Every resort shows the number of its lifts. Almost none says their age, their capacity or their manufacturer. Yet those data exist, public, in the register kept by the STRMTG — the State service that authorises and inspects every lift. We matched it to our resort pages, resort by resort, and this article draws three rankings from it.
The highest: how far the cables go
The top-station altitude of every lift is in the register. At the top of the ranking, two categories not to be confused.
The glacier and viewpoint lifts, open mainly in summer: the Panoramic Mont-Blanc gondola at Chamonix, between the Aiguille du Midi and Helbronner (top station in the register: 3,787 m); the Dôme de la Lauze drag lift at Les Deux Alpes (3,642 m) and the Dôme at La Grave (3,532 m).
The winter skiing lifts: the Grande Motte cable car at Tignes (3,451 m) serves the highest skiable point in France in season; then the Pic Blanc at Alpe d’Huez (3,318 m); the Bouchet chairlift at Orelle, on the 3 Vallées (3,242 m); the Montet drag lift at Val-d’Isère (3,197 m); the Cime Caron at Val Thorens (3,186 m); the Glacier chairlift at La Plagne (3,167 m).
The oldest: a century of machinery
The register gives the year of first commissioning. A few resorts still operate a lift from before the war or just after it.
Megève (oldest lift in the register: 1933; lifts on its page: 39) — the resort was one of the first in France, created by the Rothschilds in the 1920s, and its Rochebrune cable car, opened in 1933, was the first cable car in France built for skiing.
Les Houches (oldest lift in the register: 1936): the Bellevue cable car, whose line still exists. Les Gets (oldest lift: 1945; lifts on its page: 30). Then Le Sauze (1946), whose fleet remains one of the oldest on our pages.
At the other end, Orelle on the 3 Vallées and Auris-en-Oisans have some of the youngest fleets on our pages — resorts that have renewed most of their lifts since the 2000s.
The most powerful: how many people an hour
A lift’s capacity, in people per hour, is the figure that decides the queue. Adding up all a resort’s lifts gives its uphill capacity.
La Plagne is in a class of its own (combined capacity, in people an hour: 149,594; lifts on its page: 109) — its eleven villages each have their own fleet. Next, on today’s pages, come Courchevel (81,749; lifts: 66), Val-d’Isère (73,674; lifts: 44), Avoriaz (66,262; lifts: 39) and Tignes (65,386). Les Deux Alpes (63,122), Les Menuires (56,447) and Megève (54,670) follow.
Per kilometre of pistes, this figure says something else: a 100 km area with an uphill capacity of 50,000 an hour has lifts twice as available as a 300 km area with 75,000. It is one reason the mid-sized Northern Alps resorts — Avoriaz, Megève — queue less than you would think.
Lift by lift, on each resort page
For every resort matched to the register — pages concerned: 190 — the “ski area” page lists the lifts one by one: name, type, capacity, length, vertical, year, manufacturer — largest first. You see that an area often rests on five or six modern detachable lifts, and that the rest is 1970s drag lifts serving secondary runs. Useful for choosing a week: an area whose main lifts have been renewed queues less, breaks down less and closes less in high wind.
The table below ranks resorts by the top-station altitude of their highest lift.
