Mountain Bike Trails in Val d'Isere — 6 of Our Favourites

Some of the blue trails link to the neighbouring Tignes area. 

Val d'Isère

Borsattack

One of the trails that links the two areas of the bike parks in Val and Tignes together. Starts at the top of the Tovière lift and meets the Val Bleue trail towards the bottom of the Borsat lift. 

2.7km long and descends -300m.

Blue Lagon

A 3.5km blue trail taking in the ridge line. Starts at the top of the Borsat lift and descends -400m back to the bottom of the lift.

Val Bleue

A long loop of a trail at 6.5km long from the top of the Bellevarde lift, down the valley towards the lake and joins the green trail Popeye to being you back towards la Daille village. -680m descent.

Tignes - access via the Palafour lift

Tart à Lognan

Involves a bit of pedalling but it's worth the effort. It's a nice long trail taking you across to Val Claret. 

Distance: 2km and descends 300m. Start: Top of Palafour. Finish: Val Claret at the bottom of the Tichot lift.

Jump Around

Fast and flowy with lots of little jumps as the name suggests. It's a popular trail because it's so much fun and a good place to practise going a bit faster rounds berms. 

Distance: 3.4km. Descends -460m. Start: Top of Palafour. Finish: Bottom of Palafour.

Access from the Aeroski - Tovière lift

Kangooride

Heaps of jumps (hence the name!) and berms plus two long tables. Follows natural features and is stony in places. 

Distance: 1.3km and descends -595m. Start: Top of Aeroski. Finish: Val Claret.

Gunpowder

A good long singletrack trail that links up with lots of other blues. The odd hip jump, and 12 berms. The surface can get a bit loose. 

Distance: 4.5km and descends -500m. Start: Top of Aeroski. Finish: Val Claret.

Sweet Sweet

A 3km long trail starting from about half way along the Borsat lift and descends -500m, joining with Gunpowder trail to take you back to Val Claret.

Tarentaise Airline

Start on Sweet Sweet and take the first right junction you come across. You'll see a left turn onto an Elite track (don't take this unless you can really ride and jump big!). Descends -500m where you'll join Kangooride back to resort.

Find all the trails on the map here.

Val d'Isère

Bellevarde: 

A long red trail from the top of the Olympique lift in Val d'Isère. 

Distance 4.8km descending -850m to the valley floor in La Daille.

Tignes

Access from the Aeroski - Tovière lift

Funky Tufs

Lots of variety on this smooth surfaced man-made trail: whoop-de-whoops, tables, lots of berms and even a small freeride section. Run outs are available for non-jumpers. Distance: 3.2km and descends -500m. Start: Top of Aeroski. Finish Val Claret.

Gypsy

Some narrow steeps and tight bends. Ends on the Rosset with a dual slalom. Riders can continue onto the fiendish Black Metal if they want. Distance: 2.8km and descends -500m. Start: Aeroski. Finish: Rosset.

Fresse Tagada

Links blue trails Tarentaise Airline with Sweet Sweet, and is a short 0.7km connection of just 150m.

Access from the Palafour lift:

Red Hot

The only red trail on this side of the valley. Start: Top of the Palafour lift. Distance 2km and descends -365m. Finish: Joins Jump Around blue trail halfway down the Palafour face.

Find all the trails on the map here.

Trails are graded from the easier 'Improver' to 'Advanced' and 'Expert' depending on the technical nature of the trails or how much climbing uphill is involved.

Improver trails

Flower Power

On the Val d'Isère side is a short link coming off the Borsat Attak DH trail covering just 1.5km and -160m with no uphill.

Cow Lantra

On the Palafour side of the Tignes bike park, it starts not far from the bottom of the Palafour lift and turns into a loop with views of the lake and back again. 6km, +350m, -350m.

Trailspotting

Also on the Palafour side of the Tignes bike park, is an 8km loop around the top of the Palafour lift and passes the Lacs du Chardonnet. +350m, -350m.

Wonderboisses

Starts in the centre of Tignes and takes you all the way down to Les Brévières (great at the end of the day if you're camping down there). It has amazing views over the dam and the lake. 4km long. +75m, -530m.

Advanced trails

Into the Wild

On the Val d'Isère side, it starts from part way down Val Bleue DH trail and then traverses right into the head of the Manchet Valley. The descent into the valley is pretty spectacular and the trail ends at the bottom of the Olympique lift. Surprisingly for a route that is 8km long there is no climbing, just -840m of sweet descent.

Palaf

A 2.5km long trail starting from part way down Smoothie green DH track. It traverses the mountain and joins up with Rocky Trail at the end (below). +75m, -300m.

Rocky Trail

A 7km long trail starting from the top of the Palafour lift, heading over in the direction of Brévières. It joins with Wonderboisses trail at the bottom overlooking the dam. +150m, -880m.

Ice Tignes

A ridge line trail running from the top of the Tovière lift across towards Borsat. It's 10km long, +150m, -730m and joins up with Sweet Sweet blue DH track at the end or Val Bleue if you want to head back into Val d'Isère.

Expert trails - Val d'Isère

Rock ‘n’ Ride

At 6.5km long it starts from the top of the Olympique lift heading down the ridge and into the valley above La Daille. +150m, -610m.

Very Bike Trip

Starts from the top of the Borsat lift where you first join the Val Bleue DH trail and then take the second right on the VBT trail. It follows the col all the way down to the bottom of the Olympique lift. 7.5km, +100m, -1050m (the longest descent in the bike park).

Expert trails - Tignes

Conduite Forcée

10km long and the most amount of climbing you'll find on one of the enduro trails, +500m. Start in Tignes 1800 and descend past the dam wall into Les Brévières -790m.

Forest Bump

As the name suggests is a tree-lined trail starting in 1800 and dropping into Brévières from the opposite side to Conduite Forcée. 5.5km, +60m, -780m.

Salon de la Vache

Starts part way down Rocky Trail (see above) and joins with Forest Bump. 5.5km, +60m, -780m.

Wild 10 Nez

Starts from the blue DH trail Borsattack from the top of the Tovières lift. It takes you round the back of the face with all the gnarly black DH tracks on and back into Le Lavachet. 5km long, +100m, -895m.

Find all the trails on the map here.

Val d'Isère

There's only one green trail here and it's a whopping 12km long. Start at the top of the Olympique lift and descend 850 back down towards La Daille village.

Tignes - accessed from the Palafour lift

• Easy Ride: A flow beginners trail with nice wide switchbacks to practise your technique on. Distance: 5.5km and descent -460m. Start from top of Palafour and ends in the same place.
• Smoothie: Green/Blue and perfect introductory trail for beginners and arguably the easiest green trail in resort. It's got lots of curvy, wide berms. Distance: 4.5km. Descent -460m. Start from the top of Palafour lift and ends in the same place.

Find all the trails on the map here.

You need to head over to the Tignes side of the mountain if you really want to test yourself on some of the hardest MTB tracks.

Advanced - expert

Karmasutrail

The longest of the black trails at 3km with a drop of -340m. Start: Top of Toviere Finish: on Gypsy red trail.

Black Metal

Very steep, very loose full-on descent - strictly for expert level riders. Distance: 1km and descends -250m. Start: Top of Aeroski. Finish: Rosset.

Moustache

VERY tough black trail, with steep narrow and very technical sections which links onto Black Metal. 1km and descends -250m. Start: Top of Aeroski. Finish top of Black Metal.

Double Black - elite

Scarefresse

The only ‘elite’ graded track in resort, and as the name suggests it's as hard as nails. Start from part way down the Tarentaise Airline blue trail and finish above Val Claret, rejoining the red or blue trails back to the village. Expect huge gap jumps and really technical riding.

Find all the trails on the map here.

There are roughly 36km of trails in Val d'Isère itself, with an additional 150km in Tignes making one enormous playground with pump tracks, a dirt zone and a mixture of different graded trails for downhill and cross-country and enduro rides.

Mountain bikers get free access to two lifts, the Olympique and the Borsat.

Bellevarde

From the Olympique and Borsat lifts you've got a lot more choice with three blue runs of varying length, a red downhill track and two enduro trails. 

The longest of the blues "Val Bleue" is 8km long and covers -980m of descent. A similar length trail is the enduro "Into the wild" (marked orange on the trail map) which takes you down -840m finishing up at the bottom of the Solaise and Olympique lifts. This is also where you'll find a bike wash area.

Tignes

If you're heading over to Tignes then you need to get on the Blue Lagoon trail which starts from the top of the Borsat chairlift. On the way back the Borsattack track starts at the top of the Tovière lift and runs back down to the bottom of the Borsat lift.

If you want to practise your skills there are two pumptracks which you can find in the Manchet Sports park and Village areas, as well as some dirt jumps.

Then for the most confident of riders, why not take a look at the world cup downhill track which starts from the top of the Olympique lift.

Please note: riding anywhere in the Vanoise National Park is strictly forbidden and you will be fined if caught in there on two wheels.