Cross-country skiing: the resorts and nordic areas

Cross-country skiing is done on set tracks (classic) or wide groomed trails (skating), most often on plateaux between 1,000 and 1,800 m: Jura, Vercors, Aubrac, Capcir, Haute-Maurienne… What we measure here are the named TRAILS of the nordic area attached to each resort, one by one, on their OpenStreetMap geometry.

Two figures for kilometres, and both are shown. “Loops, added up” sums the named trails: that is the piste-map figure, the one the area advertises. “Network length” counts each section only once, because loops overlap a great deal — an area advertising 300 km added up may fit on 100 km of track. The ranking follows the loops added up; the next column says what they are worth.

The 153 resorts selected break down as follows: Northern Alps (92), Southern Alps (24), Jura (13), Massif Central (10), Pyrenees (9), Vosges (5). Mind the distance: the nordic area is very often in the neighbouring commune rather than at the foot of the buildings — each resort page says so. The 28 resorts with no identified trail keep their raw total, surveyed within a radius around the resort: the two figures are not comparable, hence the “total only” note.

Access to cross-country trails is paid for (a “Nordic Pass” fee, a few euros a day, often shared across a whole range) and the trails close when snow runs short: in the lower mountains, check the measured snow depths on the resort page before booking.