France

Pelvoux-Vallouise

Off season

No snow yet. Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear here once snow starts to fall. Until then, the long-run record comes first.

Typical snowfall
269cm
Elevation
1,231–2,219 m
Across
2.7 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.

Pelvoux-Vallouise, in France, runs from 1,231 m at the base to 2,219 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 2.7 km across, with 35 marked runs and 7 lifts (about 15 km of piste in all).

Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 269 cm of snowfall a season, 627th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 89th in France. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (485 cm), brought more than 3 times as much as the leanest, 2018/19 (161 cm). December brings as much snow as January here (70 and 70 cm on average).

How much snow it gets

Measured by us across 3,069 ski areas by one identical method. These are not the resort’s own published figures.

Seasonal snowfall
269cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
161cm
A typical winter: 258 cm. The best: 485 cm.
World rank
627
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
89
of 244 in France
Elevation rank
82
Highest to lowest, of 244 in France. The centre point sits at 1,715 m, 178 m above the national median.

Compared with what is nearby

Within 50 km straight line. Measured the same way, so the ranks compare directly. The weather model works on cells about 30 km across; ski areas in the same cell get the same figure, and these numbers cannot separate them.

Ski areaDistanceSeasonal snowfallWorld rank
Puy-Saint-Vincent5.1 km269 cmsame grid cell627
Serre Chevalier10.0 km285 cm545
Orcières Merlette20.0 km327 cm370
Montgenèvre21.0 km228 cm893
La Grave23.0 km365 cm239

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
35
Run length
15km
Lifts
7
Vertical
988m
Top 2,219 m · base 1,231 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 map1.7 km
Steepest pitch29°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs12.7°

Which way the slopes face

North 25%
East 63%
South 11%
West 0%

88% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. Those slopes get the least sun, so the snow lasts longer.

By difficulty

Novice 8 · 2.8 km
Easy 15 · 6.2 km
Intermediate 8 · 4.4 km
Advanced 3 · 1.5 km
Other 1 · 0.4 km

Lift types

  • Platter4
  • Chairlift2
  • 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

Month by month, the most snow falls in December. March brings 97% of January’s snowfall. That is a gentler fall than the median for ski areas in France (77%). In amount, March brings 68 cm, more than the median of 55 cm.

70cm
Dec
70cm
Jan
61cm
Feb
68cm
Mar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters

Winter by winter

Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 269 cm, and 7 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2018/19 with 161 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 485 cm (3.0 times as much).

214
285
173
485
161
310
244
182
266
341
249
322
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.

More places to look

Guides covering France

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