutes depending which of the 12 ski resorts you are staying in. It’s definately a consideration when choosing the destination of your ski trip, with some ski resorts being 3hrs drive from the nearest airport.

The Portes du Soleil boasts a whopping 600km of ski pistes ensuring there is somewhere new for you to ski every day of your holiday.

Every few years we compare the prices of a 6 day ski pass across 20 ski resorts. When looking at how many pistes you get for your money, the Portes du Soleil ski pass is superb value. The price of the 6 day ski pass for 2024 is 324€ (adult).

It’s also worth noting that some ski areas increase their prices for peak weeks such as New Year and the February school holidays. The Portes Du Soleil prices are standard from mid December until the beginning of April. After this, the ski pass price is reduced as some of the smaller resorts close earlier. Châtel and Avoriaz stay open the latest and the end of season prices are great value.

Simply put the Portes du Soleil is a beautiful place to have your ski holiday. A vast proportion of the ski area is pasture surrounded by forests, making lovely tree lined pistes in the winter.

The Dents du Midi are a dramatic feature, particularly from the Swiss ski resorts of Les Crosets and Champery. You can see Mont Blanc from a number of pistes, we particularly like the view from the top of the Les Coombs lift in Chatel.

I had heard this a lot from guests, but didn’t appreciate it so much until we visited some other ski areas in France. The Portes du Soleil has a great mix of pistes making it suitable for mixed ability groups.

Top that with snow parks, border cross pistes, the much loved Stash and the renowned Swiss Wall (Le Mur Suisse) it truly makes the Portes du Soleil a diverse ski area with something to offer all skiers and snowboarders.

Restaurants restaurants everywhere!  The Portes du Soleil is not short on the cute places to stop for a hot chocolate or that all important tartiflette.  They seem to be located just when you need a pit stop and always easily accessible from the piste. We certainly have our favourites which our guests will find in the Chalet Cannelle guidebook.

Location Location Location. The Portes du Soleil is located in the most north-western point of the European alps. When the cold low pressure weather systems arrive from the Atlanic, that low pressure moves across France as rain until it hits mountains, where that rain turns to snow.

What does that mean? It means the first area to get that snow is the Portes du Soleil. As such, Avoriaz in particular often records some of the deepest depths of snow across the ski resorts.

The perfect example was in January this year, where the year didn’t start with buckets of snow and then it came in droves to the Portes du Soleil, but not to the higher altitude resorts of Tignes, Saas Fee & Val Thorens.

You can see our insta post at that time.

So, there you have it, our reasons to ski the Portes du Soleil. Did we miss any? Let us know 🙂

Info links on the PDS:

Piste map
Ski essentials for your ski holiday