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Les Arcs – What’s On Winter 2024/2025

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Last updated: 23rd November 2024

What is on in Les Arcs this winter? Well I will try to keep this page updated. It’s a fairly lo-fi way of making a calendar of events, but hopefully it is effectively and, at least, gives some background as well as simply stating “What’s On.”

Saturday 7th December 2024

First tracks or La Premiere Montee des Arcs is the first (official) opportunity to ski the pistes of Les Arcs. Starting with a hot drink at hte Pre Saint Esprit lift on the way up to Arc 2000 at 10am, followed by a quick safety briefing, it is a great opportunity for lovers of ski-touring to ‘skin up’ and take a supervised hike up the mountain for the freshest tracks of the season. An evenement solidaire, this event cost €5 with the money effectively going to charity. After a 5km march up to the Col de la Chal, taking in about 700m of ascent, you ski back down for a little bit of lunch. All details are here.

Saturday 14th December 2024

The lifts open! Les Arcs is ready for skiing on Saturday 14th December and whilst it traditionally takes a few days for all the lifts to open (and even more for all the pistes to be fully rideable) it seems there is a strong planned start to the season with the Vanoise Express connecting La Plagne to Les Arcs from the first day and the brand new, very-slightly redirected Transarc due to open the same day in Arc 1800. The excitement is always tangible.

Saturday 14th – Saturday 21st December 2024

Coinciding with the opening week of the ski season, the Les Arcs Film Festival (previously the festival de cinéma européen des Arcs) was founded in 2009 and has rapidly become one of the leading lights celebrating European independent cinema (it has even been described as a “European Sundance” by Variety magazine!) Showcasing a wide variety of feature and short films across multiple locations in Les Arcs, the festival not only awards excellence and innovation, but aides further development through an industry village, workshops and events which bring together the “movers and shakers” from the world of European film. With passes available allowing unlimited viewing for the whole week from €38 (€34 for ‘early bird’ buyers), weekend passes for only €16, and tickets for individual showings on sale, the film festival is a great way of enjoying great cinema and great snow in the same place.

Friday 20th – Sunday 22nd December 2024

Bourg Saint Maurice Christmas Market starts on the Friday evening and lasts all weekend. There are offerings from various local artisans and a variety of events occuring (the arrival of Father Christmas at 15:30 on Saturday probably the highlight).

Christmas Eve, Sunday 24th December 2024

Once again Father Christmas will be visiting the centre of Bourg Saint Maurice, following a festive, musical parade through its hyper-centre. Just a few steps from the train station and a short walk from the bottom of the Arc 1600-connected funiculaire. Hot chocolate abounds.

New Year’s Eve, Tuesday 31st December 2024

Fireworks in Bourg Saint Maurice, at the top fo the Grand Rue, and you don’t even have to stay up late. Early evening celebrations at 18:30.

Saturday 18th – Friday 24th January 2025

Freeride Week in Arc 1950. This includes the Freeride World Qualifiers (ranked from 2* to 4*). On Saturday 18th the kids are up, with the Junior Tour seeing 14-18 year olds riding crazy lines off-piste around the Arc 2000 bowl. The 20th sees the 2* Qualifiers, with the 22nd being scheduled for the high-end 4* riders. If weather gets in the way of the scheduled rides, the additional days between 18th and 24th are reserved to ensure the competition is completed.

Thursday 13th February 2025

Try biathlon with laser rifles in Bourg Saint Maurice. From 14:30 to 17:30, it’s free, fun and suitable for everyone over the age of 8 years old.

Thursday 20th February 2025

Fanfare Express outdoor gig in Bourg Saint Maurice. Part of the weekly Thursday evening market/music combinations. Inspired by American brass band sounds like Lucky Chops, you can expect upbeat, party jazz from 17:30 to 18:30.

Thursday 6th March 2025

Arkad outdoor gig in Bourg Saint Maurice. Part of the weekly Thursday evening market/music combinations. This time it’s good old-fashinoned rock-pop-hip-hop… from 18:00 to 19:30. Expect hot chocolate and marshmallows with your music.

Saturday 8th March 2025

La Belle Aventure is another opportunity for those crazy people who like to hike up a mountain before skiing back down it to fulfill their sick desires…. this time at NIGHT! Put on your touring skis, skins and a headtorch (and, presumably, some clothes) and meet at the snowfront in Arc 1800 at 18:00 for a “very enjoyable” march up to the Arpette restaurant, before skiing back down again around 21:00. Certainly a variation on fun.

Friday 14th March 2025

Proving that you don’t have to be a skier/snowboarder to do absurd physical things on mountains covered in snow, the Star Trail is an 11km run incorporating about 500m of ascent starting and finishing in Arc 1800. Fortunately, in the recent past, the traditionally near-ubiquitous requirement for a Medical Certificate to do any sort of organised running in France has been replaced with a simple-to-complete 5-minute online course. This means it is genuinely open to everyone. Race starts at 18:00, and it’s only €7 if you book in advance. I might well see you there…

Sunday 23rd to Friday 28th March 2025

Electronic Peak Festival. Ski in the day, party all night. Centred around Arc 1800, there are a handful of apres-ski events across the mountain. On Monday night, there’s a late showing at the Folie Deuce just above Arc 1800 (’til midnight) with Miley Serious, Why Why Why and Baume. The bulk of the action happens on the Thursday and Friday nights at the Centre Bernard Taillefer with pure electronica (and a roller disco) rolling onto 2am and 3am respectively. Here’s the official website for tickets, line-ups and ‘that.’

Thursday 3rd – Sunday 6th April 2025

Winter Festislack is a festival of slackline. This is yet another thing I only vaguely understand. It’s like tightrope walking, but the rope is not tight (it’s slack) and it’s not a rope (it’s more like a strap). You might see people hooking one up to some adjacent trees and then walking across it at various levels of elaborateness. Few details are available at the moment, but it happens every year, so you can expect it to be pretty organised. People seem to enjoy it.

Saturday 26th April 2025

One of the silliest things to happen in this perpetually-insane mountain area, La Montee du Funi is effective a 6 hour footrace from the bottom to the top of the funi. Repeatedly. Bourg Saint Maurice to Arc 1600. 817 metres of climb over 5.1km. Over and over again. For 6 hours. If you like trail running and going uphill and endurance and physical discomfort and intermittent downhill rides in a funicular, you will LOVE this. You run up, you take the funi down, then you run up again… forever. It currently looks like you will need a medical certificate for this one (presumably to check you’re sufficiently mentally ill).

KillySnowResort, LaPlagneSnowReport, LaRosiereSnowReport, LesArcsSnowReport, SnowReport, SteFoySnowReport

Snow Report: Oh My God, Weather

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The last week has been completely filled with weather. We’ve had big snow, big rain and snow again… at almost every level. After a very cold November with consistently low temperatures, it’s suddenly got a bit sketchy. It’s not all bad news though…

As you may have seen from my first video snow report of the season the conditions last weekend were pretty awesome for early December. Since that point there has been near-constant precipitation and a wildly-vacillating freezing level. This means there has actually been more snow at all levels, but also rain at all levels, normally followed by more snow! In terms of snow, we’re actually still very well-endowed for this point in the season and I am very much looking forward to getting out in Les Arcs tomorrow. Especially as we’re likely to see some blue skies for the first time in a while.

Here’s a precis of the official snow reports from the Tarentaise ski resorts:

Tignes

At Tignes le Lac (2100m altitude), there’s a 97cm snow base, temperatures are now consistently below 0°C, although that is likely to rise over the next few days as we see some (whisper it) clear skies! Up at 3300 metres, there’s a more-than-decent 270cm layer of the white stuff.

Nearly half the lifts are currently open, although I expect this will increase over the next few days as the weather stabilises and the ski resorts fill up with eager punters. The Toviere section is largely open, only one lift is open on the Aiguille Percee and it’s 50/50 in the Palet section. You can get over to (and back from) Val d’Isere, which is key.

Val d’Isere

Posting a very exact 77cm at 1800 metres and 184cm at 3000 metres, the conditions in ‘Val Dizzle’ are likely to be very similar to Tignes. The last snowfall is registered as today (15th Dec) and the temperatures have been low again for over 24 hours, so it’s probably pretty fresh and soft out there.

There are a higher percentage of lifts open than Tignes at present with the main closures being the Leissieres lift and tunnel (traversing the Crete des Leissieres), the Manchet Express and adjacent pistes into the Manchet valley and the little Signal lift up Les Grands Vallons. Again, expect milder temperatures and sunshine over the coming weekend.

La Rosière

Saturday is the start of the 2023/2024 ski season in La Rosiere, so I don’t have any real-time ski-lift information at the moment. However, on the Italian side of the Espace San Bernardo ski domain above La Thuile there’s a handful of lifts open already.

In terms of enneigement (or snow coverage) I also have practically zero information other than there being 10cm of fresh snow today… (they clearly don’t start measuring snow until the lifts are officially open). Fortunately, La Thuile is indicating 50cm in resort (1450m), 95cm on Chaz Dura (2600m) and 140cm at the top of the Belvedere (2700m). There’s even a suggestion that 65cm at the very top is “fresh snow.” La Rosiere is likely to have similar figures, although it’s worth taking into account La Thuile being on the less-sunny side of the hill, so it will see less sun when it finally comes out this weekend.

Sainte Foy

Despite having comparatively low base numbers (30cm at 1550m, 40cm at 2100m, 70cm at 2650m), most of the pistes in Ste Foy are open. The only closed pistes are present are the black runs, and they are all closed (all four of them).

La Plagne

The snow base numbers in La Plagne really reflect that short but very sharp period of rain we had midweek, with the low altitude depth being quite low, but 2000m and above being very good indeed. At 1250m (which, to be honest, is very low for a ski domain that is over 70% above 2000m) there’s 30cm of snow, at 2000m there’s 92cm and on the glacier (at 3000m) there’s a whopping 270cm. As with Les Arcs, La Plagne doesn’t open until tomorrow, so no lift news as yet.

Again, for a look at what the conditions were like in Plagne Centre last Saturday, check out this video. Despite the ‘up-and-down’ weather since then, I don’t imagine there will have been drastic change. There’ll be another snow report coming from the other side of Paradiski, Les Arcs, over the next couple of days, so keep an eye out for that.

Les Arcs

11cm of fresh snow (14th December) in Arc 2000. An overall snow depth of 108cm. A 45cm base in Arc 1600/1800 and 258cm atop the epic Aiguille Rouge. We are literally only halfway into December. Can’t wait to get out there tomorrow and find out exactly what’s going on…

KillySnowResort, LaPlagneSnowReport, LaRosiereSnowReport, LesArcsSnowReport, SnowReport, SteFoySnowReport

Snow Alert: significant snowfall at all levels

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Fresh snow has arrived in not-insignificant volume all the way down to the valley floor. We woke up this morning at 900m altitude to a good 30-40cm of fresh powder. It has kept snowing lightly throughout the day, although the freezing point has ascended slightly, meaning that below about 1000-1200m it has been a bit wetter.

There’s no doubting that this offering of snow constitutes a decent ‘dump’ that has generously covered the lower slopes of all the surrounding ski resorts and significantly boosted the high-altitude snow depth.

First thing today, Les Arcs (official) was heralding 35cm of fresh snow in Arc 2000, with the 0°C isotherm hovering around 1450m (although I think that’s a little bit conservative, as the highest temperature I saw at 800m today was only 1°C…) Overall, snow depth in Arc 2000 is reportedly 70cm, which is a solid start in November.

La Plagne’s morning figure was 36cm of new snow at 2000m, making an overall total of 63cm.

The official number is Tignes is 30cm of fresh snow at 2100m, and 40cm at the sky-scraping 3300m peaks. This translates to 53cm snow depth at the lower level, and a (very exciting) 170cm at the upper echelon. With Tignes already open to the paying public, this extra powder might help open a few more pistes over the next couple of days. Across the ridge, Val d’Isere is reporting an overall snow depth of 60cm at 1800m, and 80cm at 3000m (although I’m not convinced that these number have been very recently updated).

Sainte Foy, which can be a bit slower to update their recent snowfall, is showing that 20cm fell yesterday (27th Nov) giving an overall snow depth of 50cm in resort, 130cm at the Arpettaz (2100m) and 140cm atop the Col de l’Aiguille (2650m). However, these are “fresh snow” numbers, so we can assume some settling will occur.

La Rosiere have clearly not quite woken up to the winter yet, so I have no official figures, however we can assume they are very similar to the other resorts mentioned.

Typical of early season weather, there is likely to be further precipitation over the next few days (until around Saturday) but, with the freezing level moving up and down like a whack-a-mole, there’s likely to be sleet and rain mixed in with the snowfall. It looks like everything above 2000m should make a net gain, but below that point there could be some ‘settling in’ and, on the lower slopes, even some melt-back. Whatever happens, this first proper dump is good news and makes it feel like true winter is getting a grip.