La Plagne 11/03/2026. A good snow base being destroyed by being too warm. Mashed potato type snow by early afternoon on slopes exposed to sun and cut up / bumps on most red slopes. In the lower part of the resort below 1500 M there is an exposed ice base worn through to soil in avoidable places but this could deteriorate very rapidly with the high temperatures. Above 1700 M there is an snow coverage remains good but it is hard packed but soft due to warmth.
Nobody is going off-piste. It is broken ice crust. The resort is sadly suffering from too much spring heat. Skiable in good visibility conditions but very hard going in poor light conditions as the surface cuts up too much. Groomed snow only lasts a short while each morning.
La Plagne. Generally good snow conditions with isolated thin areas and hard packed snow on busy runs but plenty of very good snow to be found. Lifts are fairly quiet with mostly no waiting times until everyone descends on the various link points at the end of the ski day…..but even then only a 10 minute queue. La Plagne offers endless interlinks between pistes but the powder is now heavily tracked. Overall, lots of fun to be had.
6 January 2025 - Tuesday. Had a couple of good days skiing but today slopes (blues) have ice patches and snow is compact everywhere. Those snow cannons need turning on! Snow is due Thursday/Friday so might be able to get back out - hopefully no white out.
(note from editor - you have the option to submit a snow/weather report via the snow report page.)
Disappointed with resort's piste closures. High season 2nd week of February after heavy snow fall. Some runs appears to be still closed after a few days. Especially the only 2 runs to ski down to Champagny En Vanoise are closed all the time. So, if you stay in the valley you can only take the bubble down and cannot ski home.
Response for Jane Hardie (March 22, 2018):
We skied La Plagne last year and are going again next week. We were/are actually based in Belle Plagne, which is a smaller village and much prettier (architecturally) than La Plagne Centre. Our two boys (9 and 7) go to the ESF ski school who are in Belle Plagne also. So it's easy to drop off in the morning (relative to where you are staying) and then hit the slopes. The only thing we found is that you have to plan your skiing if you are going over to Plagne Centre ski area as you can get caught out trying to get back for midday.
Arrived Christmas eve and already 2m of snow. Perfect conditions and slopes could not be better. Snow now falling again and visibility is low now it's late afternoon. Looks like it will be a great season with plenty of snowfall. Lifts busy but move through quickly. Perfect for a ski holiday and looks like snow for the next few days. Enjoy!
Returned from La Plagne on 4 Feb 17 after a week's skiing. Snow was sufficient for the week, but patchy until the last day. It snowed heavily Friday / Saturday meaning there is now plenty of snow. The skiing is not too demanding with plenty of blues and some reds, none of which are particularly difficult. Off-piste was limited due to the lack of snow. The lift system is good. Linking to Les Arcs takes some time, particularly if you want to get right across to Aiguille Rouge and back. There can also be quite long queues for the Vanoise Express which links La Plagne and Les Arcs. We were very pleasantly surprised by the range and quality of the mountain restaurants; everywhere we ate was very good indeed, without being too expensive (not cheap, of course! We would recommend Chalet des Verdons Sud and La Face Nord). The various La Plagne villages are each quite small with limited shops / restaurants etc,. We stayed in 1800, which is very small, with a couple of restaurants and a couple of bars only (Le Loup Blanc was excellent; avoid La Cantine if you possibly can). The resort overall is ugly. Don't go expecting "Alpine chic" or a quaint village / town. Each village is basically a collection of purpose-built apartment blocks.
I've skied La Plagne six seasons since 2002. Occasionally, the snow conditions have been less than brilliant on the lower slopes (but rarely what I would consider very poor or unskiable), occasionally very icy and occasionally the conditions have been epic. On the whole, conditions have been generally "good".
2015/16 season appears to be delayed in starting but this has happened before. Don't write off the season when it's a few weeks late arriving!
March probably offers the best time to go, if you can find yourself a week after the French schools' rolling winter break during February / early March and the start of the Easter school holidays. That said, mid/late January is also generally good.
True, there is very little that is challenging for technically advanced skiers in terms of the variety of piste. However, the further out of resort the harder the red runs seem to be. This may catch out some that are confident about skiing the mid-mountain and lower reds.
Regrettably, I now find myself "locked-in" to the February half-term week; significantly more busy and more expensive but to my mind worth the cost of getting a youngster into the fun of skiing. Next month we will be back there for a seventh time.
La Plagne really is an under-rated resort. Great skiing, plenty of variety, good off-piste and no queues to speak of. Prices on the mountain are reasonable and food and drink in the villages (Belle Plagne and Plagne Belle-cote) is great, cheaper than the UK. Having skied in many different resorts in France, I''d say this is the cheapest one we've found yet.
Considering the lack of snow in most of the Alps this year, we've been really lucky with over 1 meter arriving just as we arrived/first evening here.
Highly recommended.