The Avoriaz Bike Park doesn’t mess around. Carved into the cliff-edged terrain of the Hauts Forts massif and the rolling alpine plateaus around the Arare lift zone, this is a bike park that takes the mountain seriously — technical enough to keep expert riders honest, diverse enough to give beginner and intermediate riders a proper place to develop. If you’re planning a trip to the Portes du Soleil and wondering which trails to target, this guide breaks down the park by difficulty level so you can hit the ground running from day one.
The bike park operates in summer across the same lift infrastructure used for skiing, which means you’re getting serious vertical and multiple access points across the resort. Depending on which zone you ride, top-to-bottom descents can cover anywhere from 400 to over 1,000 metres of elevation drop. That’s the kind of descending that makes your arms tired and your grin involuntary.
Let’s go trail by trail.
Green Trails: Getting Your Mountain Legs
If you’re new to lift-accessed mountain biking, or if you’re travelling with someone who is, the green trails in the Avoriaz Bike Park provide a genuine entry point without being patronising. These aren’t just paved paths with a slight incline — they’re proper mountain trails at reduced gradient, giving newer riders an authentic taste of alpine singletrack without the consequence of a real mistake.
The lower Lindarets valley trails are the primary green zone, winding through open pasture and gentle forest below the upper lift stations. Wide enough for confident beginners but narrow enough to feel like real singletrack, they’re excellent for building confidence with natural terrain, small rollers, and off-camber grass corners. Don’t be embarrassed to spend your first day here — riders who skip the greens and jump straight to blues often spend more time rebuilding confidence than actually progressing.
The green network also serves as the return route between Avoriaz and Morzine for the less experienced, meaning even the “easy” trails have a purpose and a destination, not just a circuit.
Blue Trails: Where Most Riders Spend Their Time
Blue trails form the backbone of the Avoriaz Bike Park experience, and they’re legitimately excellent. These aren’t dumbed-down compromise trails — they’re the trails that most intermediate riders will find themselves sessioning repeatedly because the flow, the scenery, and the variety keep them interesting across multiple laps.
The route from the Col du Fornet down toward the Lindarets pass is a blue classic: a long, winding descent with natural rock features, root sections, and open alpine views that you simply don’t get in lower-altitude parks. The gradient is consistent — challenging enough to build speed but forgiving enough to carry momentum through technical moments without total commitment.
The Morzine connection trails, particularly the sections above and below the Pleney lift system, provide some of the most rewarding blue-level riding in the network. You’re covering real mountain terrain, not park terrain — there’s a wildness to the trail that shaped bike park blues often lack.
For intermediate riders, a good strategy is to ride the blue trails confidently first, then cherry-pick individual sections of the red trails that look approachable. Avoriaz blues are at the harder end of the blue grading scale, which is exactly the right preparation for moving up.
Red Trails: Technical, Rewarding, and Properly Alpine
This is where Avoriaz gets serious. The red trails in the bike park require real mountain bike competence — not just technical ability on the bike, but judgment. Line choice matters. Reading terrain at speed matters. Understanding when to let the bike run and when to check your speed matters.
The Arare zone reds are the standouts. Starting from the top lift and dropping into exposed, rocky ridgeline terrain before transitioning into tighter switchbacks lower down, these descents give you genuine alpine riding character. Loose rock over compacted alpine soil demands precise body positioning and active wheel placement. Mess up a corner on a red here and the consequence is a real one.
The upper sections of the Hauts Forts trail system also run red — sustained gradient, natural rock features that reward commitment, and enough airtime opportunity in the right places to satisfy riders who like to let the wheels leave the ground occasionally.
Expect to work on reds in Avoriaz. Expect to get humbled, to walk a section or two, and to come back from each run with specific things you want to try differently. That process is the point.
Black Trails: For Riders Who Mean Business
The black trails in the Avoriaz Bike Park are not decorative. They exist for riders who have legitimately mastered the red level and are looking for terrain that raises every parameter simultaneously — steeper, looser, rockier, more exposed, with features that demand commitment and don’t forgive half-measures.
The full Hauts Forts descent, ridden top to bottom in its most direct line, is the park’s showpiece black run. It’s long, it’s sustained, and it throws multiple character changes at you — exposed alpine singletrack up high, a technical rock garden in the middle band, and a rooty, loamy finish through the lower forest that punishes anyone who’s already used up their arm endurance on the upper sections. Ride this run well and you’ll know you’re operating at a high level. Ride it badly and it will tell you exactly what you need to work on.
Some of the jump lines in the upper park also grade black and are genuinely challenging — these are for riders who understand progressive jump progression and are comfortable committing to shaped kickers at speed.
Lift Access and Practical Information
The main lift access for the bike park is via the Prodains gondola at the base of the Avoriaz cliff, and the Arare gondola from within the resort. Both operate on summer hours from late June through mid-September, typically opening around 9:00–9:30am and closing around 5:00pm, though times vary by date and should be checked on the Portes du Soleil website.
A summer lift pass covers the full Portes du Soleil network, giving you access to trails across Morzine, Les Gets, Châtel, and over the Swiss border. For a pure bike park day focused on Avoriaz, the park-specific pass covers the Prodains and Arare gondolas and is slightly cheaper than the full network option. If you plan to explore the wider network at any point — and you should — get the full pass.
Bike rentals are available at the base and in the village with everything from hardtails to full-squish enduro bikes and full downhill rigs available by the day or week.
Where to Stay in Avoriaz: Book Smart with IMPT
Staying close to the bike park access points makes a real operational difference to your riding day. The earlier you can get on the lift, the more laps you get. The shorter your return walk after a long day, the better your legs feel the next morning.
When searching for accommodation in Avoriaz, impt.io is worth using beyond just the convenience factor. Every booking made through the platform earns approximately 5% back as carbon credits, retired on-chain in your name. For riders spending their summers in Alpine environments — environments that are genuinely and measurably changing as global temperatures rise — that’s not a trivial consideration. Your hotel booking generates real, verified offset credits that go toward environmental projects. It’s built into the booking process at no extra cost.
Find your accommodation near the Avoriaz Bike Park at IMPT.
Plan Your Ride Day Right
The Avoriaz Bike Park rewards preparation. Know which zones you want to ride, understand the lift connections, and have a rough route in mind before you load your first gondola. The park map — available on the Portes du Soleil website and their dedicated MTB app — is detailed enough to plan a full day of riding without getting lost or wasting time figuring out connections mid-session.
Most importantly: bring water, bring a proper trail snack, and give yourself permission to dial back if the trails are outside your current level. The mountain will be here next year. Ride it within yourself today, progress, and come back for more. That’s the Avoriaz Bike Park in a sentence.
