Morillon-Flaine

Area info about Morillon-Flaine

	Skiing
	Walking		Mountain Biking

Flaine is about 1 hour and 15 minutes away from Geneva airport, approximately 3 hours drive from Lyon, and 30 km from the A40 motorway (l'Autoroute Blanche). It is close to resorts Les Houches, Les Contamines, large ski area Chamonix as well as the Portes du Soleil region — notably resorts Les Gets and Morzine. Trips to Italy via the Mont Blanc Tunnel to Courmayeur are also possible.

Bus services are available several times a day to Tanninges in the Giffre Valley (where resorts Morillon and Samoëns are situated) where buses to Geneva and Chamonix can be accessed. The bus service is run by Transdev Alpbus and details of the bus services from Flaine can be obtained from http://www.altibus.com/

There is skiing for most in Flaine, as the resort enjoys a particular reputation as being all rounded.

The most notable runs in Flaine include Styx (Black); le Diamant Noir (black); Serpentine (blue/red); Fred (red); Tourmaline (blue) and Mephisto (red). The liaisons ski runs which take you out of Flaine, take you to Samöens, Morillon and Les Carroz via the run Dolomie (blue) and to the smaller ski resort Sixt via the long blue, Les Cascades, which has a spectacular view of the Ger Valley.

In Les Carroz, Morrilion, and Samőens classic runs include Marvel; a fabulously long green that goes through the forest, Sairon; a long blue with many jumps and banks on the side of the piste, Lou Darbes; a medium length blue run that is downhill all the way — an excellent run for 'bombing' down, and Aigle Noir, a steep, difficult black run.

The predominantly north-facing runs are very reliable: package companies offering "snow guarantees" often import punters from other French resorts when their pistes have lost the amount of sufficient snow that can be skied on. Flaine was the first resort to feature artificial snow making in Europe from 1973.^[1]

Interestingly, in each different grade of run (green, blue, red, & black) there is a theme in the Flaine bowl. For example most of the blue runs are named after metals/jewels (e.g. Serpentine, Turquoise, Dolomie, Cristal, Tourmaline, Emeraude), nearly all the reds are diabollically named (e.g. Faust, Mephisto, Belzebuth, Lucifer) and most black runs after stars (e.g. Diamant Noir, Agate, Styx). Most green runs are named after trees (e.g. Meleze, Pin, Epicea). This only occurs in the Flaine valley though; the other resorts' runs are named separately. However the same named to feature in the different resorts. For example "Combe" which means valley in English is a popular name because of the nature many runs leading into the valleys. The same with Arete.

In Flaine Forum, the Nursery Slopes are served by a small chairlift (Le Pre) which is excellent for beginners due to the fact that it doesn't go far above the snow. They are also interesting as they go down from the resort centre, rather than down to the resort. There is also a short green run which runs to the left of the lift.