After a week in Chatel this summer we are going to head to the 3 Valleys. We want to be able to pootle to the lifts in the morning instead of driving or riding up hill (knackered knee limits climbing) and this seems to have knocked Courchevel on the head as we can’t find cheap accommodation in the right place. Has anyone stayed in Meribel and used the lifts there to access the rides in Meribel and Courchevel? Is it a good option?

in both meribel and courcheval the lifts are in the village.
la tania is a nice place to stay, it is between the 2.
a lift in the village takes you up, then a fantastic contouring singletrack takes you round to courcheval.
from there the main lift takes you op to 3000m, and then bob is indeed your uncle.
you can do singletrack descents down to either meribel or all the way down to brides la bain at 600m.
the whole of the 3 valleys is open through the summer, you just have to be carefull with the opening and closing times of the lifts.
me and my son had a 2hr push carry one afternoon from not reading the lift timetable.

Check out the summer map:

http://mountain-summer.meribel.net/fileadmin/PDF/ete/7_annexes/PLAN_VTT_ETE11.pdf

…so access wise there’s not much to choose between Meribel/Mottaret, only you’ll have to go up from Meribel first to drop down into Mottaret. There’s a Courch map too but if you’ve discounted 1850 already then La Tania is the only other lift station.

Flipping hell I must do this soon. My boss has a flat right next to the lift in meribel that is unused in the summer that I can use for nothing!

There is a camp site at Brides les baines, but not sure if you can get a bus up to the resorts or not. Its where the budget ski holidays stay. Meribel is a posh old place too, not exactly riveting place to be, very quiet. Lifts in the individual valleys arent open all days also which is a pain.

From my experience id rate it 5/10

Go to Pila instead, cheap, loads of trails and weather always better

Me and the Mrs went to Meribel for our honey moon. We did a days walking up the Saulire……well actually lift up walk down. Was great but had to drive to Mottaret to get the lift.

I did a days mountain biking too with some friends (yes on my honey moon). Was great! We did a whole load of riding from motteret down to meribel then, up to saulire and down into courcheval where we went through a fun and easy park.

I love meribel and hate courch so would say head to meribel.

Cheers all