France

Passy - Plaine Joux

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
365cm

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
1,329–1,722 m
Across
2.6 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 ↗

Passy - Plaine Joux, in France, runs from 1,329 m at the base to 1,722 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 2.6 km across, with 17 marked runs and 7 lifts (about 7.8 km of piste in all).

Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 365 cm of snowfall a season, 239th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 33rd in France. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (607 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2016/17 (243 cm). January is usually the snowiest month, with about 110 cm.

The nearest city of any size is Geneva, about 55 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
365cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
243cm
The middle winter of the 12: 349 cm. The best: 607 cm.
World rank
239
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
33
of 244 in France
Elevation rank
137
Highest to lowest, of 244 in France. The centre point sits at 1,489 m, 48 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
Flaine6.6 km338 cm315
Les Houches (Chamonix)7.9 km429 cm135
Le Tourchet (Chamonix)8.0 km365 cmsame grid cell239
Le Grand Massif8.8 km416 cm151
Brévent/Flégère (Chamonix)8.9 km432 cm129

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
17
Run length
7.8km
Lifts
7
Vertical
393m
Top 1,722 m · base 1,329 m

Run map

NoviceEasyIntermediate 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 map1.5 km
Steepest pitch23°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs10.8°

Which way the slopes face

North 3%
East 9%
South 49%
West 40%

Only 12% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. The most common direction is south (49%).

By difficulty

Novice 4 · 1.2 km
Easy 8 · 3.6 km
Intermediate 4 · 2.8 km
Other 1 · 0.3 km

Lift types

  • Platter3
  • Magic carpet2
  • Drag lift1
  • Chairlift1

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 78% of January’s snowfall. That is in line with the median for ski areas in France (77%). In amount, March brings 86 cm, more than the median of 55 cm.

89cm
Dec
110cm
Jan
81cm
Feb
86cm
Mar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters

Winter by winter

Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 365 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2016/17 with 243 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 607 cm (2.5 times as much).

372
457
243
607
391
433
406
325
277
297
259
314
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.

Official piste map ↗

Other booking sites: Booking.com ↗ · Agoda ↗

Guides covering France

← Back to home