Bright flat·Ski in ski out·Balcony

At Tignes you ride up through the mountain. The Perce-Neige, an underground funicular 3,490 metres long and the longest in France, has carried skiers from Val Claret to the foot of the Grande Motte glacier since 1993. The terrain spans 1,550 metres at the village of Les Brévières up to 3,456 metres at the top of the glacier, across five villages strung along the valley: Les Brévières, Les Boisses, Le Lavachet, Tignes le Lac and Val Claret. The resort also runs its own piste category, the Naturides, waymarked and patrolled but deliberately left ungroomed, for natural snow on a controlled route. Beyond it, 300 kilometres of linked runs continue into Val d'Isère.

What separates the linked Tignes - Val d'Isère area from either resort on its own is that a single pass covers two glaciers: the Grande Motte above Tignes, topping out at 3,456 metres, and the Pisaillas above Val d'Isère at 3,197 metres. Three hundred kilometres of pistes run between 1,550 and 3,456 metres, sixty percent of them above 2,000 metres, which is why the season here stretches from late November into early May. The terrain shifts character as you cross: wide open glacier skiing at altitude, steeper pitches on the Bellevarde and Solaise faces, gentler valley runs down towards Les Brévières. The area borders the Vanoise National Park, and the Pisaillas glacier lies inside it.