Alpe d'Huez
Weather at Alpe d'Huez
Low: -6.4°C / High: -3.6°C
Wind: N 13.5 km/h
Recent Snowfall
24 hours: 0 cm
7 days: 26 cm
Snow Depth
Base: 300 cm
Season Total: 832 cm
Resort Status
Lifts: 63/69
Trails: 230/250 kms
Resort Overview
Michael Fulton
45+ resortsMelbourne-based ski expert with 45+ resorts across 5 continents. Specialises in Australian skiing and riding and international resort comparisons.
Skiing for 14 years and visited resorts in:
🇦🇺 Australia (6) • 🇺🇸 USA (15) • 🇯🇵 Japan (5) • 🇪🇺 Europe (10)
Alpe d'Huez Grand Domaine is one of the largest ski areas in the French Alps, delivering 250km of marked pistes across five linked resorts — Alpe d'Huez, Auris-en-Oisans, Oz-en-Oisans, Vaujany and Villard-Reculas — spread across 10,000 hectares of skiable terrain in the Grandes Rousses massif of the Isère. The ski area spans elevations from 1,125m at the base to 3,330m at the Pic Blanc summit, producing a skiable vertical of 2,205m — one of the largest continuous vertical drops in the Alps.
The 159 runs break down as 28% beginner, 52% intermediate, 15% advanced and 5% expert, a profile that reflects Alpe d'Huez's reputation as one of the finest intermediate destinations in France, though the 17 black runs and over 50km of expert terrain ensure serious skiers are equally well served.
The resort's defining run is the Sarenne — a 16km black piste descending from the Pic Blanc glacier at 3,330m to the Gorges de Sarenne at 1,510m, widely regarded as the longest black run in Europe and covering nearly 1,830m of vertical in a single unbroken descent.
The Tunnel piste is equally iconic: a 200m cave bored directly through the mountainside that deposits skiers onto one of the steepest mogul fields in France at a 35° gradient. Alpe d'Huez has been a recognised ski destination since the 1920s and hosted bobsleigh events at the 1968 Winter Olympics, but its parallel fame as a Tour de France summit finish — first used in 1952 with Fausto Coppi and climbed regularly since 1976 — has embedded the mountain's identity in both snow sports and cycling culture in equal measure.
Live Alpe d'Huez Webcams
Trails & Terrain
Trails
Total Runs
159
Total Area
250km
155.3 miles
Alpe d'Huez Lift System
The Alpe d'Huez Grand Domaine lift network comprises 69 installations serving the full five-resort domain, including 14 gondolas, three aerial trams, two eight-seat chairlifts, seven six-seat chairs, 11 quads, one double, 19 T-bars, 10 surface lifts and two train systems. The Pic Blanc cable car from the main resort village is the primary gateway to the high-alpine summit terrain at 3,330m, while the DMC gondola system — with stations at 2,100m and 2,700m — forms the backbone of the central mountain access, carrying significant daily traffic to the mid-mountain hub from which the Sarenne and Tunnel descents begin.
The resort operates 1,071 snow guns covering the full elevation range from 3,060m down to 1,035m, the most extensive snowmaking installation in the Grandes Rousses and a key factor in sustaining reliable coverage across a predominantly south-facing mountain.
The Vaujany sector connects to the main domain via the Grandes Rousses cable car — one of the largest in France by capacity — and provides an alternative entry point that distributes skier volume across the domain and reduces pressure on the main Alpe d'Huez village lifts during peak periods. Oz-en-Oisans connects via high-speed gondola from the valley base at 1,350m, providing access for visitors staying in the lower Oisans valley without driving to the main resort.
Five dedicated freeride itineraries across the domain cover a combined vertical of nearly 10,000m, accessible from various lift exits across the upper mountain for skiers equipped with appropriate safety gear. Night skiing operates on the Signal sector every Tuesday and Thursday from February through March, included on the Grand Domaine pass.
Lifts
Total Lifts
69
Lift Types
9
Lift Breakdown
Season Info
Alpe d'Huez operates from mid-November through to late April, with the 2025/26 season running 10 November to 20 April — one of the earlier opening dates in the French Alps, made possible by the Pic Blanc glacier and high-altitude snowmaking infrastructure that secures coverage from the summit down from the first weeks of the season.
The resort records an average annual snowfall of around 3.8 metres, but its elevation profile and 1,071-gun snowmaking network provide consistent coverage across the full 250km domain even in low-natural-snowfall years. The current 2025/26 season has accumulated a total of 781cm with a base depth of 350cm as of early March, reflecting a strong winter in the Isère.
Alpe d'Huez is widely known as the "Island in the Sun" — a nickname rooted in the south-facing orientation of the main resort village, which averages approximately 300 sunny days per year, more than almost any other major French ski resort. This characteristic creates a distinctive seasonal rhythm: cold, firm snow on high-altitude north-facing aspects contrasting with warm, spring-condition grooming on the lower south-facing village slopes, often simultaneously.
The Sarenne glacier at Pic Blanc maintains cold, reliable snow throughout the season regardless of conditions at lower elevations, making December through April consistently productive for skiers who know how to track the mountain's aspect changes across the day. Spring skiing at Alpe d'Huez is particularly well regarded, with long daylight hours, warm base temperatures and deep upper-mountain snowpack converging through March and April.
Season Info
Current Season
2025 - 2026
Opening Day
11/10/2025
Closing Day
4/20/2026
Days Open
162
Location & Getting There
Alpe d'Huez sits in the commune of Huez in the Isère department of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, 59km east of Grenoble in the central French Western Alps. The resort is accessed from the Romanche Valley via the D211 road, which climbs 1,000m in elevation across 13.8km through the famous 21 hairpin bends — the same road used by the Tour de France for its legendary Alpe d'Huez summit stages.
Grenoble itself is around one hour by road and served by regular train connections from Paris Lyon on the TGV in around two and a quarter hours, making Alpe d'Huez one of the more accessible major ski resorts in the Alps by public transport for international visitors arriving through Paris. Grenoble Airport handles limited direct flights from some UK and European destinations, while Lyon Saint-Exupéry is approximately two hours by road and offers significantly broader international connections.
The five villages that make up the Grand Domaine each offer distinct characters — the main Alpe d'Huez village is a purpose-built resort with a lively après-ski scene anchored by La Folie Douce and a dense concentration of ski-in accommodation, restaurants and bars.
Vaujany, by contrast, is a traditional mountain village of around 600 residents that grew wealthy from hydroelectric power revenues and invested heavily in a gondola and cable car infrastructure that gives it disproportionately strong lift access relative to its size. The 6-day Grand Domaine pass includes two free days at Les 2 Alpes, which is visible directly across the Romanche Valley from the Auris sector and reachable by road in around 30 minutes — an arrangement that effectively extends the week's skiing beyond the already substantial 250km home domain.
Alpe d'Huez
, france