MORGINS, SWITZERLAND (dpa) – You only need one ski pass to glide in soft snow through the Portes du Soleil (the gates of the sun), the largest ski area in Europe, consisting of 14 winter sports resorts in Switzerland and France.
Just one pass will give a visitor access to around 650 kilometres (360 miles) of pistes and 212 ski lifts.
Morgins, one of the resorts, is a good base for visitors, says Hermann Schwery, who has headed the ski school here for 25 years. “We are 1,400 metres (4,600 feet) above sea level, not extremely high, so it is not so cold. Yet in winter we always have unusually high snowfall.”
Morgins, a small resort in the canton of Wallis, in the French part of Switzerland, is exceptionally family-friendly. It is a quiet village with small guest houses, chalets, holiday apartments and a few hotels.
But it did once gain world attention and an entry in the Guinness Book of Records with the longest pair of skis in the world. The 6.45- metres (21 feet) long skis for five people are displayed in the local tourism office.
Les Portes du Soleil is actually the name of a mountain pass. But since 1984 the name has been given to the whole ski region, with France on the one side and Switzerland on the other. “We can travel the whole region without once having to take off our skis,” said ski instructor Monika Broder.
The really difficult pistes are demanding, even for experienced skiers. Most people have the greatest respect for “le mur suisse”, the Swiss Wall, Monika warned. You only have to glance down the steep slope to see why: there are bumps and troughs as far as the eye can see, and fallen skiers everywhere.
The best known of the six Swiss and eight French resorts in the Portes du Soleil is Champery at the foot of the Dents du Midi, literally “the midday teeth”.
Champery is at the end of the Illiez Valley, and is thereby sheltered from through traffic. The village street is lined with old chalets with wooden shingle roofs – Switzerland with a dash of France.
The Champery/Planachaux cable railway into the Portes du Soleil ski region starts directly next to Champery railway station. But the best way to return is by taking the gentle valley descent through the beautiful, snow-covered forest.
At the end of a long day of strenuous winter sports, you can recover in the Cantine des Rives, a simple mountain inn above the resort which offers a fantastic view over Champery by night.
“Our speciality is raclette a Gogo, meaning as much as you can eat,” says innkeeper Martial Gay.
He slices pieces of the cheese at the wood-fired oven and serves the Swiss speciality personally. But guests get more than just a slice of cheese here: they also experience of a slice of picture book Switzerland.
