France

Grand Tourmalet

Off season

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

Typical snowfall
326cm

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
1,459–2,464 m
Across
12 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.

Grand Tourmalet, in France, runs from 1,459 m at the base to 2,464 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 12 km across, with 78 marked runs and 38 lifts (about 54 km of piste in all).

Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 326 cm of snowfall a season, 378th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 63rd in France. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (605 cm), brought more than 4 times as much as the leanest, 2015/16 (138 cm). January is usually the snowiest month, with about 96 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
326cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
138cm
The middle winter of the 12: 335 cm. The best: 605 cm.
World rank
378
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
63
of 244 in France
Elevation rank
67
Highest to lowest, of 244 in France. The centre point sits at 1,827 m, 290 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
Hautacam13.0 km322 cm393
Domaine de Saint-Lary13.0 km315 cm427
Piau Engaly15.0 km370 cm226
Luz Ardiden17.0 km402 cm170
Gavarnie Gèdre25.0 km295 cm500

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
78
Run length
54km
Lifts
38
Vertical
1,005m
Top 2,464 m · base 1,459 m

Run map

NoviceEasyIntermediateAdvancedFreeride Lift
North is up. Runs are coloured by difficulty; black lines are lifts.Lifts that run far beyond the ski area are cut at the edge of the map.
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 map2.8 km
Steepest pitch35°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs11.1°

Which way the slopes face

North 28%
East 34%
South 15%
West 22%

62% 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 15 · 6.5 km
Easy 43 · 30.2 km
Intermediate 15 · 10.2 km
Advanced 4 · 5.1 km
Freeride 1 · 1.8 km

Lift types

  • Chairlift14
  • Funicular8
  • Platter5
  • Drag lift5
  • Cable car3
  • Magic carpet3

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 74% of January’s snowfall. That is in line with the median for ski areas in France (77%). In amount, March brings 71 cm, more than the median of 55 cm.

80cm
Dec
96cm
Jan
80cm
Feb
71cm
Mar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters

Winter by winter

Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 326 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2015/16 with 138 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 605 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.

198
138
353
605
319
299
362
399
209
350
286
393
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

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

Map

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

Other booking sites: Booking.com ↗ · Agoda ↗

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