Things to do in La Plagne: a bobsleigh track and a lot for free
A lot, spread across ten villages, and much of it free: sixteen beginner lifts that need no pass, four sledging areas, marked walks and snowshoe routes, and lifts between the high villages that run after dinner. The one to book before you fly is the Olympic bobsleigh track, and on a bad day Magic Pool at Plagne Bellecote is the warm answer.
La Plagne is ten villages rather than one, and off the skis that matters more than the size of the mountain. The high villages are built around the lifts, and the traditional ones lower down, Montchavin, Montalbert and Champagny, are where the pace slows. Free shuttles and the cable links between the altitude villages make a car mostly optional, and the links keep running after dinner.
Start with what is free, because for a family it goes a long way. Sixteen beginner lifts are free with no pass, so somebody learning can practise all week for nothing. There are four sledging areas, marked walks off the high villages and thirty three snowshoe routes, with Champagny the best served. Montalbert is generous with it, lending board games and books, screening films and opening its mini farm for nothing.
The one thing to book before you fly is the bobsleigh track at La Roche, just under Plagne 1800, the only Olympic one in France and still a working track. Bob Raft is the family version, four to a sled with no pilot, for children of ten and over. For somebody not skiing, dog sledding runs from four villages and takes children from two, and Montalbert sends first timers down its closed pistes on sledge trains, airboards and ski seats once the lifts stop. On a bad day, Magic Pool at Plagne Bellecote is the warm answer, a pool held at thirty degrees with saunas beside it.
Evenings are gentle rather than loud, and most people come here glad of it. The Plagne Centre rink has an evening session worth aiming for. Les Arcs is four minutes across the Vanoise Express from Montchavin and Les Coches, but from the high villages it is a journey, so give it a whole day rather than an afternoon.
Free, and worth knowing
Ten free things, which is a lot: beginner lifts that need no pass, four sledging areas, walks and snowshoe routes, and shuttles and lifts that keep running after dinner.
Sixteen free beginner lifts
The tourist office puts it plainly: sixteen ski lifts for beginners are free to use with no pass at all, which is a week of practice for a family with a beginner in it without buying anything. Six of the beginner areas they serve are named. The learning zones at Les Coches and at Montchavin, Plan Bois above them, and at Montalbert the Gentil area and the Piste des lutins, a fun run built for small children.
Les Coches, Montchavin, Plan Bois and Montalbert
Four free sledging areas
One on the snow front at Belle Plagne at 2,050 m, which the tourist office describes as gentle enough for the very youngest to slide down safely, one at Plagne Centre, one at Plagne Villages, and one at Le Bois in Champagny-le-Haut. The Champagny one is groomed and pisted and sits beside the cross country start, so it is the one you walk to rather than drive to.
Belle Plagne, Plagne Centre, Plagne Villages and Champagny-le-Haut
The free shuttles, and the lifts that run until half eleven
Every sector runs its own free shuttle and none of them want a ticket. Inside the altitude resort three cable links do the same job, the Telebus and the Belle Plagne gondola from nine in the morning until half past eleven at night and the Telemetro from eight, which means somebody who is not skiing can move between the altitude villages after dinner without a car.
Two of the lower villages run thin on Saturdays. Montalbert's timetable says every day except Saturday in as many words, and Champagny's is headed the same way with a separate and much sparser Saturday service. If a group is arriving or leaving on a Saturday, that is the day to plan around.
All five sectors
Thirty three snowshoe routes, and Champagny's ten
Thirty three marked itineraries across the villages, all free, and the maps carry published distances, times and ascents, which is rarer than it should be. Champagny is the best served of them, with around thirty kilometres of combined footpath and snowshoe route and ten itineraries on one map.
The short ones are genuinely short. L'Evetta is a kilometre and twenty five minutes from La Chiserette. At the other end L'Epena is seven kilometres and two and three quarter hours from Le Bois, and Le Chatelard climbs three hundred and sixty metres in two and a half hours from Villard-Dessus.
Champagny-en-Vanoise
The walks from the altitude villages
Five marked routes off the high villages, all free. La Clairiere de Cavard is two kilometres and an hour and a half from Plagne 1800, and Le Dou du Praz from Plagne Centre can be walked at anything from two to six and a half kilometres depending on how much of it you take on. The long two are Les Frasses from Plagne Bellecote, twelve kilometres and four hours there and back, and Les Mairiers, ten kilometres and three and a half hours, which starts at the top of the bobsleigh run and is reached on the shuttle.
Plagne 1800, Plagne Centre, Plagne Bellecote and Plagne Aime 2000
Over forty kilometres on foot at Montalbert
Montalbert publishes more than forty kilometres of nordic walking and snowshoe routes and charges for none of them. Ten are named, from an hour and a half on the flat along the Chemin de la Biodiversite to two hours and three hundred metres of climb through the Bois des Fornettes. The Chemin du Patrimoine is the one to send somebody on who wants to know what the place was before the lifts arrived.
Montalbert
Le Plateau de Plan Bois, and the gondola that is free on foot
Two kilometres and an hour on the plateau above Montchavin and Les Coches, and the walking itself costs nothing. What makes it worth the note is that the Les Coches gondola carries pedestrians for free, so somebody who is not skiing has a way up the hill and back that costs nothing at all.
Montchavin and Les Coches
Free with the pass you already hold
Four things on the mountain cost nothing extra once somebody has a ski pass. The Funslope at Plagne Bellecote, which is billed as the longest fun ride in Europe. Buffalo Park, Buffalo Kids and the Indiens zone at Plagne Centre, all built for children. The Riders Nation snowpark, and a timed slalom course you can set a number against, both at La Plagne Altitude.
What the villages hand out for nothing
Montalbert is the generous one. Board games and books to borrow, film screenings, a free visit to the Mini Ferme du Forperet, children's workshops free on Tuesdays through the school holidays, and free taster sessions on the alternative sliding gear on Monday evenings between five and seven. The tourist office there also runs wifi, luggage storage, a picnic room and lost property, none of which it charges for.
Champagny lends board games and lets anybody use the library, though borrowing a book means leaving a fifty euro deposit that comes back when the book does. There are free orienteering courses laid out at Champagny-le-Haut.
Montalbert and Champagny-en-Vanoise
The free events, and last season's shape
The one worth knowing about is the Paradiski Comedy Club, which puts stand up comedians inside the Vanoise Express cabins and runs across a fortnight in February. Around it sits a season of free things. Christmas across all the villages, the Nuit du Pompon Rouge on New Year's Eve with fireworks, the Sainte-Agathe festival at Montchavin, a Winter Family Race series through February, and torchlit evenings at Montalbert.
Champagny adds two free spectacles rather than participations, the Marathon du Grand Bec in late February and La Lekkarod, a sled dog race that comes through in early March.
All villages
On the mountain
The bobsleigh track is the story of the week, dog sledding takes children from two, and Montalbert sends first timers down its closed pistes once the lifts stop.
The Olympic bobsleigh track
The only Olympic bobsleigh track in France, built for 1992 and still run as a working track. Fifteen hundred metres, nineteen bends and a maximum gradient of fourteen and a half per cent, dropping through the trees at La Roche just below Plagne 1800. It is the only one in the country, so a guest who wants it has to come here for it.
Over 50 euros · 2180 rue de la Piste de Bob, La Roche, below Plagne 1800 · Their page
Dog sledding
Teams of seven to ten dogs, running from four different villages, which makes it one of the very few paid activities somebody can reach whichever side of the resort they are staying on. Champagny, Montalbert, the Dou du Praz at Plagne Villages, and Montchavin. Children ride from two years old.
Over 50 euros · Champagny, Montalbert, Plagne Villages and Montchavin
Snakegliss, airboard and yooner at Montalbert
Last Track run three different ways down the closed pistes at Montalbert once the lifts have stopped. Snakegliss is a train of sledges linked nose to tail behind a monitor, the airboard is an inflatable you ride head first, and the yooner is a seat on a single ski that you steer with your feet. All three take somebody who has never skied.
20 to 50 euros · Montalbert
In the village
An outdoor rink in Plagne Centre with an evening session worth aiming for, and a warm pool at Plagne Bellecote for the day the weather wins.
The Plagne Centre ice rink
An outdoor rink in the middle of Plagne Centre at 1,970 m, taking children from two, with penguins and support chairs to hire for anybody who needs something to hold on to. Five euros to get on the ice, eight with skates, and a family of four gets in for twenty three. On Wednesdays and Fridays it opens again at eight in the evening, which is the session to aim for.
Under 20 euros · Plagne Centre, 1,970 m · Their page
Magic Pool
Twenty five metres of pool held at thirty degrees at Plagne Bellecote, with a jacuzzi and two saunas alongside it. It is the warmest indoor hour in the altitude villages and the obvious place to point somebody who is not skiing on a bad day.
Price on request · Plagne Bellecote
Nearby
The other half of Paradiski, four minutes across the valley by cable car from Montchavin and Les Coches.
Les Arcs, across the Vanoise Express
Four minutes in a cable car three hundred and eighty metres above the valley floor, and you are in the other half of Paradiski. Two cabins carry two hundred people each and move two thousand an hour in each direction, so it clears a queue quickly. On the far side sit Peisey-Vallandry and the Les Arcs villages, a second full resort with its own village facilities and its own paid mountain activities.
Under 20 euros · Montchavin and Les Coches · Their page
These are our own picks, not paid placements. Prices and opening times change, so it is always worth checking before you set off.