Portes du Soleil in France has skiing for every ability

A steaming mug of hot chocolate with Mont Blanc lurking on the horizon is as heady as a double shot of schnapps. And despite the thermometer hovering just above freezing, there's no need even for a hat. The sun is high in the sky. Everything is sparkling - including me. We're on the terrace of a cafe 3,000ft above Morzine, in the massive Portes du Soleil region, where the only blemish is the thought of how on earth I am going to get back down to the resort in one piece. This is my first full week of skiing, but I am on holiday with a group of experts who take the downhill-headfirst-with-gusto approach. Luckily, this vast ski area is made for groups of all abilities and every degree of daredevil. Les Gets and Avoriaz are within easy reach - as is Switzerland - there are runs of fearful gradient down to pretty tree-lined blue meanders (exactly what I'm after). But, in holiday spirit, we start out together - the boys almost all on boards, the girls on skis. We are in Les Gets - only a ten-minute gondola ride from Morzine and a ten-minute clump from our chalet door. The boarders flip about in the powdery snow beside the piste looking cool and I traverse across the slope - with extraordinary control - while everyone waits for me at the bottom, giggling. After a sustaining lunch we do more of the same. Well, not quite. Here, there's no need to do the same run twice, and at the end of the day we swoosh all the way to the bottom. It's January, but the snow is crunchy and Morzine resolutely neither white nor chocolate-box. The Christmas lights might be up, but it isn't quite festive. It's damp. Not so the apres-ski, which is boisterous. The relief at having completed the day without being carted off by the blood wagon is enough to send me into a contented slump, but there are people partying hard. Stag dos raise the tempo. They've cut a flash on the snow in superman outfits and horrifyingly chilly mankinis. We avoid them, and opt lazily for the Jacuzzi and aperitifs back at our chalet - aptly named Alaska. We are sharing it with three other couples - who are not all thrilled to be with a group of friends as excitable as huskies. Bunking up with others make this luxurious style of holiday affordable, even if it means there's a rush for the best spots at the dinner table. The bedrooms are big enough if you want to relax in private, and the shared areas are enormous - perfect for DVD-watching should you sprain a wrist on your first run. Skiers ascend above the cloud on a chairlift over the resorts of Avoriaz and Morzine The secret ingredient is our chef, Barry. He is responsible for airily creamy scrambled eggs in the morning, irresistible cakes in the afternoon and a sumptuous three-course dinner in the evening. We want to bring him home with us. Without the six hours of skiing a day, we'd be enormous. But mountain air and gluttony makes for a far deeper sleep than I ever manage at home in London. The week follows a happy pattern of tea (served in bed), breakfast, ski, vin chaud, ski better, lunch, ski lazily, cake, Jacuzzi, dinner, slumber. One evening a spa team visit to pummel our newly strained muscles, managing to avoid the deliciously purple bruises. Wonderful. My skiing progresses steadily, until the last day when I fall off the lift, slide backwards down the mountain and trip up in a restaurant when I'm not even in skis. Never mind. We try out all the resorts and discover better, thicker and more velvety snow in Switzerland. The journey over the border involves a 15-minute lift ride - La Mossettes-France - which, when the weather hardens, is almost unbearably bracing. Too cold for tears. The red runs here are manageable even for me, though on the day we are there, the snow is puffing back up the mountain so it seems as if you are skiing into the spout of a boiling kettle. Avoriaz attracts crowds, which is off-putting when it is icy, not least because of the slicing noise made by boarders cruising down behind you. It is a self-contained resort up the mountain and a strange sight. It was built to blend in with the mountain, which it does - from a distance. Close to, it's an imposing set of high-rise tower blocks; going up in a lift, passing them, makes you feel particularly precarious. The slopes in Les Gets are calmer, though with less of those spirit-soaring views. But it's still beautifully quiet up and away from it all - and that is perhaps the best treat of all.