With 350 ski resorts in France, choosing the right one can be a challenge! The choice of resort is crucial to making the most of your mountain stay — it needs to match your criteria and needs.
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What makes up a ski resort?
At the heart of every resort is its ski area, encompassing alpine skiing, Nordic skiing, hiking, sledging, snowshoeing, and its lifts.
Next, there's accommodation and hospitality, dining, shops, off-ski activities, and ski schools. All these facilities are there to make your holiday as easy and enjoyable as possible. The goal is to have everything within easy reach, so you can fully enjoy the mountains and breathe in the cool mountain air. A winter sports resort may also include several villages — for example, Les Arcs (Arc 1600, Arc 1800, Arc 2000), which correspond to the altitude of each village-resort. Many resorts also have distinct neighbourhoods — for example, Villard-de-Lans with Le Balcon de Villard, Les Glovettes, and Bois Barbu.
A ski resort would be nothing without the many professionals who work every day to make your holiday as enjoyable and safe as possible — ski instructors, ski patrol and rescue teams, technicians, mountain guides, sports equipment retailers, and those working in hospitality, catering, tourism, retail, and entertainment.
To help you find the resort that best suits your needs, some resorts carry labels such as Famille Plus, designed for families. For Nordic destinations, the Nordic France label offers a curated selection of resorts that meet specific commitments. And finally, the Flocon Vert label guarantees the durable and responsible commitment of these mountain destinations.
The meaning of colours on ski slopes
Here is some information about signage on ski slopes. In French ski resorts, runs are classified into 4 categories:
Green runs indicate an easy descent. They are perfect for children and beginners. If you're looking for a bit more of a challenge to improve your level, blue runs are ideal for you! Slightly steeper, these runs remain accessible to most skiers — suited to intermediate to confident skiers. From there, you can move on to red runs. More demanding in terms of difficulty, these runs are still manageable with practice. Finally, black runs are the most challenging. Steep and often ungroomed, these descents typically feature very sharp gradients and moguls formed by heavy traffic. They are therefore intended for those with solid technique and strong control on skis.
Finding your way around the ski area
Now that you know the colours and their difficulty levels, you'll be able to read the trail markers. A marker is a round sign in the colour of the run (indicating its difficulty level), displaying the name of the run. It also shows a number that decreases as you descend. This tells you what distance to expect: the higher the starting number, the longer the run.
Finally, when it comes to trail marking, every run is marked out to precisely define the edges of the piste. Beyond the markers, you enter "off-piste" territory. Just like the run markers, the poles that border each run match its colour. They are particularly useful on days of low visibility, as they serve as reference points.
To help you make the right choices for your mountain holiday, we've decided to answer the most frequently asked questions about ski resorts in France!
