France

Gavarnie Gèdre

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
295cm

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
1,829–2,283 m
Across
1.6 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 ↗

Gavarnie Gèdre, in France, runs from 1,829 m at the base to 2,283 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 1.6 km across, with 33 marked runs and 12 lifts (about 18 km of piste in all).

Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 295 cm of snowfall a season, 500th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 76th in France. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (422 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2018/19 (172 cm). March is usually the snowiest month, with about 83 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
295cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
172cm
The middle winter of the 12: 294 cm. The best: 422 cm.
World rank
500
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
76
of 244 in France
Elevation rank
63
Highest to lowest, of 244 in France. The centre point sits at 1,838 m, 301 m above 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
Piau Engaly17.0 km370 cm226
Luz Ardiden17.0 km402 cm170
Estación de Esquí Aramón Panticosa20.0 km348 cm287
Cauterets20.0 km388 cm194
Grand Tourmalet25.0 km326 cm378

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
33
Run length
18km
Lifts
12
Vertical
454m
Top 2,283 m · base 1,829 m

Run map

NoviceEasyIntermediateAdvanced 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 map1.6 km
Steepest pitch33°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs10.5°

Which way the slopes face

North 52%
East 24%
South 1%
West 22%

76% 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 11 · 5.9 km
Easy 9 · 6.6 km
Intermediate 10 · 4.4 km
Advanced 3 · 1.5 km

Lift types

  • Platter6
  • Chairlift5
  • Rope tow1

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 March. March brings as much as January, or more. In amount, March brings 83 cm, more than the median of 55 cm.

57cm
Dec
78cm
Jan
78cm
Feb
83cm
Mar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters

Winter by winter

Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 295 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2018/19 with 172 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 422 cm (2.5 times as much). For 26% of the 244 ski areas in France the leanest winter was 2016/17; here it was a different one.

323
265
316
422
172
280
277
307
201
357
260
362
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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