Flégère Ski Area & Lifts, Chamonix - Les Praz

Flégère (1,894m) lies adjacent to Brévent and is accessed directly by a cable car from Les Praz, the small village a couple of kilometres up the valley beside the golf course. A freeriders paradise in winter, this lift can be prone to long queues during high season and on a powder day, so it is often quicker to access the area from the Brévent side via the Plan Praz gondola, the Cornu or Sources chairlifts and the Liaison cable car. Also, the Flégère cable car will close during high winds.

Once up there, Flégère offers a wide range of slopes from green nursery pistes to long challenging black runs, such as La Floria drag lift which opens out onto one of Chamonix's favourite off-piste areas on a powder day. Up here are a couple of great red and black runs, but beware - the drag lift has a dog-leg bend in it about two-thirds of the way up, but it doesn't pose much of a problem if you're steady on your skis/snowboard. The remainder of the area is all chairlifts.

Also, there are links via cable car to Brévent, giving you the opportunity to ski/snowboard two sunny south-facing resorts in one day, on the same lift pass.

The cable car is also open in summer, when the area is popular with hikers, climbers and mountain bikers. During summer, the Index chairlift whisks hikers up to 2,396m, saving your legs if you're en route to Lac Blanc.

Available at the lift pass office are piste maps, bus and train timetables, weather forecasts, ski condition details and avalanche bulletins. You can also purchase the necessary mountain/ski insurance here if you do not already have the correct cover. The staff speak English and all major credit cards are accepted here.