Val d'Isère and Tignes share one high-alpine network built around real snow reliability; terrain moves from tree-lined lower runs to open bowls and, above Tignes, the Grande Motte glacier, which opens for skiing as early as October. The terrain here skews harder than most French areas: roughly 45% is graded advanced or expert.
The signature run is the Face de Bellevarde, a relentless, steep, wide piste above Val d'Isère that has hosted the men's downhill at two World Championships and returns regularly to the World Cup circuit. The Grande Motte glacier itself is the area's other headline feature, both for its early-season skiing and for terrain parks maintained across the whole season.
Val d'Isère has the stronger village character of the two, with better restaurants, a livelier après-ski scene, and direct access to the Bellevarde face for anyone chasing the area's most demanding terrain. Tignes is built for convenience: ski-in ski-out throughout, and the closest base to the Grande Motte glacier, with some of the best terrain parks in Europe alongside it.
300 km
Skiable area
162 days
Season length
669 cm
Avg annual snowfall
1900 m
Vertical drop
Skiable terrain, annual snowfall and season length are shared across the whole connected area — the same value applies to every town below. Vertical drop is the one exception: it's measured from this area's highest lift-served point down to each specific town's own base elevation, so it genuinely varies depending which town you start skiing from — see each town's own page for its figure. On leaderboards, this area counts once, not once per town.
Gnarliness
More gnarly than 83% of resorts with data
Beginner-friendly
More beginner-friendly than 60% of resorts with data
Groomed vs off-piste
More groomed than 64% of resorts with data
Backcountry access
More backcountry than 70% of resorts with data
These describe the terrain reachable from any town on this network, so they're the same everywhere in the area — not specific to whichever town you start from.
Nightlife
More nightlife than 80% of resorts with data
Unlike the terrain characteristics above, nightlife genuinely varies by which specific town you base yourself in — this is an average across every town in the area with data, not one shared figure.
€2,250/month
Avg monthly rent
€2,127/month
Avg monthly salary
€7
Price of a beer
Averaged across the 2 town(s) in this area with data for each figure — individual towns can vary a fair amount either side of this.
€69
day pass
€870
season pass
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