Ski touring: the resorts with waymarked uphill routes

More and more resorts waymark skinning routes alongside the pistes: you climb safely, without crossing alpine skiers, and come back down the groomed runs. It is the ideal way into ski touring, before heading off into open terrain with a guide.

We surveyed these routes on OpenStreetMap (“skitour” ways) and measured their kilometres, resort by resort. The 73 resorts selected break down as follows: Northern Alps (61), Southern Alps (6), Pyrenees (5), Massif Central (1). A resort missing from this list may perfectly well have routes that are not mapped: the list says what is surveyed, not what does not exist.

Ski touring in a resort remains a mountain activity: routes are sometimes closed when there is avalanche risk, and climbing on the pistes is forbidden during grooming. The mountain guides’ office and the tourist office listed on each resort page know the local opening hours and rules.