Sat, 27 December 2025
Minimum altitude: 1,358 meters
Distance: 101.6 km
Slope Aspect: South
Vertical Climbed: 9,932 meters (32,587 feet)
Vertical Descended: 9,930 meters
SFL is located in the Maurienne valley in a large, south facing bowl just below the Col de la Madeleine. The resort is about 1 hour from Chambery and 2 hours from Lyon. In the winter the right side of the bowl (looking down the mountain) receives sun in the morning but this is also where you find the steepest pistes served by the rickety Lauziere chair. This lift was wiped out by an avalanche on the 4 March 2012 but since then a lot of extra avalanche protection work has been put in place.
From the top of this chair you have the steep and wild Lauziere black, definitely something for the freeride specialists. The whole bowl can be skied, not just the run but with the usual precautions for the avalanche risk. The Reverdy red is also very steep at the top but the Colombe is more in the normal red territory. At 2550 meters this is also the top of the ski area, off the back towards the north east you can ski down to the Madeleine chair in a large north east facing bowl, all off piste, of course. The valleys to the south of the Lauziere chair offer some classic ski touring to the Rocher de Sarvantan (2510m) and Col de Montjoie (2253). To the north there is the Col de la Flachere (2776m) and the Grand Pic de la Lauziere (2829m) tackled from the north side over the Celliers glacier and reachable from the Roset chair or the Celliers road.
The left side of the bowl is shaded by the Pointe Aigue mountain ridge in the morning. This helps preserve the snow. It is dominated by blue and green runs, ideal for experts and intermediates with a couple of reds and blacks to challenge better skiers. The lift system is modern but this also means some of the popular runs can get crowded. There is snow making which pretty much guarantees opening, at least in the mid 2020s. The Cheval Noire is a classic but technical ski touring route on this side of the bowl.
The resort links to Valmorel as part of the Grand Domaine ski area offering 165km of pistes. Valmorel is north facing and doesn’t see as much sun but offers longer piste compared to SLF. The bottom of the ski area is Saint Francois 1450 meters There is a regular bus service (S30) from St. Arve/la Chambre railway station, just 12km away, which takes about 30 minutes to resort. However on the weekend these don’t link in with the rail service so it is not possible to do a day in resort by public transport.
There is an excellent but challenging cross country ski area at the Grand Coin, this is some way from the actual ski resort.
To sum up, the ski area offers excellent beginner and intermediate skiing and with the Grande Domaine there is certainly enough to keep them busy for a week. Advanced skiers may start to run out of challenges mid-week unless they hire a ski instructor to show them some off the backcountry or even ski touring.
Trip Report
The resort offers an excellent value half price lift pass for Saturdays. Last year we'd skied from the Valmorel side and decided the ski area was worth a second look. This time we reserved from SLF as the Maurienne valley has less Saturday traffic problems compared to the Vanoise side. Basically an hour's drive from home. We parked at Marquis chair, at 1560 meters this was the snowline today. The run to 1450 meters wasn't open. There was something of a cold wind blowing at the Col and we decided to ski the Lauziere black. It was early and the snow was still quite hard. We'd come back in the afternoon. On the Valloire side we couldn't ski all the way to Doucy as there was not enough snow below 1400 meters. After a long schlepp back we did a few top to bottoms from the Col du Mottet (about 1000 meters vertical) on the challenging Mottet black which was mogulled and the reds. The run takes about 5 minutes to ski down, or 14 minutes to climb up via a gondola and high speed chair. Much more of a challenge was the Riondet black. Off piste it was breakable crust, depending on your weight and technique or heavy powder. On piste it was cut up snow but generally ok to ski with a bit of caution. This brought us down to the Madeleine chair and as it was just after 14h00 we decided to return to SLF to ski some warm and sunny slopes after a couple of hours in the Valmorel fridge. We went back to the Lauziere black, now much better after being baked in the warm sun and then to finish the day some cruisey not to challenging blues. Or so I thought. On the very last run I made a mistake on some hard, snow canon snow and did a spectacular high speed wipe out taking out the sign warning skiers to slow down. Amazingly no harm done (a young man was killed in nearby les Karellis today in a piste crash on hard snow).
Overall very good snow conditions given the recent warm weather and general lack of snow. Off piste some destructured powder, breakable crust or spring snow depending on the slope aspect. Avalanche risk was 2. Cold near the cols and summits due to a north wind.
