Steve wrote in
:

As it happens I''m heading that way for New Year and I can't wait.
I've never skied the area before, can anyone recommend any of the
following?:

a) a good off piste guide
b) good piste/off piste skiing - the highlights if you like?
c) good restaurants (on hill or in village).

I can answer briefly re. off-piste in the Grand Massif - I ski there
fairly frequently. There isn't AFAIK a published off-piste guide to the
area. Most of the off-piste stuff is between or fairly close to pistes -
there aren't really any big remote descents in neighbouring valleys.

A few highlights in different areas:

In the Flaine bowl you can go pretty much anywhere, but the whole of the
upper section is on limestone pavement with big rock crevasses, so in
light snow cover you need to be really careful (this will almost
certainly apply at New Year). People fall into these holes and die every
year.

Top right (looking up) of the Flaine bowl, the uppermost chairlift gives
access to a fun area - nothing big, but nice terrain. It's rocky, and
needs good cover.

Top left of the Faine bowl is the entrance to the Gers bowl, which is the
biggest off-piste area. It has a long Poma. You can go pretty much
anywhere, all the slopes funnel down to the bottom of the lift.
Unfortunately the lift rarely runs in the early season, as the area is
avalanche prone. If it's running, do it.

There are various well-frequented slopes with various different aspects
between Flaine and Les Carroz - perhaps someone can help with the names
of lifts here - I can't remember. Anyway this stuff is very obvious,
there'll be people all over them.

My personal favourite (maybe I should keep quiet about this).... In new
snow the forests immediately above Les Carroz (skier's right of the
telecabine, mostly) are magnificent; fairly steep, and the trees are
fairly closely spaced, and just masses of terrain where hardly anyone
goes. You occasionally come out on a piste, cross straight over and into
the woods on the other side. The bottom section of the piste leads back
to the Carroz lifts, you can't miss it.

Samoens: at the top there's a certain amount of stuff which is not really
off piste (I think the best way down is actually marked as a black piste
on the plan - someone please correct me if I'm wrong) but is quite fun.
There are good bumps on the upper slope coming into the Samoens area from
Flaine, the area I'm referring to is skier's right of the bumps, starting
a bit higher and served by a chair. There's not much on the lower slopes.

Morillon: nothing much - some very short slopes at the top which are fun
in new snow, and some entertaining mud at the bottom (on-piste) in light
snow conditions.

Apologies for not giving more names - I don't have a plan in front of me
and I can't remember a lot of them, but I think the main areas should be
pretty obvious when you're there. Maybe others can suggest anything I've
missed.

Jeremy