Min depth
Scene
Character
Budget
Setting
Access
Terrain
Activities
Showing the upcoming opening · closest airport GVA — adjust above
Resort dossier

Les Houches

FR·Haute-Savoie
family-friendlytraditionalBackcountry / off-piste
Weeks 50–1

Typically -10.2°C · 41cm fresh / week · powder day 64% · mixed 31%

Top elev.
1900m
Base elev.
1000m
Pistes
55km
Lifts
15
Piste mix36km mapped
Green2%
Blue46%
Red39%
Black13%
COMPOSITE SCORE
66
Snow85
Typically 120cm
Typical depth120cm
90cm159cm
Travel55
From your origin
Size63
Piste km, discounted for linked-area connectivity
Fit50
Vibe, terrain, activities
What to expect

What to expect in weeks 1–53

Based on 29 winters of weather data, modelled at ~1101m (not the village). Any single year can be very different.

Typically stormy, around -10.2°C, with 41cm of fresh snow over the week. Powder days hit 64% of the time. Other weeks run mixed.

Icy mornings
0.9 days/week
spring-like in 7% of years
Snow texture
Powdery
soft, easy turns
Typical wind
8.1 m/s
peaks to 31 m/s
Typical Freezing level
-122 m
0°C isotherm
Powder days
64%
of years see 10cm+
Rain at base
0 days
per week
Storm
55%
of years
Bluebird
14%
of years
Thaw
0%
of years
Mixed
31%
of years
Climatology

What a season here looks like

Each track shows the typical range across 29 winters. The marker shows where your selected weeks sit.

Reliability60cm+
92%
Depth
125cm
Temperature
-10.2°C
Fresh snow
41cm
Snow line
-122m
Wind
8.1 m/s
Trend · 76 winters

The snow has held. The air has not.

Les Houches's typical base has sat near 150cm since 1950, and a good winter still beats a bad one by 177cm, far more than any decade here differs from another. The winter freezing level has climbed 42m a decade.

148cm
160cm
159cm
158cm
153cm
136cm
145cm
137cm
1950–1959
1960–1969
1970–1979
1980–1989
1990–1999
2000–2009
2010–2019
2020–2025
Winter to winter
74–251cm

Across single winters (1963–64 to 1974–75).

Typical base
−11cm

1950–1959 to 2020–2025. The Haute-Savoie region moved −21cm.

Freezing level
+42m

Per decade. 125m in 1950–1959, 453m now. Still 547m below the village.

Calibrated reanalysis, 1950–2025. Bars are each winter's mean base, rules each decade's mean. 2020–2025 holds 6 winters, not ten. Every figure here averages a full season, so none of them will match the readings for your chosen weeks above.

Book this trip

Ad

We may earn a commission from these partners. It never costs you extra, and it never affects your ranking.

Transfers

Transfers

AirportDriveTrain
Bern (BRN)156 min
Chambéry (CMF)93 min
Grenoble (GNB)141 min
Geneva (GVA)81 min
Method & sources

We weigh snow reliability against this resort's own history, add live conditions where we have them, then adjust for how hard the trip is for your group.

  1. 01ERA5-Land hourly grid → daily SWE & snow depth at the resort cell.
  2. 02Bias-correct against ground stations (SLF / Météo-France nivôse).
  3. 03Build per-week climatological percentile · 30 winters.
  4. 04Anomaly = current week vs. cell's own 30-year baseline.
  5. 05Snow-sure read at the highest-snow cell within ~15km. When most resorts are bare, ranking shifts toward this, surfacing glaciers in shoulder seasons.
  6. 06Weight + rank against your origin & vibe profile.
Sources

Snow data sources

Ground stations the score is based on.

  • LE TOUR BALMEmeteofrance
  • CHAMONIX-OBSmeteofrance