Is La Plagne good for skiing?
While great scenery, good company and lively aprés ski are all key components for a successful ski holiday, by far the biggest and most important consideration when choosing a resort for a winter trip should be the terrain and variety of runs on offer.
Thankfully a La Plagne ski holiday offers both in abundance. With 225km of pisted terrain spread over around 130 runs – 80% of which are above 2000m – you’re virtually guaranteed a great skiing experience in the resort. Throw in the link to Les Arcs via the Vanoise Express and you get Paradiski – the third-largest ski area in the world with a total of 425km of pistes catering for all abilities from experts down to complete beginners.
Is La Plagne better for skiers or snowboarders?
In truth, La Plagne is perhaps slightly better suited to skiers than snowboarders due to the number of flat spots that often appear on runs. Indeed, there are sections on some of La Plagne’s blue pistes that would struggle to be rated green never mind blue – but thankfully these tend to be the exception rather than the rule. You can read more about particularly bad areas in our La Plagne runs to avoid article which gives comprehensive information on the worst runs in terms of flat spots.
Skiers can obviously deal with flats far better than their snowboarding counterparts using a combination of the skating step and poles while snowboarders have to unclip for longer stretches. Still, it would be fair to say we all prefer to use gravity to get around rather than self-propulsion.
Level of skier that enjoys La Plagne the most
As with pretty much every ski resort on the planet, your individual skiing ability will determine how much you’ll get out of the runs and terrain in La Plagne. As a rule, complete beginners are well-catered for with some great La Plagne ski instruction available on runs located conveniently around the main villages.
Beginner skiers and La Plagne – reasons to get lessons before a ski holiday
That said, I’ve personally never quite understood why anyone books a ski holiday without taking a few lessons locally. Most European now have easily accessible dryslopes and indoor snowcentres with great instructors on hand so there’s no longer any excuse to end up wasting the first few days of a winter trip learning basic skills.
Rather, you’d be much better off learning the ropes locally so you can at least ski a blue run – even if that means just snowploughing around. You’ll get to see much more of La Plagne’s huge ski area and will feel comfortable handling a much bigger range of runs. Similar to most other ski areas, the best scenery in La Plagne is found higher up and being stuck on beginner runs at village level will only end up hampering your overall holiday experience.
Intermediate skiers get the most out of La Plagne
Without doubt, the level of skier that gets the most out of La Plagne is early intermediates up to advanced skiers. Pretty much every La Plagne lift has a blue or red option from the summit, meaning this level of skier can get around the area much easier. For more info, watch our guide to getting the best of La Plagne in a day featuring a route that sticks exclusively to blue and red runs (almost all are blue).
Expert skiers in La Plagne
At the other end of the scale, expert skiers might find La Plagne’s dominance of intermediate pistes a little repetitive and will gain a lot more from the excellent and extensive backcountry skiing around the Champagny sector and the Bellecôte glacier. In truth, there’s an abundance of easily-accessed off-piste riding in La Plagne – much of it reached by simply dropping off the side of the main runs.
The best places in La Plagne for skiing
The skiing in the Champagny, Montchavin and Montalbert sectors is some of the best and most enjoyable in the whole of Paradiski. That said, you should also take the time to head over to Les Arcs for at least a day where the pistes tend to be, as a whole, somewhat steeper. As with most aspects of skiing, just head to the areas with the most runs that suits your particular level.
As for La Plagne, if you’re of intermediate level (and, let’s be honest, most skiers and snowboarders are) then this guide to the best blue pistes in La Plagne features more than enough runs to keep you busy for at least a week. Also, intermediate skiers will enjoy the runs above Plagne Centre, Plagne Villages and Plagne Soleil in the Grande Rochette sector.
More info about La Plagne on the LaPlagne360 site
We’ll be posting more information on the La Plagne 360 site plus the La Plagne 360 blog where you can find out further information on snowboarding in La Plagne. Remember too that we’ve got extensive La Plagne activity guides, La Plagne information guides and La Plagne ski and snowboard edits – plus images from our La Plagne gallery to help work out how to make the best of your next La Plagne ski / snowboard holiday and help you choose the best accommodation in La Plagne.
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