Bessans
Bessans is a ski area in France. The terrain spans roughly 1744–1744 m above sea level. The mapped ski area covers about 7.4 km². Within 3.3 km of the centre, the map shows 4 marked runs and 2 lifts, totalling about 1.3 km of piste. Over the last three winters the ERA5 reanalysis gives it 294 cm of snowfall a season, 516th (tied) of the 3,112 ski areas we measure worldwide. The model runs well below what resorts report, so the ranking is the meaningful part rather than the centimetre figure. 211 other ski areas lie within 120 km. Snow figures and the Powder Score are recalculated every day.
Elevation range is estimated by sampling points across the ski area.
We do not show a snow depth here. The weather model we use reports snow lying on the ground — it knows nothing about grooming or snowmaking, and it is not the base depth a ski area publishes. In Japan we can check our figures against 234 weather stations. Outside Japan there is nothing to check them against, so we do not print a number we have not verified.
Score breakdown
Powder Score v1.0.0
7-day outlook
| Date | Snow | Temp | Wind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🌤️ 27 Sept | 0 | 9.6 / 21.4 | 11.2 |
| ☁️ 28 Sept | 0 | 10.8 / 20.7 | 9.4 |
| 🌧️ 29 Sept | 0 | 10.1 / 16.8 | 11.2 |
| 🌧️ 30 Sept | 0 | 9.7 / 12.8 | 8.7 |
| 🌧️ 1 Oct | 0 | 9.7 / 13.1 | 6.6 |
| 🌫️ 2 Oct | 0 | 9.5 / 11.7 | 7.8 |
| ☁️ 3 Oct | 0 | 8 / 11.9 | 7.6 |
Runs and lifts
Counted from the runs and lifts drawn on OpenStreetMap, within the boundary of the ski area. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Run map
The shape of the mountain
Which way the slopes face
Only 10% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. More of the terrain faces the sun.
By difficulty
Lift types
- Drag lift2
See past trail maps on Skimap.org ↗
Source: OpenSkiMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0). How finely ski areas are drawn varies by region, so treat the counts as indicative. Vertical is the difference between the highest and lowest points of the mapped runs and lifts.
Live Cameras
This ski area does not put a camera on its own slopes. What follows are nearby cameras, not the pistes themselves.
Footage remains the copyright of each operator. JAPANSNOWLINE neither stores nor redistributes it.
Some cameras here are provided by Windy.com. Footage plays in Windy’s own player; we do not store it. Windy.com
How much snow it gets
Measured by us across 3,112 ski areas by one identical method. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Compared with what is nearby
Within 50 km straight line. Measured the same way, so the ranks compare directly. Ski areas a few kilometres apart share a weather grid cell and can return the same figure.
| Ski area | Distance | Seasonal snowfall | World rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bonneval-sur-Arc | 6.6 km | 341 cm | 322 |
| Val Cenis | 11 km | 301 cm | 483 |
| Espace Haute Maurienne Vanoise | 13 km | 301 cm | 483 |
| Val d'Isère | 14 km | 376 cm | 222 |
| Pralognan-la-Vanoise | 21 km | 370 cm | 245 |
When it falls, and how winters differ
Month by month
Month by month, the most snow falls in January. March brings as much as January, or more. In amount, March brings 75 cm, more than the median of 58 cm.
Map
Where it sits relative to nearby resorts. For a piste map, see the official site.
More places to look
Updated: 26 Sept 2026, 23:28