Ski Lifts in La Thuile
La Thuile’s ski lifts are mostly modern high speed lifts with connections to the French ski resort of La Rosiere. The shared international ski area – the Espace San Bernardo – has a deserved reputation for being mostly queue-free and good value.
La Thuile Ski Lifts
La Thuile’s ski lifts are usually open from early December until late April and the Espace San Bernardo lift pass covers all the lifts in the La Thuile and La Rosiere ski area. The area was considerably extended for the 2018/18 season by adding to new lifts (the highest reaching 2800m) and 5 new pistes in the new Mont Valaisan sector,
The La Thuile lift system is modern and most of the main runs are served by high speed lifts and all of the ‘Express’ lifts are high speed chairlifts covering longer distances. Just a few older lifts remain on the La Thuile side of the domain, all on the least critical ascents. La Thuile’s pistes are invariably quiet during the week, and even at the weekends when the Italian skiers come up from Turin and Milan, queuing for lifts is rarely an issue.
La Thuile Lift Passes
La Thuile, Espace San Bernardo and Valle d’Aosta lift passes can be purchased at the bottom of the Les Suches gondola. The standard lift pass is the Espace San Bernardo lift pass, which is valid on all ski lifts in the linked resorts of La Thuile and La Rosiere. Reduced rate passes are available to the over 65’s and under 14’s and children up to 8 years of age qualify for a free lift pass when an accompanying adult buys one of the same duration.
Certain Espace San Bernardo passes can also include limited days in other Aosta Valley ski resorts including Cervinia, Courmayeur, Pila, and sometimes Monterosa too. For instance, a six day Espace San Bernardo can include up to two days in other Aosta Resorts, but check before buying. The inclusion of Courmayeur is the most useful because it is the easiest to get to and there is a regular bus service.
Both La Thuile and La Rosiere usually sell slightly cheaper ‘local area only’ day passes which cover just their half of the Espace San Bernardo. For most skiers skiing a full week, the Espace San Bernardo pass is better value but if you are only in the resort for one or two days and know you won’t be crossing over into France (or vice versa) these can be worthwhile. They can also be good value as ‘follow-on’ passes for beginners to buy once they are ready to ski beyond the nursery slopes.
Absolute beginners who will be confined to the nursery slopes for the fisrt few days should buy the special beginner lift tickets, which give access to the beginner’s areas and carpet lifts. Non-skiers at La Thuile can purchase tickets for the gondola out of the village, so they can meet their friends for lunch up the mountain.
Skiers staying for more than a week or who intend to travel around the region a lot, can buy an Aosta Valley (“Valle d’Aosta” ) ski pass. This covers all the Aosta Valley ski resorts including Cervinia, Courmayeur, Pila and Monterosa, plus several smaller ones, without any restrictions on how many days you can spend in the other resorts. Although both La Rosiere in France and Alagna (part of Monterosa, but in Piedmont) are technically outside of The Aosta Valley, skiing in these resorts is included because they are lift linked to respectively La Thuile and Gressoney which are inside.