CHATEL - It's hard to resist a feeling of superhuman grandeur when you stand perched over an ocean of fresh snow watching the sun creep over the "Dents du Midi" — the Teeth of the South — a wolf's jaw of jagged peaks soaring 10,000 feet (3,250 metres) from the valley below.

Such a vision of natural splendor is enough to inspire you to turn your skis toward the black slope they call Le Corbeau — The Crow — and flash down its near-vertical mogul field in a display of downhill daring-do.
Or perhaps not.

The alternative is a gentle incline crossing the invisible frontier from France into Switzerland, where the patrons of the Chalet Neuf cafe provide a hot spiced-wine welcome while you contemplate how next to avoid any death-defying antics on your winter holiday. Whether you're a manic mountain thrill seeker or a mild-mannered slider who views skiing as an excuse to enjoy fresh air, spectacular scenery and hearty Alpine cuisine, it would be hard not to find what you're looking for in the "Portes du Soleil".

This vast winter sports playground rises above the south bank of Lake Geneva with 400 miles (650 kilometres) of interconnected ski slopes. The "gates of sunshine" ski area straddles two countries, 12 resorts and 266 pistes, ranging from gentle descents through forests of spruce and fir, to fearsome plunges like La Chavanette, one of the most challenging runs in the Alps.

Chatel sits in the center of the Portes du Soleil, a village that collects epithets the way skiers collect bruises. "The charming village side of the Alps", ''the most Swiss of French resorts", ''where Swiss style meets the French touch", ''a family-plus mountain resort", are some of the slogans adopted by this cozy collection of wooden chalets nestled in the slopes of the aptly named Abondance valley.

While some French ski centres, purpose-built in the 1960s and '70s, have all the concrete charm of the Parisian high-rise suburbs flung up at the same time, Chatel has fought to maintain its Alpine village ambiance. Although it's no longer the remote scattering of mountain farms shown in photos pre-dating the opening of the first ski-lift in 1947, the hotels, vacation homes and apartments that now cluster around the little stone church strive to replicate the traditional rural architecture. The hillsides are covered with facades decorated with intricately carved balconies and gently pitched roofs built to hold a thick blanket of insulating snow.

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