Val d'Isère. Skiing from late November to May, and the long valley road timed around your arrival.

Val d'Isère sits at 1,850 metres at the top of the Tarentaise, with skiing that runs from about 1,550 metres up to around 3,450 at the Pointe du Montet. Roughly sixty per cent of the pistes are above 2,200 metres and there are two glaciers in the area, which is why the resort opens at the end of November and is still running at the start of May when almost everything else in the Alps has closed.

The resort is strung along one road. La Daille is the first thing you reach, at the bottom of the funicular, with the classic downhill course dropping into it. Val d'Isère centre is a couple of kilometres further on, and Le Fornet is beyond that again, up the valley towards the Col de l'Iseran, quieter and higher and with its own cable car. Where you stay changes the last five minutes of the transfer and the walk to a lift, and it is worth telling us which before anything is booked.

For 2026 and 2027 the season runs from 28 November 2026 to 2 May 2027, with the opening weekend on 28 and 29 November. The Critérium de la Première Neige, the World Cup meeting the resort has held since the 1950s, returns in December, with the 2026 races on 12 and 13 December.

Everything about arriving in Val d'Isère comes down to the road above Bourg-Saint-Maurice. It climbs some thirty kilometres through Sainte-Foy and past the Tignes turning, it is single carriageway, and it is the only way in. In good conditions it takes about three quarters of an hour and it is a beautiful drive. In snow, or behind a coach, or on the wrong Saturday, it is not.

Saturday is the problem, and it is a predictable one. The whole Tarentaise changes over on the same day, so the flights, the airport, the motorway from Albertville and the valley road all peak together between roughly mid morning and late afternoon. The two ways to beat it are to arrive very early or comparatively late, or to take a different day altogether. A Sunday to Sunday week is a small change to the diary and a large change to the journey.

The other factor is the weather. Heavy snow slows the climb considerably and the road is occasionally closed for avalanche control, at no notice. It is one more reason we plan the return with slack in it rather than to the minute.

Unlike Courchevel and Méribel, Val d'Isère has no altiport for fixed wing aircraft. What it has is a helipad at La Daille, at around 1,800 metres at the entrance to the resort, which is where helicopter transfers land. There is a helicopter base at Bourg-Saint-Maurice as well, which is often the practical staging point for the Tarentaise.

That makes the helicopter a genuine option for the last leg rather than a novelty. It removes the valley road from the equation entirely, in daylight and acceptable visibility. The caveats are the ones that apply everywhere in the Alps: mountain weather stops it without consulting your diary, and capacity in the peak weeks is committed early, so it is asked about at the same time as the aircraft rather than the week before.

The rest of the plan is the usual shape. A jet into Chambéry with Geneva, Lyon or Grenoble agreed as the alternative, a car meeting it wherever it actually lands, and the last leg by road or by helicopter depending on the day. See helicopter charter.