Every year us skiers and snowboarders tend to revert the same early season routine. Refresh the snow report, drive to the hill, elbow for space on the one white ribbon of manmade snow that’s open and call it a holiday. This year we’ve got a better idea: book a flight to France and ski the biggest lift-linked ski area on the planet.
Les 3 Vallées (L3V) opens Val Thorens and Orelle on November 21 and is scheduled to link all seven of its resorts by December 5. The ski area includes Courchevel, Méribel, Brides-les-Bains, Saint-Martin-de-Belleville, Les Menuires, Val Thorens and Orelle. That’s 372 miles of slopes and 337 runs, all connected, so you can ski from one valley to the next without taking your skis off. Stack it up against the biggest resorts back home and it’s four to six times the size.
What makes early December and January a safe bet over there is elevation. 85% of early slopes sit above 5,900 feet, which matters in the Alps where plenty of famous resorts have villages down in the green valleys. Val Thorens is the highest ski resort in Europe. Its village sits at 7,550 feet (for reference, that’s higher than Beaver Creek’s base in Colorado). The lifts top out above 10,500 feet, which is why Val Thorens gets first dibs on the season in November and keeps spinning into May. Booking an early season week here is a great bet on high-elevation terrain, not a valley-floor resort crossing its fingers.
Here’s the part that tends to be the most surprising: many skiers already have the L3V lift tickets. The full Epic Pass includes five consecutive days at Les 3 Vallées, redeemed with a lodging booking in the resort. If you’re looking for more days, the math still works out well. A day ticket at Vail runs $322. A day in Les 3 Vallées is about €86, or roughly $101.
Getting there is easier than you might think as well. Direct flights from North America land in Geneva and Lyon, with shuttles to Moûtiers, the gateway town at the foot of the valleys. Moûtiers also has an SNCF train station tied into local buses. The official booking site, reservation.les3vallees.com, bundles lodging, lessons, lift passes, rentals and airport transfers across all seven resorts.
Then there’s the après. The Alps literally invented it and in Les 3 Vallées it starts at lunch. A slope-side terrace, a bottle of Savoie white, a fondue or a tartiflette, and suddenly it’s 3 p.m. and nobody’s in a hurry. Then La Folie Douce in Val Thorens and Méribel gets goin with DJs and ski boot dancing on the terraces. Le Rond Point in Méribel is where one last-run beer turns into four. If you’d rather go the fancy route, Courchevel has some of the best food and hotels anywhere in skiing. Go before Christmas and the bars are full of instructors and locals instead of throngs of tourists.
We’re not the only ones catching on. Statistics are showing that more and more American ski families are trading a Colorado week for the Alps. In winter 2024–25, American visits to France rose 10.6%, with Switzerland up 13.4% and Austria up 15.4%. The lift ticket savings add up fast for a family of four, so it’s pretty easy to understand why.
Seven resorts means seven personalities, from glitzy Courchevel to family-friendly Les Menuires and the old Savoyard village of Saint-Martin-de-Belleville, with terrain from first turns to guided off-piste. This winter Les Menuires adds a new beginner area with a free magic carpet at the top of the Roc 1 gondola, and Méribel’s upgraded Rhodos gondola station gets a dedicated ski school area. Throw in the spas, the food and the whole French Alps experience, and it’s a trip the kids will remember, not just another ski week.
So here’s our plan, and we don’t mind if you steal it. Burn your Epic days, fly into Geneva or Lyon, and spend a week in December or January skiing the biggest connected lift network on earth. Start planning at reservation.les3vallees.com.
