France

Foncine le Haut

Off season
Official site

No snow yet. Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear once snow is on the ground or forecast.

Typical snowfall
175cm

A weather-model figure, worked out the same way for every ski area, and lower than what actually falls. Use it to compare ski areas, not against the resort’s own totals. How we measure →

Elevation
902–1,030 m
Across
0.9 km

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. Snow report on the official site ↗

Foncine le Haut, in France, runs from 902 m at the base to 1,030 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 0.9 km across, with 5 marked runs and 3 lifts (about 1.7 km of piste in all).

Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 175 cm of snowfall a season, 1,368th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 169th in France. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (323 cm), brought more than 4 times as much as the leanest, 2023/24 (73 cm). January is usually the snowiest month, with about 59 cm.

How much snow it gets

Modelled from weather data the same way at all 3,069 ski areas we cover. These are not the resort’s own published figures.

Seasonal snowfall
175cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
73cm
The middle winter of the 12: 180 cm. The best: 323 cm.
World rank
1368
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
169
of 244 in France
Elevation rank
237
Highest to lowest, of 244 in France. The centre point sits at 948 m, 589 m below the national median.

Compared with what is nearby

Within 50 km in a straight line. Ski areas in the same weather-model cell (about 30 km across) get the same figure.

Ski areaDistanceSeasonal snowfallWorld rank
Morbier - Les Combes (ski nordique)9.3 km265 cm643
Mouthe11.0 km204 cm1117
Bellefontaine11.0 km265 cm643
Les Gentianes12.0 km177 cm1348
Le Brassus14.0 km266 cm637

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.

Marked runs
5
Run length
1.7km
Lifts
3
Vertical
128m
Top 1,030 m · base 902 m

Run map

NoviceEasyIntermediateOther Lift
North is up. Runs are coloured by difficulty; black lines are lifts.
Run map

Drag to move around, and use + and − to zoom. On a phone, swipe to move and pinch to zoom in further.

Slope shape, difficulty and lift types

The shape of the mountain

Longest run on the map0.9 km
Steepest pitch21°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs8.5°

Which way the slopes face

North 57%
East 1%
South 1%
West 40%

58% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east; plenty of the terrain faces the sun as well, so the lean is modest.

By difficulty

Novice 1 · 0.2 km
Easy 1 · 0.9 km
Intermediate 1 · 0.5 km
Other 2

Lift types

  • Rope tow2
  • Platter1

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.

When it falls, and how winters differ

Month by month

The most snow falls in January. March brings 64% of January’s snowfall. That is a steeper fall than the median for ski areas in France (77%): the snow here is concentrated early in the season. In amount, March brings 38 cm, less than the median of 55 cm.

41cm
Dec
59cm
Jan
38cm
Feb
38cm
Mar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters

Winter by winter

Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 175 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2023/24 with 73 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 323 cm (4.4 times as much). For 26% of the 244 ski areas in France the leanest winter was 2016/17; here it was a different one.

199
207
145
323
214
195
246
164
74
73
104
161
14/1515/1616/1717/1818/1919/2020/2121/2222/2323/2424/2525/26

Snowfall each winter (December–March total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.

Live cameras

Footage remains the copyright of each operator. JAPANSNOWLINE neither stores nor redistributes it.

Map

The weather map, and where it sits among nearby ski areas.

Official piste map ↗

Other booking sites: Booking.com ↗ · Agoda ↗

Guides covering France

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