Cervinia Skiing & Snowboarding
One of the most snow sure ski resorts in Europe, Cervinia has 150km of piste trails and more than enough interest to satisfy most skiers & snowboarders for many days. The mainly high alpine terrain is best suited to upper beginner & intermediate snowriders whereas the off-piste will appeal to advanced & expert adventurers with its combination of steeps, bowls, cornices & trees. While the entire resort has a skiable vertical of nearly 2,000m, the reality is a maximum of 1,400m can be skied in one run from the lifts.
Cervinia Skiing Highlights
The Cervinia skiing highlights are a rite of passage according to Powderhounds. They are only to be undertaken when there is no powder because skiing powder ALWAYS takes priority. Tick off the following when at Cervinia.
- Test your leg strength by skiing the 7km+ long & 1,400m vertical runs down from the Theodul Pass, Testa Grigia & Cime Bianche nonstop to Breuil Cervinia & Valtournenche.
- Head to Plan Maison, ski the beginner slopes & imagine what it would have been like to learn to ski at Cervinia with the Matterhorn as the background.
- Ski powder under the south face of the Matterhorn & try to get a photo doing it with the entire summit in shot (not as easy as it sounds!).
- Find & ski the shaded & lonely slopes (& trees) off the Cieloalto chair, they have the best quality snow in the resort.
- Spend a day skiing in Zermatt. Head up early via the gondolas & cable car to Plateau Rosa & drop into Switzerland.
- Go heliskiing for a day (or less) with Heliski Cervinia.
- Challenge yourself to ski the full 20km+ from the top of the Glacier Paradise on Zermatt (3900m) all the way to Valtournenche. A short chairlift is required to get over a 50m high pass at Cime Bianche so it is not quite all downhill.
- Try the backcountry route from Cime Bianche above Valtournenche to the small ski resort & car free village of Chamois. Most may need a guide. If that fails, just catch the bus down valley to Buisson & head up to Chamois from there to discover this beautiful ski resort.
- Ski directly to the door of the best après location in Cervinia at Bar Cretaz above the village of Breuil Cervinia. Watch the sun go down over the village with an Aperol Spritz or two. Be sure to click into your bindings after the session because, as one of our compatriots found, dropping a ski at speed on the way down could mean a long slide on your chin!
- After surviving the post lift closure run into Breuil Cervinia, kick back with a few brews at one of the bars facing the slopes, warming oneself by an open fire while & watching the alpenglow on the south face of the Matterhorn. Mandatory return to accommodation well after dark, still in ski gear.
Ski Lifts
The ski area is serviced by 19 main lifts. Aside from the Plateau Rosa cable car, all Cervinia ski lifts are approaching 15 years old (as of 2022) making an interesting comparison to Zermatt which has replaced or introduced a dozen new lifts during the same time. The ski lifts are the least impressive aspect of this otherwise world class ski resort. One important upgrade from 22/23 is the new 6-seater Gran Sometta chair replacing a problematic, lox volume surface tow that linked Valtournenche to Cervinia near Colle Cime Bianche. Getting to Cervinia from the Valtournenche ski lifts just got better!
The base area ski lifts at Breuil Cervinia has an awkward layout with major separation between a nest of chairs & the Plan Maison gondola. The gondola base is very hard to locate if uninitiated - very strange! Further up, vast expanses of terrain are left blank by the strange lift set up. A gondola joining the major mid-mountain facilities at Plan Maison to the Plateau Rosa cable car effectively serves no piste trails. The Cieloalto chair has some tasty terrain but is rarely utilised due to its isolated location & hard to get to (let alone find) base station. And to top it off, the best terrain (both on & off piste) above Lago Goillet is served by the oldest & slowest chairlift imaginable. There is certainly room for lift improvement at Cervinia!
Valtournenche has a simple ski lift set up. The serviceable gondola from the base up to the Salette. Aside from beginner lifts, two chairs head further up to Cime Bianche, providing the bulk of the capacity. Two chairlifts (including the new Gran Sometta) in the Cime Bianche area provides the lift link between Valtournenche & Breuil Cervinia. The ski lifts at Valtournenche are less prone to wind hold or closure than those above Breuil Cervinia.
Zermatt represents the polar-opposite to Cervinia in relation to modernity of lifts. New & replacement lifts are going in every year, the latest of which massively benefits skiers & boarders based in Cervinia with a cable car link from the Testa Grigia/Plateau Rosa (3,480m) up to the Kleine Matterhorn at 3,883m elevation.
Lift Passes
Several Cervinia lift pass options exist, but there are now 2 major ones. The standard day pass covers all lifts in Cervinia including Valtournenche. The second option is the full 'International' lift pass giving access to Cervinia, Valtournenche, & Zermatt combined. A third option is a Valtournenche only lift pass, the most affordable lift pass in the area, but also the most limited in its scope. A Valtournenche pass might be of interest to day-trippers if the upper mountain lifts at Cervinia are closed due to wind (happens!). Note too that children under the age of 8 years are free when accompanied by an adult purchasing a ticket of the same duration.
If you decide Switzerland should be on the cards for a day, but you already have a standard Cervinia multi day lift ticket, an 'International' supplement can be purchased to enable full access to Zermatt. Cost is up to €50 extra. A bit rich, but that's the way things go! Still cheaper than most places in the world! Ask at a ticket box.
Ikon Pass
Worth noting for international guests is that the Ikon Pass has NO access to Cervinia-Valtournenche for the 23/24. Ikon Pass is currently only valid (conditionally) in Zermatt.
Cervinia Trail Map
The Cervinia ski trail map represents a fabulous ski area very poorly. The scale is too small & not well oriented due to the inclusion of Zermatt. See the combined Matterhorn Ski Paradise trail map. Due to the ambiguous trail map, we found that confusion reigned supreme amongst other skiers at areas like the Swiss/Italian border crossings and around the base area of Breuil Cervinia. The off-piste is very poorly presented, but maybe that’s a good thing. More fresh lines for us! Not sure why the map doesn’t show the trees too? They are AWESOME to ski in powder.
Skiing to Zermatt
To ski across the Switzerland border into Zermatt from Breuil Cervinia, a ride up the spectacular, but wind prone, Plateau Rosa Cable Car is required. Alternatively go via the 5 chairlifts up to the lower Theodul Pass.
Accessing Zermatt from Valtournenche is NOT recommended as too much time is lost getting to the border, wasting the better part of the morning. Choose a fine day & start early from Breuil-Cervinia to make the most of it.
Snowboarding Cervinia
From an on-piste slope perspective, Cervinia is fully snowboard friendly with only a few flat trail sections that are easily avoided. Traversing to some of the better powder stashes is another matter though & may present a challenge to most.
On-Piste Terrain
The Cervinia ski & snowboard terrain consists of two major zones. The first is above the village of Breuil Cervinia, dominated by an expansive sunny bowl capped by the glacier on Plateau Rosa to one side & the southern face of Monte Cervino (Matterhorn) to the other.
The second is above the neighbouring village of Valtournenche. Here there are a range of long, mainly intermediate piste trails extending all the way into the valley. Valtournenche serves well as an alternative to Breuil Cervinia in times of high winds & low visibility, so perfectly complements the resort.
Novices & Beginners
Cervinia has one of the world's most spectacular novice learn to ski areas at the Plan Maison under the looming Monte Cervino. A phenomenal place to start your snow sliding career on a sunny day, in poor weather it is a different story. The next best alternatives are at the Breuil Cervinia base and Salette in Valtournenche. A range of progression terrain exists at all these locations. The longest beginner trail is hefty 6km.
Intermediates
Intermediates will find Cervinia wonderful. Super long, super wide perfectly manicured slopes are as fast or slow as one desires. Even though the number of lifts required to get to the top of Theodul Pass, Testa Grigia & Cime Bianche is a tad painful, the payback is a series of 7km+ runs back down with as many stops (or not) as one can handle.
The 1,400m vertical valley run from Cime Bianche via Salette through the outskirts of Valtournenche town to the gondola base & car park is an absolute ripper - easily the best piste trail in the entire resort. A group of restaurants and bars just above town offer a superb place to stop on the way down.
Advanced
The Cervinia piste trails have very little for advanced & expert skiers & snowboarders. The signature steep groomer, Pista Nera del Cervino, doesn’t have the sustained fall line or length to warrant any ‘yikes’ factor. Advanced riders need to push themselves on the long super-highway slopes or head off-piste & backcountry. One will find next to no competition for off-piste powder.
Off Piste, Freeride & Powder Skiing
What Cervinia lacks in advanced on-piste terrain, it makes up for in the off-piste, however it is not immediately obvious. Freeriders & powder seekers will be rewarded by pushing the traverses a bit wider & searching ever further down the sides of the upper ski resort. Similarly, the central area of the resort from Theodolpass at over 3,300m all the way down past Lago Goillet & into Breuil Cervinia has a range of alpine chutes & steeps interspersed with some long undulating traverses. Scope it out well & you will find the goods.
As to the valley sides, on the sunny skiers right, a traverse beyond the Pista Nera del Cervino provides the wonderful opportunity to put in turns directly below the south face of the Matterhorn. A stunning experience. This side can get baked in the sun though.
On the opposite side, the north-aspect terrain above Lago Goillet has the best snow quality and the least traffic. The tree skiing around the Cieloalto chair is exceptional fun through larch forests. Who would have though Cervinia would serve powder skiing in the trees. Marvellous!
There are a multitude of sidecountry routes that can easily be exploited if one has the knowledge about how to return. A good one is the long descent from Cime Bianche heading south-west down to Saint Jacques near Champoluc in the Monterosa Ski area.