My usual group of riding buddies are considering Deux Alpes this year instead of Morzine.

Any thoughts on how the two compare? I'm not particularly into heavy DH – is there a good supply of nice friendly XC and easy DH runs at 2Alpes?

great place – some top quality trails, including the mental run down to venosc and the super steep double black.
Also some real back country routes starting at the glacier (~3200m)

Much higher than morzine therefore less trees

You are more limited than the morzine area though for trails, the morzine lift pass gets you all around the porte du soleil (as you probably know), best you get at 2Alpes is a day free at Alpe d'Huez with a weeks pass anyhow.

Still one of my favorite places to ride, the weather is better than morzine (further south) and there is a real mix of people there, and its always amusing to see the skiers\snowboarders coming down from the glacier at lunchtime in full cold weather gear when its 30degrees in the resort 🙂

Venosc run is good fun 🙂

alp d'huez is well close to 2 alpes and much better for xc type trails, it's where the mega goes down, there's loads of singletrack routes, a massive pine forest lower down with loads of trails and i'm guessing if you went during a week that didn't have the mega it'd be pretty nice and quiet.

I've ridden loads of resorts in the alps and I'd rate Les Deux Alpes as average at best. Lots of trails but poorly maintained overall and not the greatest. Are you driving to the alps?

sola, have to disagree, poorly maintained when compared to what? Morzine where there is no maintenance at all?

but if you have other options, Les Arcs, Sauze D'Oulx, Verbier, all less full on DH than Morzine (although lots of good stuff around there off the beaten track – Morgins for instance)

sola, have to disagree, poorly maintained when compared to what?

where do I start? A sample of places you should consider over Les Deux Alpes, (depending on if you have a car to make use of resorts close to each other might exclude some of these)

Sestriere
Sauze
La Grave
Les Arcs
La Thuile
Pila
Verbier
Alpe D'Huez
Montgenevre

Yup, we're driving down.

I'm not too worried if the trails aren't spotlessly maintained – we've been to Morzine for four years in a row!

The only thing I'm worried about is 2Alpes being a full-on scary DH place. I'm quite happy on runs like the well-travelled Pleney DH at Morzine (although I won't do *all* of the scarier sections), but I'm on a hard tail, so it kinda limits my appetite for anything more hardcore.

A free day in Alpe D'Huez sounds like a bit of a bonus though..

where do I start? A sample of places you should consider over Les Deux Alpes, (depending on if you have a car to make use of resorts close to each other might exclude some of these)

Why though? What makes all of those better? Genuinely curious like.

I ski Deux Alpes a lot, it's great for that!

where do I start? A sample of places you should consider over Les Deux Alpes

Depends what you are into maybe? I rode Alpe D'Huez quite a bit during Mega week – talked to a few people who preferred Deux Alpes. Never went there myself but I've boarded there.

Seemed like there was maybe more in the way of woodwork/freeride type stuff at Deux Alpes?

I spent 8 weeks riding in LDA on a hardtail a couple of years ago. It's hard work on your arms and the braking bumps are a bit of a nightmare but there's nothing that technical there. It's quite fast though which is fun. I would agree with Sola though – there are better places to ride.

In my opinion there is 2 days worth of riding in Deux Alpe. Venosc run is ok but littered with braking bumps.

There are some mint single track up higher on the glacier. Some of the new stuff they built last year is not worth the brake pads!

There is a cool black dh track that comes out next to the 4x track which was awesome.

I'll let you know how it is this year, freeraid is on in 3 weeks or so (weekend before passportes)

🙂