La Plagne Ski Resort

La Plagne’s extensive ski area is an intermediate’s paradise, but also includes excellent opportunities for guided off-piste thrills and spills and good nursery slopes for beginners. Necessary improvements to the lift system and the link with Les Arcs have elevated La Plagne (now marketed together with Les Arcs as Paradiski) to the premier league of European ski areas, although après-ski and nightlife is poor in comparison to many other major resorts.

Our Rating:

Advanced		***
Intermediate		*****
Beginner		****

Infamous for its architecture and famous for its extensive pistes, La Plagne is actually bigger than the whole Espace Killy in terms of its 10,000 hectares of skiable terrain. There are 225km of marked trails and the area has a seriously undervalued wealth of off-piste with everything from the 60° slopes of the north face of the Bellecote glacier to the gentler tree-lined skiing at the wings of the resort.

86% of the pistes are either blue or red, proving a huge draw to intermediates and, while most of the resort is snow-sure and above the tree-line there is also some fantastic on and off-piste skiing between the trees, ideal in whiteouts and high winds. The resort is split between 10 bases ranging from charming low-altitude mountain villages to purpose-built high-altitude apartment and hotel complexes which offer great access to the ski area even if they win no prizes in the beauty stakes.

La Plagne at a glance

On the mountain

Ski area

One of la Plagne's great strengths is that almost all of its summits can be skied north, south, east and west. more...

Lift system

La Plagne's areas are well linked and the bottlenecks of old have largely been dispersed. more...

Ski schools

There is an ESF school in each of the resort bases; Antenne Handicap offer private lessons for disabled skiers.
more...

Advanced

The myth that La Plagne is an intermediate resort needs to be shattered. Many of the reds are left to develop bumps, there are some classic black runs and some of the best off-piste in the Alps. In many ways, it can be argued that the off-piste here is better than in areas like Chamonix because it is not tracked out as quickly. more...