Love La Plagne? Where to go next for the size, the easy skiing or the whole package
The Ski Snug teamUpdated 12 October 20266 min read
La Plagne is the practical choice that families keep making. It is big: Paradiski, which it shares with Les Arcs, is 425 kilometres. It is high, with lifts to 3,250 metres and a village we put at 1,800, though the resort is really several villages at different heights. And it is friendly and modern, with families and beginners both on the list of what it does best.
Replacing it starts with one question: which of those is the reason you keep going back? Answer that, and the shortlist more or less writes itself.
La Plagne, measured
Gentle is La Plagne's reputation, and the piste map backs it. Sixty three percent of what we measure is green or blue, and 128 kilometres of easy running is the fifth most of any resort we cover. But look at the black. The family resort has 28 kilometres of black piste, the fourth most of the 55, behind only Kitzbühel, Courchevel and Méribel.
What keeps it gentle is how those blacks are built. They average 25.5 percent, nearer a typical French red at 24.3 than a typical French black at 29.6, and only six of our 55 resorts have kinder blacks. That is average gradient, and a run's grade is set by its steepest pitch, so a black here can still have a moment that bites. But the shape of the place is clear. It is not flat: 27 percent of its piste is steeper than one in four, about typical. It is moderate. There is a great deal of easy ground, the hard end is real without being brutal, and that is why it works for a family skiing at three different levels.
So "somewhere like La Plagne" means four things: plenty of easy kilometres, a top end that keeps a good skier busy, a high base, and a family feel. Each route below keeps the part you care about most, and each one pays for it somewhere else.
Val Thorens: if it is the size, and the snow
- VillageVillage
- 2,300 m
- Highest liftTop lift
- 3,230 m
- Linked areaLinked
- 600 km quoted
Val Thorens: 211 km of piste we measure. 134 km green and blue 64%61 km red 29%16 km black 8%
Plus 8 km of marked off piste itinerary, kept out of the piste total.
If what keeps you coming back is the scale and snow you can count on, the Three Valleys gives you more of both, and Val Thorens is its highest door. The village sits at 2,300 metres, the highest of the 55 resorts we cover and 500 above our figure for La Plagne. The Three Valleys is quoted at 600 kilometres against Paradiski's 425, though that is a figure we have not measured ourselves, and the season runs from late November to early May, longer at both ends than your December to April.
The skiing will feel familiar. Around the village we measure 211 kilometres, against 203 around La Plagne, so the extra size is in how far you can roam, not in what is on the doorstep. There are 134 kilometres of green and blue against your 128, the blues a touch firmer at 16.5 percent against 15.5, and 25 percent of the piste is steeper than one in four against your 27. One curiosity: La Plagne's lifts actually top out 20 metres higher.
The trade is the mood. Val Thorens is buzzy, with a party scene on its list of what it does best, where La Plagne is practical and friendly. Its blacks are also fewer and harder: 16 kilometres, averaging 32.2 percent, against your 28 at 25.5.
Arosa: if it is all of it, in a new country
- VillageVillage
- 1,800 m
- Highest liftTop lift
- 2,653 m
- Linked areaLinked
- 225 km
Arosa: 183 km of piste we measure. 97 km blue and easier 53%72 km red 39%15 km black 8%
Plus 9 km of marked off piste itinerary, kept out of the piste total.
Arosa is the closest match to La Plagne we measure, anywhere, and it is in Switzerland. The village is at 1,800 metres, the same as our figure for La Plagne. It is a family resort, gentle and sunny by our read, set in a bowl and joined to Lenzerheide by a single cable car into one domain of 225 kilometres. Three sources agree on that figure exactly, and the season is the same December to April.
On the snow it really skis like home. Its blues average 15.4 percent against La Plagne's 15.5, and 24 percent of its piste is steeper than one in four against your 27. Swiss reds measure kinder than French ones on average, so trust the shares over the colours, with the usual caveat that this is average gradient and a run's grade is set by its steepest pitch. Around Arosa itself we measure 183 kilometres, not far short of your 203.
The trade is at the top and at the edges. Arosa's highest lift is 2,653 metres, almost 600 below La Plagne's, so the snow security rests on the village height rather than the summit. The linked area is about half of Paradiski, and so is the black: 14.5 kilometres against 28. And it is not modern the way La Plagne is, so the change is in the feel of the place as well as the country.
Alta Badia: if it is the easy skiing, with everyone together
- VillageVillage
- 1,568 m
- Highest liftTop lift
- 2,778 m
- Linked areaLinked
- 500 km about, our sum
Alta Badia: 125 km of piste we measure. 76 km blue and easier 61%41 km red 33%8 km black 6%
If the best part of a La Plagne week is the whole family skiing easy runs together and stopping for a long lunch, go to the Dolomites. Alta Badia is a family resort, warm and welcoming by our read, and its mountain food is a large part of why people come.
It is properly gentler. Only 15 percent of Alta Badia's piste is steeper than one in four, little more than half La Plagne's 27, and its blues average 14.4 percent against your 15.5. Italian blues and reds run kinder than French ones, so the measured share is the fair comparison, and again it is average gradient, with a run's grade set by its steepest pitch.
It is big, too, once you count the Sellaronda. Alta Badia's own sector is 130 kilometres. From a base on the Sellaronda, around 500 kilometres is reachable by lift without a bus, which is more than Paradiski, though that is our own approximate sum rather than a published number. The 1,200 kilometres printed on the Dolomiti Superski pass covers twelve areas, and only four of them join up.
The trade is height and the hard end. The village is at 1,568 metres, 232 below yours, and the lifts reach 2,778, which is 472 lower. And there are just 7.5 kilometres of black, against La Plagne's 28. A strong skier in the family will find the top end thin.
So, which one
you want more of what La Plagne gives you, with more height under the village and a longer season, and a livelier village does not put you off.
Méribel if the family pace matters more than the height.
you want La Plagne's village height, family feel and easy blues in a new country, and you can give up the top of the mountain and half the area.
easy skiing and long lunches are the point of the week, and nobody in the group needs much black.
Of the three, it asks you to give up the least: a bigger area on the quoted figure, a higher village and much the same skiing. What changes is the mood after the lifts close.