Photo: © OT Morillon
Morillon, much like its neighbour, Flaine, is well suited to beginners and families – with a low-key atmosphere. Morillon village has its own nursery slopes and – conditions permitting – you can ski back to the village at the end of the day. There are a few easy green runs up at Morillon 1100 Les Esserts, and some blues to progress to for slightly more of a challenge.
The main schools are ESF Morillon offers skiing, snowboarding, ski-touring and mountaineering, snowshoeing and adaptive skiing classes. ZigZag is the alternative ski school with lessons in ski and snowboarding, telemark, off-piste, cross-country, adaptive and taxi skiing, and heli-skiing. Heli-skiing is only legal in France if you’re dropped at the top of a chair-lift, and in for this particular operation a typical day might involve descending the Gers bowl from the Samoens side, returning to Flaine by helicopter, descending Pas de Sales for a picnic in the abandoned Sales village, skiing to Sixt and returning to the Grand Platieres by helicopter.
From bumps to off-piste
ZigZag also offers cost-effective ‘top-up’ clinics for groups of three to eight people, with a choice of carving, steeps, bumps and off-piste in the two-and-a-half hour sessions.
ESF Sixt (+33 450 34 47 78) has the usual group and private lessons in skiing and snowboarding, but also offers snowshoeing, ski-touring, and cross-country. For off-piste skiing there is Le Bureau des Guides de Sixt Fer a Cheval . Christophe Rezette, and La Compagnie des Guides et Accompagnateurs du Haut Giffre are based in Samoens .
Sixt Fer a Cheval is one of France’s main sites for ice-waterfall climbing. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced climber, you will find around 60 routes varying from 40m to 500m. It is strongly recommended that you are accompanied by a mountain guide – from either Guides Alpes or Bureau des Guides Sixt who are experienced in this weather-dependent activity. The Sales valley area is best for first-timers, with some spectacular scenery, while the Cirque du Fer a Cheval area is more challenging.
Especially for kids
ESF and ZigZag are the ski schools offering children’s classes. The Village des Enfants (+33 450 90 72 15) is a nursery and daycare centre up at Les Esserts that accepts little ones from six months to 10 years of age, with ski lessons from three years old. Located inside a renovated farmhouse among the trees beneath the cable-car arrival station, the Village is set apart from the skiing but connected to the main area by a piste.
Morillon has two pistes set aside for tobogganing, one at Les Esserts and the other in Morillon village.
The Loupiots kindergarten (+33 450 34 13 96) in Sixt is for children aged three to six year olds, with an outdoor play area, activity and games rooms.
No Responses to “Where to Learn in Morillon”