France Set to Open for Skiing
The two high altitude French resorts open on Saturday and have benefited from the current snowstorms in the Alps.
First the conditions in the Alps.
The freezing level in the Alps is around 1,000m and many areas have seen snow.
“There will be further snow overnight on Thursday with some areas likely to see around 30cm by Friday,” said the alpine weahter expert Fraser Wilkin from weathertoski.co.uk on Thursday.
“This will be encouraging for areas like the Portes du Soleil where 20cm or more is likely even at 1000m, something barely seen in the last couple of seasons, let alone in November.
“A secondary “low” in the northern Mediterranean will also pep up the precipitation in the south-east tomorrow, meaning that the Dolomites should also do quite well.
“Areas that will see the least snow over the next couple of days will be in the inner Alpine western Alps (including Zermatt) but, even here, a few centimetres of cold powdery snow are forecast.
“The weather in the Alps will remain cold for the foreseeable future, turning sunny for a while over the weekend before snow returns from the west on Sunday night, with a very snowy week expected next week,” added Fraser.
In parts of Switzerland there was snow down to 500m.
Buses stopped running in Zurich, Bern and Basel, while trams in Bern were temporarily left in the depot.
At the Gotthard, cars were temporarily unable to travel southwards.
Some flights and rail connections were also affected.
Here on PlanetSKI we will have a full update once the storm passes, but it is looking good as the temperature is set to stay low over the coming days.
Some ski areas are already open in Austria, Italy and Switzerland as we have been reporting in our earlier snow reports:
Now France is joining the party.
PlanetSKI reporter, Felix Milnes, is on his way to Val Thorens and will be updating us across the weekend – on the snow and opening festivities.
He arrives on Friday.
It’s already looking pretty good in Val Thorens, with 28cm of fresh snow in the latest storm, and it is still coming down.
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Val Thorens See here for an earlier PlanetSKI article about what’s new in the resort for the season:
Do look our for those weekend reports from Felix.
Tignes is also firing up some lifts on Saturday 22nd November and we’ll have updates on its opening.
The lifts start running at 9am at the Perce-Neige funicular in Val Claret.
100 ski instructors and members of the Tignes Sports Club will descend from the Grande Motte glacier at 3,456m at 5.30pm on Saturday evening.
The procession will light up the slopes down to Val Claret, followed by a festive après-ski celebration and brings the whole community of the resort together to celebrate the start of the new season.
A lift ticket for this weekend will cost €40 per day.
The full ski area of Tignes-Val d’Isère will be in operation the following weekend – 29th November 2025.
The area has 74 lifts across 300 km of marked slopes at an altitude starting from 1,550m to 3,450 m.
Here’s what to expect in Tignes for this winter:
PlanetSKI’s Jane Peel will be reporting from Tignes in early December.
Elsewhere in the Alps Obergurgl in Austria opened on Thursday 20th November with 60% of its slopes open.
It is the first non-glacier resort to offer such an extensive amount of skiing – 69km (45 miles) of pistes on a mix of natural and artificial snow.
It currently has the most terrain open of anywhere in the world.
This weekend the area of Gurgl hosts an edition of the slalom World Cup.
GB’s Dave Ryding, Laurie Taylor and Billy Major will all be competing.
It follows last week’s race in Levi in Finland which saw Laurie and Dave in the Top Ten – 4th and 7th respectively.
It was Laurie’s best World Cup run to date.
There are set to be well over 20 resorts in the Alps offering skiing this weekend:
- Austria: Pitztal, Hintertux, Stubai, Soelden, Kaunertal, Kitzsteinhorn, Molltal, Obergurgl & Kitzbuhel.
- France: Val Thorens & Tignes
- Italy: Cervinia, Sulden & Val Senalis.
- Switzerland: Andermatt, Verbier, Zermatt, Saas-Fee, Murren, Arosa, Davos, Glacier 3000, Titlis Glacier (Engleberg) & Diavolezza Glacier (St Moritz) and Adelboden.
There has also been some snow over in the Pyrenees in the current cold spell.
No resorts or ski areas are open in Andorra, France or Spain but it’s looking good.
See here for more about skiing in Andorra this coming winter:
There has also been some snow in the UK with Scotland’s ski areas welcoming the white stuff.
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There’s even a spot of skiing on offer in the UK at the moment.
The ski area of Yad Moss in Cumbria and Cairngorm in Scotland have opened:
Yad Moss. Image c/o Yad Moss web camera.
Here on PlanetSKI we have a separate report on the snow conditions in North America:
Sunshine Village, Banff, Canada. Image © PlanetSKI
Do check back for the PlanetSKI updates on the snow conditions as the season of 2025/26 gets underway…
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