I had no idea about Val d'Isère before—thanks entirely to the recommendation from influencer and fellow skier Billy Bai, who introduced me to this amazing place. A big thank you to Billy Bai! If you’re into skiing, be sure to check out his official WeChat account—his QR code is seriously cool! Compared to Val d'Isère, The Grand Massif feels rather conventional—and even somewhat mundane. First of all, Val d'Isère covers an area that visually appears to include at least three large mountain ranges and boasts 159 ski runs, with a total track length of 300 kilometers—yes, you read that right, 300 kilometers! European ski resorts are simply this vast; they’re nowhere near the few kilometers that often seem impressive back home. And here’s something even more remarkable: 300 kilometers isn’t considered particularly huge in Europe.
Outside the marked runs, the resort spans an impressive 10,000 hectares. It has also hosted the Olympic Games, and amazingly, you can even enjoy skiing at altitudes as high as 3,000 meters during the summer months! Let's start with a few images to get a feel for it. How about it—doesn’t it seem huge? Actually, what’s even more important than size isThe entire mountain is skiable.What concept is that? It means that almost the entire area—top to bottom—of these mountain peaks you’re looking at is skiable, offering a remarkably large expanse of off-piste terrain. You can glide down along the groomed trails, or simply pick any spot and head straight down—it’s absolutely exhilarating! Look, there’s even a powered paraglider up on the mountaintop—seems like it costs around 1,000 RMB for a 10-minute flight. Only now, as I’m writing this, did it finally hit me: I should’ve tried it myself back then! The day before I arrived in Val d'Isère, it already started snowing, so my first day was absolutely amazing. Unlike others, I ski without even glancing at the map—just cruising wherever feels right, picking paths I haven’t tried yet. Then, around 2 p.m., I’d finally pull out the map to figure out how to get back. It’s way more efficient that way. Besides, why bother studying a map when you’ve never skied there? After all, isn’t the real fun about just going for it and seeing where the slopes take you? So, as I was sliding along, I spotted this place. Sounds like it could be fun—let’s go! It turned out to be a small canyon. Look ahead again. Interesting, and with the unknown ahead, it’s thrilling and exhilarating. It’s getting narrower and narrower—there’s no way to brake on this path. You’ve never even tried sliding here, so you have no idea what lies ahead. All you can do is take a gamble: "Maybe it’s safe since others have already slid through," and just follow along. Sure enough, we ran into a challenge—this narrow cave was too tight to slide through, and there wasn’t even a path nearby; the only option was to squeeze our way in. Hmm, these are the photos I took while climbing. Isn’t it fun? Emerging from the small canyon, you find yourself in a wooded valley. Due to the rapidly changing terrain, it requires some skill to glide through smoothly. Sliding out of the small valley is much easier now. You can see the town nestled below the mountains—it’s quite beautiful. Down at the foot of the mountain, there’s also a small train that can carry hundreds of people at once, whisking them through a long tunnel straight up to the hillside. The little canyon we just went through was pretty fun—intense, exhausting, and absolutely thrilling! But I didn’t want to repeat the same run right at the start, so I chose a different path instead. Little did I know, things were about to get even more exciting! It’s just that I ended up running straight off the path and onto the grass—turns out it wasn’t so bad after all. Below the mountain and across the hill, it looks like this—entire mountain areas with off-piste zones, just joyful to look at. Slid a bit, then suddenly realized something was wrong—it wouldn’t be easy to turn back. There's only one path ahead—just like this. No choice—still, I had to go down. Sliding a bit slower would’ve done the trick, and honestly, it wasn’t even that tough. But when I looked back, I realized it was actually pretty steep after all. Scroll down a bit more, and take some more photos. It was thrilling yet safe—definitely an exhilarating start to the day! I absolutely love this ski resort—it’s already got me feeling so pumped! Please draw a red line along the route I took—it’ll make it much clearer to see. It looks like I chose this particularly tricky section of the hillside to descend, but honestly, there was no way to spot it ahead of time. If only I’d picked the area among the rocks further to the left—it would’ve been much smoother and safer. And by the way, I recommend clicking to zoom in for a better view of the image. Given how thrilling this trail is, sliding down others afterward just doesn’t feel as exhilarating—though they still pose their own challenges, like this one: the wooden structure is designed to protect against avalanches. Let's head over to the other hillside and give it a try—specifically, the one across from where we just were. But instead of taking the wide-open slope directly opposite, we opted for another off-piste area right next to the groomed trail, which turned out to be pretty great as well. There are still people flying paragliders in the sky. It was totally worth it to hit the slopes on day one—what an amazing start! But then the weather took a dramatic turn over the next few days, with fierce winds and heavy snowstorms. After a week overall, I only managed to ski on the first and last two days, which is a bit disappointing. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that I’d recommend Val d’Isère as one of the top ski resorts I’ve ever skied at—absolutely fantastic! I’ll definitely be back again if I get the chance! Long press the QR code below to follow the author's personal official WeChat account.
