Skiing Courchevel with Manu Gaidet: France’s Premier Alpine Playground
Updated: Aug 6
Meet Manu
Pristine well-groomed runs, elegant alpine villages, and ski-in/ski-out, well that's Courchevel, the jewel of the Trois Vallées ski area in France. In the latest episode of the Where to Ski podcast, host John Morgan explores the glamour and grit of skiing in Courchevel with world freeride champion and mountain guide Manu Gaidet, who has called these mountains home for over 25 years.
Groomed Perfection Meets Big-Mountain Adventure
For beginners and intermediates, Courchevel is paradise. Wide, immaculately groomed green and blue runs make learning smooth and safe, while expert instructors guide both kids and adults. As Manu explains, “Every slope from green to red is groomed like a dream. If you love carving, Courchevel will blow your mind.”
For advanced skiers, Courchevel offers legendary terrain like the Grand Couloir off La Saulire—one of Europe’s steepest marked runs at 45 degrees. Off-piste adventurers can find deep powder bowls and backcountry lines that rival Jackson Hole or Chamonix.
A Resort for Every Skier
Courchevel is divided into four main villages—Courchevel 1850, Courchevel 1650 (Moriond), Courchevel Village (1550), and La Praz (1300)—each with its own distinct vibe. At the top, Courchevel 1850 offers five-star hotels, Michelin-starred dining, and high-end shopping rivaling Aspen or St. Moritz. As you descend the mountain, the atmosphere becomes more relaxed and family-friendly, with cozy chalets, affordable accommodations, and easy access to the lifts.
Despite its reputation for luxury, Courchevel delivers incredible value for skiers. A six-day lift pass costs around €300, granting access to the entire Trois Vallées, the largest linked ski area in the world. That’s over 600 kilometers of groomed runs and countless off-piste opportunities across Courchevel, Méribel, and Val Thorens.
Beyond the Slopes: Heli-Skiing and Really Good Food
While heli-skiing in France is restricted, Courchevel sits just 20 minutes by helicopter from Italy, where heli-skiing is legal. Guided trips to Courmayeur or the Italian side of Mont Blanc offer 2,000-meter vertical descents through breathtaking Alpine terrain.
After a big day on the mountain, Courchevel delivers a culinary experience worthy of its setting. Think truffle fondue, caviar tastings, and après-ski Champagne lounges with panoramic views of the Tarentaise Valley.
Whether you’re chasing powder, family memories, or fine dining, Courchevel skiing offers the best of all worlds—luxury, variety, and adventure in one unforgettable destination.
Guides Courchevel can be found at https://guides-courchevel.com/
Episode Transcript
Welcome to Where to Ski. I'm your host, John Morgan. We're headed to France.
Let's strap them on and have some real fun checking out Courcheval. Courcheval is in the Tarentes Valley and is part of l'Etoile Valley, the largest linked ski area in the world. It includes Courcheval, Meribel, Val Thorens, and a few others.
You can drive two hours south of Geneva. You're there. You can take a train. You can take a plane and land on the side of the hill in town. Or you can drive up from Monaco in your Bentley and, oh, that takes about five hours. This resort is huge.
And it's skiing encompasses four villages. There's Courcheval, what everyone thinks of as Courcheval, and that's at the level of 1850. There's 1650, which is called Moriant.
There's the village at 1550. And then at the bottom of the hill is La Praze. It's one of the most exclusive ski resorts in the world, up there with Aspen and Stade.
It has handfuls of five and six-star hotels. The food can be amazing. After all, it is France.
Then there's some major shopping. All depends what you want to do. Why do an episode on this glitzy place? Well, because there's some crazy skiing for everyone.
If you want to take two or three intermediate runs and have a spectacular lunch and hit the Hermes store, you can do that. If you have kids just learning, they have a huge instruction program. Really good one.
If you want a real challenge, then head to the Sirius Couloirs off the Solier. They'll test the best skiers or head off-piste. Why else do Sirius skiers make this effort to come here? Well, it's the snow and the terrain.
As to the snow, well, the resort faces north. It gets and holds snow pretty well. Courcheval is an experience that shouldn't be missed for every lifestyle level of skier.
And we can break this down a bit. If you want gritsy, stay in Courcheval at 1850. And as you go down the hill, it gets more reasonable.
So if you go down to Moriant, it's more family-oriented. Down to the village or La Praz, it gets to be a little... the vibe is different. It's not as ritzy and it's pretty affordable.
On top of that, lift tickets are only 300 euros for six days. That's like a day and a half at some of the places in the U.S. And they can cover not just this resort, but the rest of the Trois Vallées resorts. Our guest today is three-time world freeride champion Manu Garay.
He's awesome. And he's also passionate about skiing and passionate about those mountains. He spent over 20 years guiding and teaching.
He trains future guides and ski instructors in off-piste technique and mountain leadership at the École Nationale de Ski d'Outpiste. His day job is guiding for Courcheval mountain guides. But more on that later.
So after this quick break, we'll talk to Manu and find out about the real Courcheval.
Manu, welcome to Where to Ski. Courcheval and the whole Trois-Vallées area is amazing. Thank you for joining us today.
Maybe you can tell us a little bit about some of your own ski history and how you ended up in Courcheval. Well, I grew up in another ski resort we call La Rosière, small ski resort on the Italian border. When I was 19, I did my French army in Maribel.
This is how I discovered the Trois-Vallées and it blew my mind. I was like, what's going on here? It's so big. I couldn't do everything in one month.
I was like, oh my God, this is a dream to ski here. After I finished my French army, I decided, okay, let's try. I will do a ski season in Courcheval as a ski instructor or mountain guide.
Then I did one winter and I never came back. It's actually 26 years that I'm here in Courcheval. That's a great story.
It happens a lot where people go to a place and they just fall in love with it. They go for one year and they never leave. Exactly.
It happened to me with Courchevel. To be honest, it's hard to compete in this place. I've been traveling the world because of competition all over the world.
To be honest, I never find such a special place like this place. Courcheval is only part of a much broader region. The Trois-Vallées is huge.
The variety of skiing and the towns and everything else, they're varied. There's just amazing skiing all over. We're going to talk about Courchevel mostly today because it's the big one.
The whole valley is huge or all three valleys are huge. The thing is that compared to other places in the world, it's that we get all the infrastructure and it's all linked with the ski lift and it's accessible by skis. It's ski in, ski out to the restaurants, to the hotels, to the flats.
You can be in Courchevel or the rest of the Trois-Vallées, it's all about the same. It's so convenient. It's a luxury to be able to reach the terrace of the restaurant on skis, enter in your room with the skis, exit with the skis.
It's just so convenient when you're on holidays after a long travel. I think this is really what makes it special. Well, it is pretty special.
If I remember correctly, when you go up first end of the valley, the valley of Courchevel, it's just spectacular. You look up and it's all right up there. Then you go from La Praz and you work your way up.
It's like eight kilometers all the way up to the main Courchevel at the top, right? Yes, because when you drive down from the valley, you pass by La Praz, then you have Courchevel 1550, so it's the next level. We call Courchevel village as well. Then you have Courchevel which is 1650, so a little bit higher up.
Then on top, you have 1850. That's just the base. You're talking some serious altitude, which is good in the Alps, because the skiing really is dependent on the altitude in the Alps, I've found.
Yes, it's really amazing because some ski resorts, sadly, suffer sometimes because they're too low. Luckily, in the Free Valley Courchevel, it's a no-brainer. You never get problems with snow.
It's just amazing. The easiest way to get there, I remember I stayed in a hotel looking out over the airport. I was blown away by the airport because the planes just come in and they land uphill.
It's sort of cool, but it's not like a scheduled service. What's the easiest way to get to Courchevel or what are the best ways to get there? Is there train service? Yes, it depends from where you come. If you come from the States, for example, for sure, you will arrive with a plane in Lyon or Geneva, I think.
From the plane, you can take a taxi. It will drive you directly to Courchevel in one hour and a half, two hours, it depends. You can take the train.
If you come, for example, a lot of the English people, they are coming with the Eurostar to the tunnel below the Manche. They make it in one way to Moutier. Moutier, it's at the bottom of the valley.
Then you have buses from the train station or you can take a taxi or whatever. That's pretty easy. It's not hard to get to.
If I remember right, it's like two hours from Geneva. It's not a big deal. No, it's not a big deal.
Of course, for some very privileged people, you can arrive also by helicopter because you have a helipad or you can also with small jets, not the proper jet, but like a smaller mountain plane, I would say, like Pilatus and stuff like this, you can land also. You have different ways to access. I always just call up a chopper and tell it, give me a ride to the ski area.
That makes it easy. When it's not foggy. Let's talk about some of the skiing.
Courchevel's got a reputation for like huge variety. It's big. It's got terrain for everyone.
A lot of it. Maybe we can start for just a minute talking about skiing for beginner and intermediate skiers. I know it's not something you do a lot of, but half the terrain is targeted for them.
There's a lot of instruction. I assume that the bottom of the mountain is really dedicated primarily to intermediates, beginners, things like that. If you take the example of Courchevel 1850, you have all the area with a plalon.
It's really dedicated for the beginners. You have a lot of green slopes, blue slopes, and also very beginner area with magic carpet and stuff. All the ski school, the teacher, they teach the kids and the adults there, the beginners.
It's really, really amazing because the preparation, well, the terrain is really designed for that. Courchevel, as you said, is divided in two places. The lower part, I mean for 1850, is flat, but as soon as you go up, it's steeper and steeper, which is amazing because you can have a little bit of fun in any kind of places.
There is a lot to do for beginners. The evolution on the slopes, there is big evolution since 25 years that I saw this evolution. They created a lot of part accessible to reach the top to the bottom for beginners as well or for intermediate skiers.
It means you are not only restricted at the bottom, but if you look at the map or if you're an instructor, it will bring you top to bottom on the easy way. It's pretty cool for that. That is pretty cool.
They probably keep it really well, at least a few of them, well-groomed. Up there, it's wide open. You get the views, you get the vistas.
No, no, no. It's not a few of them who are really groomed. The speciality of Courchevel, it's the grooming.
It means all the slopes from green, blue, red, it's groomed like a dream. If you like carving, you will be, well, it blows my mind. It blows my mind all the time.
I like to carve also like racing turns and all. It's a dream for that because the slopes are such in good preparation in the morning, you can't believe. This, I never saw anywhere else in the world.
It's just specificity of Courchevel on the way they groom the slope, it's just fantastic. It's nice to be able to go out and take some real rippers, just flat out, 50 mile an hour, you know, 70, 80 kilometer an hour runs doing big arcs just to get warmed up. That's really cool.
Yeah, that's really cool. Also, because compared to other ski resorts in Courchevel, this kind of slopes, they're pretty wide. Even if it's a bit crowded, you still have your own space and you can find your line through the people.
It's not so dangerous. It's not like in some other places that it's very narrow and everybody ski on each other. With speed, it's crazy.
The terrain is pretty wide, so you have a lot of places to ride because the fact, yeah, as I said, it's slopes are wide, so it's pretty cool. That makes a big difference because otherwise you get into what I call the white ribbon of death. Oh yeah, it's crazy.
You get a very narrow hill with all sorts of different levels of skiers on it and you're just trying to stay alive until you can get to somewhere decent. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's pretty comfortable for the beginners and the intermediate skiers because they can enjoy without being afraid of the other and stuff, so it's pretty cool.
You and your team really specialize in big mountain excursions, right? Yeah, exactly. We're getting past the groomers in this stage. We're going into some of the big boy skiing.
There's a lot to cover here. We've talked a little bit about staying on the mountain. We may come back to that in terms of exactly where to start your day and how the mountain skis, but there's a lot that's serviced by the lift.
Let's start there maybe. Some of the really adventurous stuff. Where are some of the ones that you like to take people and have a ball? I'm sure it depends on the weather.
Yeah, but it's really amazing because with our customers, as mountain guides, we have so many cards in our hands in the morning. All the time, my clients ask me, Manny, where do we go today? I say, I don't know because I never know where I go because you take the lift, you check and you say, oh, the Grand Couloir in La Soulière, the top of the mountain, looks really amazing. I thought we would go further, but no.
Next door, it's perfect. Why we will go so far? Let's make one run around. Straight away, you jump out of the cable car and you hit 40 degrees, 45 degrees couloir.
After a snowfall, it's like a proper border and really, really amazing. Is that the Grand Couloir you're talking about? Yeah, Grand Couloir, it's one piece actually, but they can't group the slope because it's too steep. When you're the first, it's totally off-piste and after a snowfall, you imagine it's like a pure off-piste.
Then this is really with no hiking, nothing. You're just jumping and you enjoy and take back the cable car and you can do several runs there. It's really cool.
For example, this could be a warm-up, but then after you have so many staff, before we used to have a lift called Crenoy, which they totally remove it. We walk like 20, 25 minutes and from this place, we eat a big bowl. I remember one day I was with some Americans from Jackson Hole and we were shooting for a Warren Miller movie.
One guy said, wow, but this place, just this bowl, it's the same as Jackson Hole, the entire Jackson Hole. I said, yeah, but you can't imagine what's next. The guy couldn't believe it.
It's like a huge, huge place. It is a huge, huge area. Now, that's the first thing I noticed when I was there.
You've got so many choices. That's why it's hard to figure out where to start and what looks good. You look up and I'm sure that the experience you get day-to-day makes a big difference too.
You know what skis well, you know what doesn't. Yeah, exactly. Because as the mountain guides, we are living here, spending all the winter here, following the condition, following the wind, the new snow, the slabs, everything.
You really have to know with what you play because it's serious terrain and you can get in trouble if you don't take it serious. Okay. You can also go off the back of Saulier and down into Maribel, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
From the top of Cable Car, you can jump or in the north face in Courchevel or in the southwest face in Maribel. How does that ski? That sounds pretty cool. You need a good level in both sides because it's 40 degree slopes.
It can be a bit of boggles and some days the conditions are tough. So you need to be in shape and to know the technique because otherwise you can put yourself in trouble. It's not for intermediate or beginner.
It's really for extremely good skier. 40 degrees, that's almost elbow-touching stuff. That's steep.
It starts to be steep. Over 40, we can say it starts to be steep. So when you do that, if you go off the south side, you ski into another town, is that something that you do a lot over there that you go to Maribel and you go from town to town or do you really stay in one area? Well, it depends.
When the weather is not so good, of course, we don't go too far. We play around. But if the weather is good, we cruise all day around and we make miles and miles in one day.
I have some of my customers, they have the GPS to record the kilometers. We do around 90 kilometers per day. That's a good day.
That's a big day. I'm in vertical meters. Sorry, I'm not talking in feet, but I'm talking in meters.
Vertical meters, we do close to 20,000. That's a really big day. You're tired after one of those.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's possible to do. When I was training as a freerider, I was doing 20,000 vertical meters per day.
Don't stop. That's like 60,000 vertical per feet. Probably a little more.
The lifts are fast. You never chew. That's really nice because in Courchevel, the lifts are really fast.
It's crowded, but not too crowded compared to some other places. For example, if you go to Whistler, you will queue forever. But in Courchevel, you never get in the situation with the queue, so it's very, very fast.
It's very free. You never wait. It's fast.
That's surprising because it's so close to some major population centers that it doesn't get stacked up. I'm sure that there are times like in the holidays when it gets stacked up a little bit. Yeah.
To be honest, it happens maybe two weeks in the winter, so it's not bad. That's okay. If you know the places, you never really queue.
You go a little round and you find your way through. It's no problem. That's why a guide, especially at a place that big, that's why it's really, really helpful to have a guide.
What's the best way to get on the mountain? It probably depends where you stay and stuff, but I assume that there's sort of a way you like to try and ski the mountain with the sun and be able to start off in a certain area and then work your way around. Yeah, of course. It depends on the time in the winter, if it's January or March, because it changes.
For example, the beginning of the season, we are chasing the north face to get the powder as much as we can. Of course, sometimes in some places, it's also powder early winter, so we chase the places in the south before it turns, before it gets crusty or wet, and then we end up in the north face. After, it's a little reverse in the spring.
We need to find the east faces in the morning to make sure it burns a little bit of snow in the morning to get the nice spring snow. It's really amazing because you need a lot of knowledge. To be able to hit always the right snow, but this is why also people pay us because we are snow hunters, well, good snow hunters.
Now, are there places that people should stay away from when they're over there? Do you get crevasses, things like that? No, it's on Courchevel, we don't have a glacier. If you use the lift only, you will not hit a glacier, so it's no problem. Okay.
But if you start go ski touring from Courchevel, yes, you're on glaciers sometimes. Of course, then it's a different story. You need the knowledge to go there or to be with someone with skis.
What do you use for skis up there? What's your go-to? You probably have a few for different conditions, but what's your go-to on that? Sorry, sorry, sorry. What kind of skis do you work with mostly? I'm sure you've got a few different types. I have my own ski brand, so I use my skis and I use different, of course, I have like a 30-pair or so.
I play a little bit of golf and it's the same, so in my bucket, I have, okay, I grabbed this one today because the conditions are like this, like that, so it depends. With some people who want to hike up, for example, very fast, I have the most light skis, the most, the ski touring for racing to hike up fast, so it's the days when you like, when you decide to hike a lot more than skiing, and then, but I would say most of the days, I use 95 under the foot, 185, 190, and with ski touring boots, but half-half, you know, like a compromise between not so stiff, not so hard, but like something which is okay to walk, but your ski is good at the, when you go down, so. That's nothing spectacular, you know, except for the fact that you've got your own brand of skis.
I didn't know that. Tell me about your skis. I'm intrigued.
Tell me about what you've done with your own skis. Well, it's, I have a career in extreme skiing and freeride, and at the time, I was sponsored by Rossignol, so I was developing all the prototypes for Rossignol with an engineer behind me, so for like six, seven years, I was really, really developing the skis for racing, and then in 2010, when I quit with them, I thought, oh, it was a good experience, and I missed a little bit this research and development, you know, so, and I met a guy who has the skills to produce, and we talked together, and he helped me to go in this adventure, and it's full made in France, so it's very, very small. We don't sell many, many pairs.
It's like very confidential, but it's full custom-made, core wood, and we do pist, well, slope skis, fat skis, ski touring skis, whatever, and we custom-made it, like very custom-made for personalization for the people. We can put the name. We can put whatever.
That's pretty cool. What's the brand name? Well, it's MG, but you won't find it in the website, nothing. I don't work like that.
I work really by people I love. I mean, they have to track you down to see if they qualify. Exactly.
That's pretty cool. You must be part engineer now. Well, step by step, you know, it's like it's 14 years now that we work with this small brand, so it's very small.
Like 15 years ago, I was working with all the shops, so I was doing like 150 pairs per year, so it's very, very small, you know, but now I really reduce and I work only with the people I know. I keep it very small. Very few people have tried doing that and have it last for this long.
That's pretty spectacular. All right, back to the scheme. In terms of the mountain, do you do much heli work there? You've talked a little bit about off-piste and climbing, but do people heli ski over there at all? Is it worth it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
On the French side, sadly, helicopter skiing is forbidden, but Courchevel is 12 minutes away by helicopter from Italy. And in Italy, you can do anything, right? Well, you can heli ski, so not anything, but you have like three places, like near to Mont Blanc. And one more time, it's a 20-minute flight to there, so it's very convenient.
So with the mountain guide office, of course, we organize trips like this. So we start from Courchevel with the helicopter, flew to Italy, and then we do the day in Italy and come back in Courchevel in the afternoon. That's pretty interesting.
What's the skiing like? Is it good? It must be good. If you're spending the money to do it and you actually do it, it's probably got to be pretty good. To be honest, it's really amazing because you ski on the very high mountain for long, long, long runs, you know? And skiing 2,000 vertical, a run of 2,000 meters vertical with one run, so it takes one hour.
And so what's different compared to the States or to Canada? In Canada, when you do heli ski, you do more heli than you ski because the runs are pretty short. In the Alps, it's totally different because you take the heli once and you ski for one hour, so you don't see the heli for a while. So you feel really in the nature, no noise.
As soon as the heli left, you know, it's like, wow, and you're on the serious terrain. Like, you ski on the side of Mont Blanc. So it's like proper mountains, like big, big mountains.
So you're almost over into Chamonix when you're doing that, aren't you? Yeah, it's opposite to Chamonix on the Italian side. Because Mont Blanc, you have Chamonix on one side and Courmayeur on the next side, so you ski on Courmayeur's side. Or some other regions not far off.
It's just amazing. I can tell you like that one. So going on all these trips like this, you do a lot of work with getting people certified.
What kind of certifications do you need to be able to be a guide and do all this? Okay, so in France, it's pretty tough. Because first, you have to do a list of 80 summits that you have to make by yourself. For example, if I was talking about Mont Blanc, Mont Blanc, by the normal way, doesn't enter in this list.
It's not difficult enough. So you have to do 80 serious summits on your own. Then when you're ready, you send this list to the organism in Chamonix.
You say, okay, look, I would like to enter in the guide course. So they check out all the lists of the summits you did. If they're happy, they say, okay, next year and this day to come.
Then you have two months, you spend two months in Chamonix to learn. So safety, security.
Such an amazing podcast! Thanks John!