Riding the megavalanche course not on race day

Me and my 15 year old son are going over to France later this month for a few weeks and part of our plan is to get the lift up and ride this from the top at pic blank.

I’ve never ridden the mega so was wondering how easy it will be to find/ ride the course? It’s on the area map as a permanent trail so will it be clearly visible and signed or is it a more adventure trail where I’ll have to do some navigating?

Any tips are much appreciated!

Thanks

It’s pretty obvious to be fair, been a while since I went, iirc all the trails are permanent anyway.

Permanent trails so reasonably obvious, but the little signs can easily be missed at speed without tape/spectators.

The lifts don’t run all the time and it is a very substantial push-up! FF and knee pads definitely recommend. I’m a long-distance XC racer and coped fine in the race (ie. just qualified and then improved quite a bit during the race as all the proper DH racers got tired?) It should be ridable by most decent riders. I found the qualifying course harder than the race route.

Turn right, then left, follow the snow, then trials, beers in Allemont before you know it ?

I did it start of August a couple of years ago when I was staying in Oz. Easy enough to find as signposted as the black Mega route (and on the trail map handout from the lift stations) but I did still follow a gps just to make sure I didnt take a wrong turn. Very little snow left at the top which I preferred. Given I was in Oz I did the lower sections down to Allemond as a bit of a taster then, when the weather looked good, went up early to top of Pic Blanc for the full run. If you’re ok with the bottom sections then the top section will be fine….bit looser but actually not as steep

Thanks all.

We’re both competent Dh riders/ racers so have no issues with riding the course, I was just a bit concerned about actually finding it!  It sounds like it’s easy enough to follow though so I’m looking forward to getting there!

As said, it’s pretty obvious where it goes but snow/no snow at the top makes a big difference to how it looks, and how it rides.

Hopefully lots of snow still there at the top when we go!

I’m at Mega now and there’s a lot of snow this year. My advice is wait till most of the snow has gone, once the novelty has worn off it’s a slushy slog. I wouldn’t say you’d even benefit from a DH rig – the top half is more like an extended Lakeland trail, at least the bits not covered in snow.