Les Gets – Help

Can anyone recommend some good techie/ alpine trails near Les Gets?

We’re here for a week so the kids can jump. Normally I pad the day out by exploring some footpaths/ Enduro trails, but Enduro clearly means something different in PDS. We did bits of the two Enduro trails on the far right of the LG trail map this evening and there was just nothing on the red at all from what I could see. It was so bad it was almost Saalbach Hinterglemm XC.  Actually, scratch that, it was exactly as bad as SB XC.

I’m not looking for vertical rooty plummets, I’m sure there’s loads of them and I’m sure they’re great. Ideally I want something that involves pedals as well as brakes but with loads of tricky gnadgery sections.

Failing that sinuous beautiful alpine single-track.

Anyone got any suggestions….. apart from the obvious one of going back two months in time and buying that **** Slash when I had the opportunity and embrace the PDS experience.

Try and sort a day’s uplifts with a guide at Samoens. Group of friends did a few years back and thoroughly enjoyed.

The only ones I know of are La Bourgeoise from the Col de Joux Plane. I don’t know if there’s a way up other than riding over the top from Ranfolly or up the road from Samoens – we shuttled with a couple of vehicles.

Cheers Phil. I might check that out.

Is Ranfolly the name of the peak? ( As well at the lift, obvs)

Can you descend the east ridge down to that lake?

If the ridge you are talking about is this one; I rode it once in the damp and it was mostly rideable but hard. One bike carrying climb but only short. Don’t try the route marked in red, the climb to the point is crazy steep, wasn’t worth the effort!

This black Enduro trail past the church has some good sections, quite pedalling fire road for the first half though.

On the ebike I often return from Les Gets to Morzine via the ‘valley of dreams’. This probably fits into your rooty DH category and has a fair bit of pedalling, but is much better than the crappy red around Mt Chery.

Cheers Phil. I might check that out.

It’s not open flowy mountainside, I remember it was mostly in the woods with plenty of root sections.

When we did it we started on the line that goes right from the top and then some way down we cut across to the other line on the road, which was probably a couple of hundred metres climb.

Are you limited to Les Gets?

(There used to be a lot of stuff hidden in the trees off the main slopes, but its more janky gnarly dh than enduro)

Morzine is down the road, trails on the top of Super M are brilliant if they can jump, then hop over to Avoriaz and into Lindarets, from there you can get to Crosets

There’s some great enduro type riding but don’t expect anything from signposted routes. Colorado is great. Sniff out the off piste on Mont Chery,

Away from Les Gets, look up Gully of Dreams. Nyon has some great natural footpaths.

the ridge you are talking about is this one; I rode it once in the damp and it was mostly rideable but hard. One bike carrying climb but only short.

Yep, that’s the one I was thinking of. Cool. Sounds good

Don’t try the route marked in red, the climb to the point is crazy steep, wasn’t worth the effort!

Ah ok. So one of those other dotted lines instead heading vaguely SSE.

This black Enduro trail past the church has some good sections, quite pedalling fire road for the first half though

I think we ended up on bits of that yesterday, but not the good bits. I will try again.

I did the La Bourgeoise descent last month with my kid – excellent trail and sounds like what you’re looking for. Just rode over from top of Les Gets lift.

I think there is a bike bus back up joux plan but don’t quote me on that. Taxis also available. If it was just you a ride back to Les Gets on the road (2 sides of the triangle) would be fine, but not feasible with kids.

La bourgeoise down to Samoens… multiple routes down. All brilliant. The bike shop runs a shuttle back up.

Bubble lift up Mt Chery, then cycle round the back to Col de L’Encrenaz. Then take the climb up to Col De La Basse. There is some SUPERB trails form there down to Essert Romand. Also search for a section called Colorado.

I’ll see if I can dig out my Strava routes for it.

Brilliant day @GeForceJunky, really appreciate you showing us around. Both those routes down Bourgeoisie were brilliant.

And so much better not having to navigate, and be able to do the good bits without ending up on fire roads

And on a more silly note, I was well impressed by your ability to ride an ebike without evangelising about it all the time 🙂 just riding along, giving an assist to the boys occasionally but not taking every opportunity to point out how much faster/easier/smilier it is….awesome since I don’t have twenty grand spare

Bubble lift up Mt Chery, then cycle round the back to Col de L’Encrenaz. Then take the climb up to Col De La Basse. There is some SUPERB trails form there down to Essert Romand. Also search for a section called Colorado

Cheers Lowey. I think GFJ also sent me a map on that one. It does look very good. <Edit to say I think he posted a map above in the thread?>

from Les Gets to Morzine via the ‘valley of dreams’. This probably fits into your rooty DH category and has a fair bit of pedalling, but is much better

We’ve only got two more days left and I’m still not sleeping and still utterly exhausted so I’m not sure I’ll manage it. Got to prioritise DH for the kids for now.

Talking of which, the other funny thing about yesterday was how much I enjoyed the simple blue back down to LG at the end of the day in the thunderstorm. Because I’d actually ridden some tech I actually relaxed a bit and enjoyed the jumps, pumps and berms. Rode moderately well for the first time this holiday and had a blast.

Excellent, glad you enjoyed it and even better that you found a guide 🙂

I think I feel the same as you about bike park riding, it’s OK for a day or two but I really prefer to get away from it. I think my attitude would probably be different if I could jump!

Glad you enjoyed the ride, it was a good day out. The boys did well pedalling in the heat. We took the public bus (2€!) up after the first run which was great but limited spaces. Bike shop taxi for the second run, 5x the price, almost 5x as fast with Sebastian Loeb behind the wheel.

@GeForceJunky. I don’t want to stretch your generosity too far, but that route from Les Gets to Morzine sounds very interesting. For the map-challenged among us, is there anything to look out for? This is what I think I have so far:

– take Mont Cherry lift
– cycle around the hill on a gently sloping upwards trail to parking L’Encrenaz

– ride uphill from there to Col de La Basse
– then take trail down the valley towards Essert-Romand – on the left hand side of the valley as you look down towards Essert Romand?

The reason I’m asking is that I remember going looking for trails in this general vicinity several years ago and ending up on very boring jeep tracks/fireroads.

Also, just how much pedalling are we talking about? And if I’m correct (from distant memory), it’s not hard to pedal from Essert Romand to the Super Morzine bubble?

Zoom  in on this map, or download a GPX to get the details of the route.

https://strava.app.link/FCnCzJzAdMb

Really good route. Pedal from Essert to Morzine was easy enough.

Currently on Eurotunnel and my 1:25000 map is deep in the boot under stacks of other stuff so can’t take it out.

Looks like only about 300m of non lift ascent according to Strava analysis.  Felt like more than that but ho hum

I was worried about Les so I’m glad to hear he’s getting help. 🙂

It’s a easy route to follow, Enduro red trail is marked to Encrenaz. Climb up is obvious. Only one option from the top so easy to follow. Back up fireroad going straight on to start of good descent. Follow fun fireroad down until suddenly heavy braking point at junction. Go left hear and follow traverse to meet fireroad. Turn immediately right onto cool singletrack to the bottom. The last bit is back onto fireroad after river, there is no good bottom section to miss. I go down through Essert, taking left the right no-through down to river. Follow track back to Super M carpark.

This is excellent, thanks. I hope to try this out next week.

Make sure you tie it in with an evening the pizza shack in Essert is open.

GEForceJunky clearly knows his onions, but I always do a couple of variations – (1) the red XC trail round to col d’encrenaz is a bit rubbish, much better to pedal up the fireroad to the ridge (so sharp right about 500 m from the mt chery bubble), then follow the ridge down and take a right onto the footpath from the col de lachat. This is good fun, hardly ever any walkers (or bikes), and drops you down onto the red XC a few hundred metres from the col d’encrenaz. (2) I don’t bother pedalling up to the col de la basse, it’s a long drag and the descent from there isn’t worth it imo (good views though). instead take the shorter and less uphill (but still primarily uphill) fireroad to les paquis (so sort of straight on/rightish at the first hairpin after the col d’encrenaz), then at les paquis continue with the slight uphill to get to the woods above cote d’arbroz. If the weather is OK next week I might try and get round there myself

Going to give this route a go tomorrow. How tech/steep is the descent in to Essert? Wife’s hurt her wing last week and is struggling a bit with the mountain bike.

My missus walked a couple of short sections. But nowhere near as much as on La Bourgeoise.

Fairly mellow IIRC

The hardest part is the start of the final descent. After you traverse then hit the big fireroad and turn right onto the trail. Can easily be skipped though by doing the fireroad for a small bit.

Thanks for the advice from  all above, that really helped. We’ve just got back from finishing the ride. And it was excellent! Probably one of my favourite days riding in this area.
We also met Tahnee Seagrave in the lift queue at pleney, and passed Jolanda Neff wheeling down the road in Essert Romand! Brilliant day ?

@samcamsdad: this is making me even more determined to find this trail at some point, eve if I don’t manage it next week. Which version of the trail did you ride down? GEForceJuncky’s one from Col de La Basse? Or the other suggestion via Les Paquis ?

We rode geforcejunkys route over the Col de La Basse. It’s a bit of a climb especially in the afternoon sun, but the views are stunning. And the  Singletrack decent down the other side is very nice. I found a route on Trailforks to follow, so navigation was quite easy.

Since this thread’s still going I may as well give my input on a couple of things.

 (1) the red XC trail round to col d’encrenaz is a bit rubbish, much better to pedal up the fireroad to the ridge (so sharp right about 500 m from the mt chery bubble), then follow the ridge down and take a right onto the footpath from the col de lachat.

I really liked the XC trail around.. had a couple of moderately challenging climbs, and one very tricky one. And some nice bmbly flow. Fair enough, if the footpath mentioned above is awesome then fair enough.

 (2) I don’t bother pedalling up to the col de la basse, it’s a long drag and the descent from there isn’t worth it imo (good views though). 

I liked the climb from ecrenaz past the restaurant to the next col. I was expecting some horrible push, or failing that a horrible fire road, but it was nice packed earthbwith varying gradient. All rideable and pleasant.  Also pleasantly surprised by the descent. GFJ warned us that it wasn’t all that, but in the event it was very nice.  Very easy, but very nice

Just thought I’d chuck that into the mix as an opinion

I rode the route highlighted in yellow today to see what it was like going up and over. It’s a pretty big climb up to the ridge and the descent was pretty dull fireroad/ski run, so I wouldn’t recommend it. Good view of Mt Blanc today. I may try the footpath from the very top, looks pretty steep though. I don’t like cutting off the col and going straight to Les Paquis, you still have to climb a fair amount and it misses the good views and feels less adventurous.

I’d just like to thank all the contributors to this thread, especially @GeForceJunky. But also to @theGeneralist for not getting grumpy at what could have been viewed as a possible hijacking of the thread. This has been extremely useful , and inspiring. Thanks to all.

Ha ha. Sod that. I think it’s awesome that the thread has provided a few other people with some info too. I’m really grateful to GFJ for the info and beyond ( trying to ensure it isn’t phrased in a way that protectionist Frenchies get upset and call the Gendarmes!)

And I always make a point of adding any new info gained back into my ( myriad) routes threads so they can provide something in future if they come up in a search.

Again, I’d just like to thank you guys, especially @GeForceJunky. I just rode this route this afternoon, and couldn’t have enjoyed it more. What a totally excellent route. The singletrack was sublime. Admittedly, I was glad that I was on an e-bike. I was knackered afterwards!

Glad I could help. I tried the footpath from the very top of Mt Chery, was quite fun but very steep and quite a few walkers.

I also rode the full direct ridge from La Bourgeoisie to Verchaix, which I haven’t done in a while but was good to redo that one. Back up via the very steep fireroads to the chapel Jaquicourt.

I’ve been follwing this thread. I’m green with envy but I will get back out to Les Gets on day soon I hope. Having said that riding la Bourgousie in the wet was challanging to put it mildly.

You do know that a lot of what you are mentioning is in the VTopo guide books I’m sure.

You do know that a lot of what you are mentioning is in the VTopo guide books I’m sure

Is that the one that has a variation on the following pasted into a large number of chapters:

Local’s Tip

The cycling at xxxx is really great but very difficult to find. Local guide, Bob Gizzurecash, recommends finding and paying a local guide, preferably Bob Gizzurecash, to show you around rather than relying on this supposed guidebook you have just forked out thirty quid for.

I do have a copy of the Vtopo guidebook for the area. The trouble with it is half of the routes are full of boring fireroad and loads of the good routes into Switzerland are now forbidden to bikes.