Châtel: piste guide
Châtel sits between two sectors of the main Portes du Soleil circuit, each offering a mix of open and wooded slopes. The local piste map is much less clear than it used to be because they have made it smaller. Signposting is good.
Read the rest of the Châtel guide
Extent of the slopes
Châtel has a worthwhile amount of local skiing, in two separate sectors which were lift-linked from the 2014/15 season.
Directly above the village is Super-Châtel – an area of easy, open and lightly wooded slopes that is accessed by a gondola or a two-stage chair. From here you can embark on a clockwise Portes du Soleil circuit by heading to the Swiss resort of Morgins. Or you can head north for the slopes straddling a different bit of the Swiss border, above Torgon (with fab views of Lake Geneva). New this season you can also take a new piste down to Vonnes and then the new quad up to the Linga sector, where you can start an anticlockwise tour of the Portes du Soleil circuit. This sector can also be reached by bus from Châtel; if you stay on the bus it takes you to the Pré-la-Joux/Plaine Dranse area, closer to the link with Avoriaz. There is night skiing at Linga on Thursdays.
Fast lifts
Linga and the Plaine Dranse area are well served for fast lifts but in the Super-Châtel sector the lifts beyond the access gondola are almost entirely slow chairs and drags, whether you head for Morgins or for Torgon.
Queues
In recent years queues have been eased throughout the Portes du Soleil by the installation of several fast new chairlifts. Locally Linga is no problem but Super-Châtel is: queues form for the gondola when school parties gather (and you can also face queues to get down again if the sunny home slope is shut because of poor snow), and reporters have also found lengthy queues for the slow Morclan chair and the Tour de Don, Chermeu and Chalet Neuf draglifts at certain times of day.
Terrain parks
The Smoothpark at Super-Châtel has lines to suit both beginners and experienced freestylers, and they include rails, kickers and boxes; there’s a snowcross too.
Snow reliability
The main drawback of the Portes du Soleil as a whole is that it is low, and exposed to mild weather from the west, so snow quality can suffer when it’s warm. But a lot of snowmaking has been installed at Super-Châtel and on runs down to resort level. Linga and Plaine Dranse are mainly north-facing and generally have the best local snow. The pistes to Morgins and towards Avoriaz get full sun. Grooming is ‘very good’ say recent reporters.
For experts
The best steep runs – on- and off-piste – are in the Linga and Pré-la-Joux area. Beneath the Linga gondola and chair there’s a pleasant mix of open and wooded ground, which follows the fall line fairly directly. And there’s a serious mogul field between Cornebois and Plaine Dranse. Two pistes from the Rochassons ridge are steep and kept well groomed. On the way to Torgon from Super-Châtel, the Barbossine black run is long, steep and quite narrow and tricky at the top. There’s plenty of good lift-served off-piste to be explored with a guide: we did a great run from Tête du Linga over into the next (deserted) valley of La Leiche.
For intermediates
When conditions are right the Portes du Soleil is an intermediate’s paradise. Good intermediates need not go far from Châtel to find amusement: Linga and Plaine Dranse have some of the best red runs on the circuit. The moderately skilled can do the Portes du Soleil circuit without problem, and will particularly enjoy runs around Les Lindarets and Morgins. Even timid types can do the circuit, provided they take one or two short cuts and ride chairs down the trickier bits. But some blues are difficult when conditions are poor – in particular, one reporter witnessed skiers ‘in tears’ on the way down to Morgins from Châtel.
Visits to Avoriaz for the Hauts Forts runs are worthwhile for competent and adventurous intermediates. And note that the runs back to Plaine Dranse are real reds, and the Rochassons piste, especially, can get extremely busy at the end of the day.
Don’t overlook the Torgon sector, which has some excellent slopes, including challenging ones.
For beginners
There are good beginners’ areas at Pré-la-Joux (a bus ride away) and at Super-Châtel (a gondola ride above the village). And there are nursery slopes at village level if there is snow there. Reporters have praised the Super-Châtel slopes and lifts, which ‘allow the beginner to progress’ and ‘safely practise’ on gentle gradients away from the main runs. Getting up to them is a bit of an effort, though. The home run from Super-Châtel can be tricky – narrow, busy, steep at the end and often icy at the end of the day – but you can ride the gondola down. The Pré-la-Joux slopes are less varied, with some steeper draglifts.
For boarders
Avoriaz is the hard-core destination for boarders in the Portes du Soleil and has a great selection of terrain parks plus a super-pipe. Châtel is not a bad place to learn or to go to as a budget option. But many lifts in the Super-Châtel sector are drags, and reporters warn that they can be a ‘painful experience’. The Linga area has good, varied slopes and off-piste possibilities and more boarder-friendly chairlifts.
For cross-country
There are pretty trails (12km) along the river, around Lake Vonnes and through the woods on the lower slopes of Linga, but snow-cover can be a problem. When combined with La Chapelle-d’Abondance’s trails, the total is 40km. The tourist office produces good maps.
Schools and guides
There are several schools in Châtel, including a branch of BASS (British Alpine Ski & Snowboard School) as well as the usual ESF and International schools.
A recent reporter says: ‘I learned with ESF at Super-Châtel and the instructors were generally very good but their standard of English varied.’
For families
The ESF-run Piou Piou nursery offers indoor and outdoor activities plus getting a taste for skiing. Châtel Ski Sensations has its own nursery area with a draglift and chalet at Linga.
Where to Ski
This guide is taken from Where to Ski, edited by Chris Gill.
Chatel
Intersport
