Courmayeur: piste guide

Expert guide to Courmayeur

1. Overview

2. Ski area

3. Hotels

4. Restaurants

5. Après ski

6. Snow reports

Whether you consider Courmayeur’s slopes to be good for a weekend or a whole week depends on your standard. The main ski area, reached by cable car from the town centre or from neighbouring Entrèves, and by gondola from nearby Dolonne, has a limited selection of groomed pistes – 31 totalling 41km – and 100km of off piste.

Courmayeur is fine for beginners, but there are better resorts in which to learn. There are nursery slopes with free lifts at Plan Chécrouit (plus a couple of moving carpet lifts for ski school beginners) as well as at Pre de Pascal at the top of the Entrèves cable car. The two main ski schools are Italian, with most instructors speaking reasonable English. The third one is run by British tour operator Interski, for guests on its holidays.

For strong intermediates, this is a wonderful place for a long weekend. The overall piste area is small – enough for two or three days, but hardly a whole week – and divides into two linked sectors, separated by a rock ridge. Overall, the reds are what they say they are, while the few easy blacks would be classified as challenging reds in many resorts. Runs on the Val Veny side generally offer the greater challenge. For a satisfyingly long descent, it's a substantial 1,400m of vertical from Cresta Youla all the way down to Dolonne.

For adventurous intermediates and experts there’s a lot of fun to be had off piste if snow conditions are good – indeed, enough fun for a whole season. A couple of ungroomed itineraries from Plan Chécrouit, reached by a cable car to Cresta d’Arp at 2,755m, descend to Dolonne or across a deserted valley to the railhead at Pré-St-Didier. A third one snakes down the beautiful Val Veny on the far side of the ski area.

The most adventurous excitement is in the separate Mont Blanc sector on the other side of town, aimed at advanced skiers and snowboarders. Then there's the three-stage Skyway Monte Bianco cable car, which ascends from Entrèves all the way up to Punta Helbronner, at 3,466m. Off-piste runs from here for experts to try with a mountain guide include, on the Italian side, the run down the Toula glacier, an Alpine classic. There’s also some outstanding heliskiing, with drops above the Val Veny for a descent back to Courmayeur and on the Mont Blanc glacier.

There’s a terrain park called Snow Park 26, served by the Aretu chair. It has lines for beginners, intermediates, and experts. A giant airbag is served by two kickers.