We visited seven of the Portes du Soleil ski resorts during our early February 2019 visit & often found the lines between them to be blurry. So, one might expect it to be difficult to differentiate between them. In part that is true, but it is also the reason to have a huge, interlinked ski region - blurred lines, one seamless experience. However, Châtel is indelibly imprinted on our brains. Why? A set of 3 shoddy ski tows linking the extreme edges of three ski resorts - Torgon, Morgins & Châtel. Having supped on the powder-laden nectar that was Torgon for a morning, by the time we exited via the Tête du Tronchet, intent of going to Morgins, a seriously long lift line had formed at the bottom of the Tour de Don tow. It was a powder day & we dislike lines at the best of times, but definitely on a powder day. Perusing the trail map, the terrain directly below the lift would provide us with a timely distraction, and it appeared stable & untracked. So, rather than a lift line pondering what might have been, it was a sunny powder bowl, some steep trees, a snow-draped shrine on a rocky outcrop, a barb-wire trip hazard, & lovely, bouncy, rolling alpine meadows, which led to us to the Barbossine chairlift. Brilliant! Welcome to Chatel. We repeated the dose with a variation or two, by which time the line for the lift to Morgins had dissipated, but we were now intent on Châtel…….

Châtel is not only the most diverse ski resort in the Portes du Soleil, it is also a wonderful village. Despite some holiday accommodation ‘sprawl’ on the fringes & the associated pulse of humanity that caused it, Châtel has held on to its traditions well and remains at its heart, a charming mountain village.

The terrain at Chatel is in three distinct sectors. Most info refers to two sectors, but we saw three. Super-Châtel - the family friendly zone directly above the village & over into Morgins. Linga/Pré-la-Joux an intermediate & advanced piste paradise, connected by ski lift (but not piste trail) from Super Chatel, or bus from the village. Barbossine - the wild sector above Petit Chatel village with its glorious freeride-friendly main bowl & of course those wonderfully shoddy tows linking to Torgon & Morgins! We loved Barbossine, enjoyed several bits of Super-Chatel, but were less enamoured with Linga/Pré-la-Joux. We skied Linga/Pré-la-Joux on two separate occasions, but both times were in the afternoon, once from the Chatel direction, the other time from the Avoriaz direction. We found the trails there busy & generally quite ‘skied off’ and icy, despite recent snow. Its ‘too many humans’ problem stems from the sectors proximity to super-busy Avoriaz. The crowds thin the closer one gets toward Châtel village, Barbossine & eventually Torgon in Switzerland.

The skiing & snowboarding terrain in Chatel can be both fantastic fun & unbearably vexing in equal doses. The topography & lift combination creates some incredibly convoluted connections between different sectors. Indeed, sometimes it can be more efficient to take a free ski bus to the various lift bases, but the hard core will stick to the lifts & trails because its all about the journey …. isn’t it? In the Barbossine sector, the huge freeride bowl split in half by the Barbossine run, also splits the resort down into the void at Petit-Châtel. The fantastic Linga – Prè la Joux sector is connected to the village by a long up, down, up & down chairlift that will have first time riders guessing. Don’t forget to lift your skis at the mid-load - it tries to unceremoniously pull you off the chair if not paying attention!

for us powder hounds, we love Barbossine, but getting out of there & back around to the top can be the stuff of nightmare. After a run into its variously wild parts, one either takes the Barbossine chair back up & tests the 'shoddy tows' queue again or download on the tediously slow chair to Petit-Châtel. This can be skied in good conditions; however, it is officially closed to skiing (whatever that actually means!). From the Petit Châtel base, stumble off the chair, grab your skis or board & wait for a bus down to Châtel.

All of Chatel is within the Espace Liberté ski pass, plus Torgon, Morgins & La Chapelle. It represents great value for money and may be all that most people need when skiing the area. A full Portes du Soleil pass is needed to get past Morgins & beyond Châtel to Avoriaz.

Châtel's lovely, vibrant village has a procession of bars, restaurants & shops lining the traditional main street below the Super-Châtel gondola. Even if the excruciating journey back from Barbossine to Châtel may have near broken you, the village will immediately perk you up.

Whilst we didn’t get to ski Morzine or Les Gets on our visit, we reckon that based on the combination of connectivity to the rest of the region (despite the 3 shabby tows!), value for money, terrain, village charm, & tolerable numbers of people, Chatel is the best of the French Portes du Soleil ski resorts.

You can see our thoughts on the pros and cons on the Chatel overview page and also see our European ski resort ratings page regarding how we score it compared to other skiing areas.