Val Thorens 2026/27: Season Dates, Events and New Arrivals

Val Thorens opens for the 2026/27 season on 21 November and keeps its lifts running until 2 May 2027. Over the summer the resort has gained a few things worth planning a week around, at the top of the ski area and in the village itself.

The 2026/27 season

When Val Thorens opens and closes

The season runs from 21 November 2026 to 2 May 2027. The resort marks both ends with a party, and three more events sit in between. The calendar is worth a look before you fix your week.

• 21–22 November 2026 — La Grande Première, the opening weekend.
• 10–11 December 2026 — the FIS Ski Cross World Cup at the Jean Frédéric Chapuis stadium, held here for the fourteenth year in a row and free to watch.
• 24–30 January 2027 — the Freeride World Tour, its only stop in France. The competition itself takes one day of that window, announced 48 hours ahead once the weather is known.
• 15–17 April 2027 — the Cosmic Mountain Festival.
• 1–2 May 2027 — La Grande Dernière, the closing weekend.

Cime Caron, 3,200 m

What’s new at the top of the ski area

Cime Caron is the highest point of the Val Thorens ski area, and the lifts take everyone to the top. What usually waits at that height is a café with a view and a platform to take photographs from. Here it is Caron 3200, a building developed by SETAM, and this winter it fills with a screening room, a wine bar and a virtual expedition to Everest.

Three more reasons to ride the cable car:

• Caron 3200 holds a restaurant, a wine bar, a rooftop terrace and a room for exhibitions and screenings.
• A portrait in LEGO. The Belgian artist Tom Brikx has built a monumental portrait of Thomas Pesquet from LEGO bricks, which the resort calls the highest street-art installation in Europe.
• From the Maurienne valley the Orelle–Caron gondola and a new car park let you leave the car in the valley and reach the ski area without the mountain road.

A day off the skis

Things to do in Val Thorens apart from skiing

The newest of them is the Mountain Kart Xperience, a downhill ride on a three-wheeled kart built for snow, with wide turns and controlled drifts, open to all levels. Three more fill a day without skis:

• Cosmojet — a 5 km toboggan run facing Cime Caron, with daytime and evening sessions.
• La Bee — a dual zip line 1,800 metres long above the pistes, two riders side by side.
• Snowtubing — inflatable tubes on a track with high-banked turns.

Where to eat

Four new addresses and a MICHELIN star

The village gains four places to eat this winter:

• Le Bouchon Alpin takes the place of La Ferme de Rosalie after a full renovation, with dishes from Lyon’s bouchons alongside Savoyard fondues, from lunch through to après-ski.
• Le Neva serves contemporary French cooking built on traditional recipes.
• La Table, in its second winter, is ski-in/ski-out beside the Cairn piste, with lunch by day and a brasserie in the evening.
• Zig Zag Café is the resort’s first specialty coffee shop, after its first address in Les Menuires.

Above them all is Les Explorateurs, the restaurant of Hôtel Pashmina, which holds one MICHELIN star. Camille Vallet and Sébastien Deléglise cook there, under the guidance of Romuald Fassenet, Meilleur Ouvrier de France.

Travelling with children

Is Val Thorens good for families this season?

Two things have changed for families, one in the ski schools and one in a hotel.

• Smaller groups. At ESF Val Thorens, Super 6 lessons stop at six participants, and Oxyski, the former Oxygène school, has rebuilt itself around the same idea.
• A Kids Club at Hotel Koh-I Nor. The resort’s winter press kit announces a new club run by two professional activity leaders, with a programme through the week. Ages and hours are confirmed at the time of booking.

Where to stay

Five-star hotels in Val Thorens

The week is chosen and so are the restaurants, which leaves the question of where to sleep. We book four five-star hotels in the resort:

• Pashmina Le Refuge — the hotel of Les Explorateurs and its masterclasses.
• Koh-I Nor — the address with this winter’s new Kids Club.
• Altapura and Fitz Roy — both in the centre of the village.

Three chalets of the Koh-I Nor collection

For a group that wants a house of its own and hotel service with it, Koh-I Nor keeps three chalets next door to itself. All three are ski-in/ski-out at 2,300 metres, each has four floors with a private lift, a spa of its own, a fitness room, a cinema room and a heated ski room. Breakfast comes to the chalet, and dinners are cooked by a private chef if you ask for them.

• Golden Jubilee — 340 m², six bedrooms, twelve guests. Its spa has a heated counter-current pool, a sauna and a hammam.
• Cullinan — 340 m², six bedrooms, ten to twelve guests, with a sauna, a hammam and an indoor whirlpool bath.
• Orlov — 320 m², five bedrooms, ten guests, with a 40 m² spa.

For the evenings, our article on après-ski at the three Fahrenheit Seven hotels begins in Val Thorens.

Photographs: Val Thorens Tourist Office (L. Brochot, A. Droux, J. Carret), Stéphane Candé, Dom Daher, Yann Allègre / Oxyski