Alps
France
Les Portes du Soleil is a Franco-Swiss ski region linking 12 resorts across Haute-Savoie and Valais | Known for: 600 kilometres of skiing, cross-border lift connections, Avoriaz freestyle terrain, the Swiss Wall and a network of park, freeride and village sectors | Season: full-domain operations scheduled from December 19 2026 to April 18 2027 | Best for: multi-resort freeski trips, park progression, lift-accessed freeride and long ski-through itineraries between France and Switzerland
The Hauts-Forts rise above Avoriaz at roughly 2460 metres while the lower parts of the Portes du Soleil network descend toward 900 metres in the valleys of Haute-Savoie and Valais. Between those elevations sits a cross-border ski region covering about 400 square kilometres. Official winter figures list 600 kilometres of skiing, 12 resorts, 307 pistes and 208 lifts spread between France and Switzerland. The scale is geographic rather than vertical alone: a skier moves through separate valleys, villages, ridges and national jurisdictions instead of repeatedly skiing one central mountain.
The French side includes Avoriaz, Morzine, Les Gets, Châtel, Abondance, La Chapelle d'Abondance, Montriond and Saint-Jean-d'Aulps, while Champéry, Morgins, Torgon and the Val-d'Illiez-Les Crosets-Champoussin sector extend the network into Switzerland. Those areas are linked unevenly rather than forming one symmetrical bowl. Avoriaz, Châtel and Les Crosets occupy the central cross-border spine, while peripheral sectors require more deliberate route planning. For freeskiers, that structure creates multiple terrain personalities inside one pass rather than one uniform resort experience.
Avoriaz provides the strongest dedicated freestyle concentration in the domain. The