Snowboarding in Meribel Mottaret (and a bit of 3 Valleys) - a brief piste guide for the snowboarder

Posted on March 19, 2006
Filed Under Diary |

One of the most annoying things about boarding is how all the pistes are graded for skiers. Sometimes a blue is a perfect, easy, snowboarding run - wide, gentle, a little bumpy. Sometimes a blue is the snowboarder’s worst nightmare - narrow, flat, uphill… So, here’s our guide to the runs that worked for us (and those that didn’t). We are reasonable boarders, with 5 weeks’ experience. We don’t go off piste or play in the park… yet.

Runs ordered from left to right across the map - we put a cross or a tick as we went, to make sure we didn’t make the same mistake twice! As you’ll see, there’s a lot we didn’t get to, but if you mark up your map with this it might save you some grief and give you some fun.

Meribel

Greens: the greens were all fine, as long as you can keep up enough speed over the very flat bits. We were with a beginner skiier at the end of the week, and the greens were perfect for him - nice and wide and fairly varied.
Blue runs to enjoy: marmotte (has a steep bit), aigle, hermine, chardonnere (narrow and flat to the Burgin bubble, then nice), rosignol, sittelle.
Blue runs to hate: ours (a flat road), boulevard de la loze (we didn’t go here, but heard it was flat).
Red runs to enjoy: chamois, cerf (I think), marcassin (got a steep bit), niverolle, combe vallon (long and challenging, with a steep bit at the top), fouine, venturon (I think), mouflon, lagopede, coqs, dahu.
Red runs to hate: campagnol (narrow), alouette (narrow).

There’s also the baby snowpark, which we went around and was great fun, although the CHATELET lift is seriously slow.

Corchevel

We didn’t really do much over here, but Paula reported back on our behalf.

Reds to enjoy: creux, rama, park city, combe sulire.
Reds to hate: marmotte.

The CREUX NOIRS lift is insane with a moving walkway thing that shoves you along until the chair scoops you up at high speed. You’re then deposited at the top of the mountain with nothing but a narrow red…

Les Menuires

Blues to enjoy: grand lac, gross tougne.
Blues to put up with: bd de la becca is a useful route across the mountain, but is basically a narrow track.
Reds to enjoy: 3 marches, alamands, becca. All are wide and consistent.

Val Thorens and beyond…

We didn’t get to Val Thorens, to our shame.

If you’re keen, let me know if there are other runs to include, or other resources online for a boarder view of the pistes. I couldn’t find this info when I looked.