Champoluc - Monterosa Ski: Ski area guide

The gateway to the Ayas Valley

Champoluc lies at 1,568 metres at the head of the Ayas Valley, one of the side valleys that branch off the Dora Baltea towards the great peaks on the Aosta Valley border. The village is small and unspoilt, without the showiness of the Aosta Valley’s more famous resorts. Old stone-and-timber Walser farmhouses stand alongside hotels built in the 1960s, and the village square still has the human scale that many alpine resorts have lost to mass tourism.

Yet Champoluc is the gateway to one of the most interesting ski areas in the Italian Alps: Monterosa Ski, a network that spans three valleys and two regions with a single system of runs and lifts.

Monterosa Ski: three valleys, one ski pass

Monterosa Ski links Champoluc in the Ayas Valley with Gressoney-La-Trinité in the Gressoney Valley and with Alagna Valsesia on the Piedmont side of the massif, via the Passo dei Salati at 3,275 metres.

Joining the Aosta Valley and Piedmont in one lift network, it is one of the most ambitious ski links in the Italian Alps: 180 km of certified runs, 37 lifts and the chance to ski three very different valleys in a single day. The valleys are connected by high-altitude gondolas and chairlifts, with crossings above 3,000 metres and clear views of Monte Rosa, the fourth-highest peak in Europe.

Alagna, Europe’s freeride mecca

If Champoluc is the elegant gateway and Gressoney the family destination, Alagna Valsesia is Italy’s capital of alpine freeriding. The Piedmont side of Monte Rosa, with narrow couloirs, 45° slopes and larch forests dropping 2,000 vertical metres to the village, has created one of the most respected off-piste arenas in Europe.

Every winter, when snow conditions allow, freeriders from all over Europe gather in Alagna for the classic descents that start from the Passo dei Salati and run down the Weissmatten, Reppi and Olen couloirs. The reputation is solid and well earned: for length of descent, snow quality and sheer scale of setting, Alagna’s off-piste has no match in the Italian Alps.

If you have no off-piste experience, you can still visit Alagna on the groomed runs linked to the rest of the ski area.

Walser culture

The three valleys of Monterosa Ski share a rare cultural heritage. They are home to the Walser, a people of Germanic origin who crossed the passes from the Swiss Valais in the Middle Ages to settle the high alpine valleys.

The Walser brought with them a language, Walser Titsch, still spoken in the highest villages of Gressoney and Alagna. They also brought a distinctive architecture, with barns raised on small stone pillars, and a high-altitude farming tradition that lives on in local produce: Gressoney fontina cheese, rye bread and goat mocetta (cured meat).

Visit one of the Walser hamlets out of season or late in the day, once the day visitors have left, and you will find a quiet world that still feels like the real thing.

Getting there

From Turin, take the A5 motorway towards Aosta as far as the Pont-Saint-Martin exit, then the SS506 up the Ayas Valley for about 45 km to Champoluc. The whole journey from Turin takes about an hour and forty minutes. From Milan, add about forty minutes of motorway.

There is no direct rail link to Champoluc. The nearest station is Verrès, on the Turin-Aosta line, with seasonal buses up the valley.