Northbound and Down do Europe – Les Gets

With painful hands and throbbing forearms from skidding down the Pleney on the first day of my visit to the French Alps, I decided to head over to Les Gets for some slightly more mellow tracks. Les Gets is the resort that is most easily accessible from Morzine. Taking the Pleney lift and following the sign posts that led us on a traverse around the mountain, we ended up at the bottom of the “Chavannes” chairlift.

Les Gets made a name for itself in 2004 when hosting the Downhill World champs where Steve Peat had his infamous crash which cost him the champ’s title. This was hosted on the “Mont Chery” side of the village where there used to be the Kona Bike Park. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to ride the tracks on that side which have not seen much improvement since previous years but instead explored the more recently developed tracks accessed by the Nauchet lift.

The days riding started on the “Chavannes” main blue track which is out in the open with berms and jumps. Towards the bottom it connects to a “Freeride area” before continuing down the old 4x track which saw some sketchy overtaking and corner cutting action during the day. I was sorry to see that the “Freeride area” had changed from northshore bridges and seesaws from previous years to a jump set and wall ride. The reason for this was not because I didn’t enjoy the new jumps, but because the seesaw obstacle created so much entertainment when sitting on the lift as “punters” would often attempt to follow each other onto it but instead crash into the back of the seesaw as their friend in front rode down the other side.

Meeting up with some other Morzine locals we headed over to the tracks on the Nauchet lift. The black freeride run was great fun with well-built berms, some big drops, wallrides and jumps. We made sure to speed check some of the drops as one of the guys we were riding with was explaining how he had over-jumped one of the drops landing in the berm and snapping his triple crown forks.

It had rained the night before and was slightly greasy so we ended up avoiding the wooden obstacles and instead spent the rest of the day drift-training it down the reds and blues that had well built-up corners that you could inside to get some drift action on the go (check out the footage). A final mention however should go to the green track down “Chavannes” on your right as you head up on the chair lift. This green was so smooth and had some great corners which gave a break from the break bumps found on the main line Chavannes.