France

La Pierre-Saint-Martin

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
337cm

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
1,519–2,146 m
Across
4.1 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 ↗

La Pierre-Saint-Martin, in France, runs from 1,519 m at the base to 2,146 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 4.1 km across, with 60 marked runs and 13 lifts (about 25 km of piste in all).

Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 337 cm of snowfall a season, 319th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 51st in France. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (670 cm), brought more than 4 times as much as the leanest, 2015/16 (140 cm). January is usually the snowiest month, with about 105 cm.

The nearest city of any size is Pamplona, about 76 km away in a straight line.

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
337cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
140cm
The middle winter of the 12: 368 cm. The best: 670 cm.
World rank
319
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
51
of 244 in France
Elevation rank
83
Highest to lowest, of 244 in France. The centre point sits at 1,711 m, 174 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
Le Somport26.0 km358 cm262
Le Somport26.0 km358 cm262
Estación de esquí de Candanchú27.0 km358 cm262
Estación Invernal de Astún27.0 km358 cm262
Artouste30.0 km388 cm194

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
60
Run length
25km
Lifts
13
Vertical
627m
Top 2,146 m · base 1,519 m

Run map

NoviceEasyIntermediateAdvancedOther 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 map3.5 km
Steepest pitch30°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs9.6°

Which way the slopes face

North 50%
East 21%
South 1%
West 28%

71% 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 17 · 3.1 km
Easy 21 · 13.8 km
Intermediate 13 · 6 km
Advanced 3 · 2.3 km
Other 6 · 0.2 km

Lift types

  • Chairlift5
  • Platter4
  • Magic carpet3
  • 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 January. March brings 71% of January’s snowfall. That is in line with the median for ski areas in France (77%). In amount, March brings 75 cm, more than the median of 55 cm.

76cm
Dec
105cm
Jan
82cm
Feb
75cm
Mar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters

Winter by winter

Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 337 cm, and 5 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2015/16 with 140 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 670 cm (4.8 times as much). For 26% of the 244 ski areas in France the leanest winter was 2016/17; here it was a different one.

190
140
383
670
365
263
371
371
234
394
282
376
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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