France Set to Open for Skiing
20th November 2025
Last modified on November 21st, 2025
Val Thorens and Tignes open on Saturday with fresh snow on the slopes. Snow is falling across the Alps and the Pyrenees as the temperatures plummet. UPDATED
The Alps
The two high altitude French resorts open on Saturday and have benefited from the recent snowstorms.
First the current conditions in the Alps.
The freezing level in the Alps is below 1,000m and its is bitterly cold.
Many areas have seen snow in recent days.
“Some areas likely to see around 30cm by Friday,” said the alpine weather expert Fraser Wilkin from weathertoski.co.uk.
“This will be encouraging for areas like the Portes du Soleil where 20cm or more is likely even at 1000m, something barely seen in the last couple of seasons, let alone in November.
“A secondary “low” in the northern Mediterranean will also pep up the precipitation in the south-east meaning that the Dolomites should also do quite well.
“Areas that will see the least snow over the next couple of days will be in the inner Alpine western Alps (including Zermatt) but, even here, a few centimetres of cold powdery snow are forecast.
“The weather in the Alps will remain cold for the foreseeable future, turning sunny for a while over the weekend before snow returns from the west on Sunday night, with a very snowy week expected next week,” added Fraser.
In parts of Switzerland there has been snow down to 500m.
Buses stopped running in Zurich, Bern and Basel, while trams in Bern were temporarily left in the depot.
At the Gotthard Pass cars were temporarily unable to travel southwards.
Some flights and rail connections were also affected in Switzerland.
In Austria the Men’s qualifying event for the FIS Freeski World Cup, held in Stubai near Innsbruck, has been affected.
Due to the rapidly deteriorating weather conditions on Friday the the men’s qualification has been postponed to Saturday, 22nd November.
It is now set to take place prior to the women’s final.
FIS Freeski World Cup. Image c/o Julius Forer by BAUSE.
Here on PlanetSKI we will have a full update on the weather once the latest storm passes.
It is looking good as the temperature is set to stay low over the coming days, with another large storm due on Sunday.
The heaviest snow will be in the western Alps.
Some ski areas have been open for a while in Austria, Italy and Switzerland as we have been reporting in our earlier snow reports across the autumn:
Now France is joining the party.
PlanetSKI reporter, Felix Milns, is in Val Thorens and will be updating us across the weekend – on the snow and opening festivities.
Felix Milns. Image © PlanetSKI
He reports flakes of snow falling on the motorway on the valley floor after pulling out of Geneva on Friday – an indication of where the freezing level is in that part of the Alps.
First sight of snow on the way to Val Thorens for its opening weekend. Image © PlanetSKI
By the time he was at around 1,50om on the way up to VT the snow became thicker.
Snow on the way to Val Thorens for its opening weekend. Image © PlanetSKI
Then it’s time for snow chains.
Snow on the way to Val Thorens for its opening weekend. Image © PlanetSKI
It’s already looking pretty good up in Val Thorens itself, with 28cm of fresh snow in the latest storm, and it was still coming down earlier.
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See here for an earlier PlanetSKI article about what’s new in the resort for the season:
Do look out for those weekend reports from Felix.
Tignes is also firing up some lifts on Saturday 22nd November and we’ll have updates on its opening.
The lifts start running at 9am at the Perce-Neige funicular in Val Claret.
100 ski instructors and members of the Tignes Sports Club will descend from the Grande Motte glacier at 3,456m at 5.30pm on Saturday evening.
The procession will light up the slopes down to Val Claret, followed by a festive après-ski celebration and brings the whole community of the resort together to celebrate the start of the new season.
A lift ticket for this weekend will cost €40 per day.
The full ski area of Tignes-Val d’Isère will be in operation the following weekend – 29th November 2025.
The area has 74 lifts across 300 km of marked slopes at an altitude starting from 1,550m to 3,450 m.
Here’s what to expect in Tignes for this winter:
PlanetSKI’s Jane Peel will be reporting from Tignes in early December.
Obergurgl in Austria opened on Thursday 20th November with 60% of its slopes open.
It is the first non-glacier resort to offer such an extensive amount of skiing – 69km (45 miles) of pistes on a mix of natural and artificial snow.
It currently has the most terrain open of anywhere in the world.
This weekend the area of Gurgl hosts an edition of the slalom World Cup.
GB’s Dave Ryding, Laurie Taylor and Billy Major will all be competing on Saturday.
It follows last week’s race in Levi in Finland which saw Laurie and Dave in the Top Ten – 4th and 7th respectively.
It was Laurie’s best World Cup run to date.
There are set to be around 30 resorts in the Alps offering skiing this weekend:
- Austria: Pitztal, Hintertux, Stubai, Soelden, Kaunertal, Kitzsteinhorn, Molltal, Obertauern, Schladming, Obergurgl & Kitzbuhel.
- France: Val Thorens & Tignes.
- Italy: Cervinia, Sulden, Passo Tonale & Val Senalis.
- Switzerland: Andermatt, Verbier, Zermatt, Saas-Fee, Murren, Arosa, Davos, Glacier 3000, Titlis Glacier (Engleberg) & Diavolezza Glacier (St Moritz) and Adelboden.
The Pyrenees
There has also been some snow over in the Pyrenees in the current cold spell.
No resorts or ski areas are open in Andorra, France or Spain but it’s looking good.
See here for more about skiing in Andorra this coming winter:
The UK
There has also been some snow in the UK with Scotland’s ski areas welcoming the white stuff.
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There’s even a spot of skiing on offer in the UK at the moment.
The ski areas of Yad Moss in Cumbria and Cairngorm in Scotland have opened:
Yad Moss. Image c/o Yad Moss web camera.
Scandinavia
There have some bitterly cold temperatures in Scandinavia with several resorts now open.
Levi and Ruka in Finland have been open a few weeks.
In Sweden Tarnaby and Kabdalis are open.
Here on PlanetSKI we have a separate report on the snow conditions in North America:
Sunshine Village, Banff, Canada. Image © PlanetSKI
Do check back for the PlanetSKI updates on the snow conditions as the season of 2025/26 gets underway…
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