Skier & Snowboarder-Submitted Reviews for Bardonecchia
Planning a ski trip to Bardonecchia? Browse our collection of visitor-generated reviews that rank the mountain and ski town on a scale of one to five stars in the following categories: Overall Rating, All-Mountain Terrain, Nightlife, Terrain Park and Family Friendly. See how Bardonecchia stacks up to others in terms of skiing and après, and read up on pros, cons and comments from fellow skiers and snowboarders. Don't forget to submit your own Bardonecchia review! Scroll to the bottom of this page to let other travelers know about your ski area experience.
Skier & Snowboarder-Submitted Reviews for Bardonecchia
Total (3.2)
A ski resort's overall star rating displayed here is not calculated based on a simple average but takes several factors, including the age of a review, into account.
+Beautiful views at the top of both ski areas
+Fun, speed-focused reds at Jafferau
+Great apres party on Saturday
+Cheap food & beverages
+So many fun memorable red runs
+Nice tree/backcountry skiing right between the pistes in the lower ski domain
+Lots of fun side-hits on some of the reds in the lower ski domain
+Resort borderline empty on weekdays; Jafferau a ghost-mountain
+Large, pretty town
+Only 1hr from Torino!
-Some old, slow chairlifts
-Some challenging, very long button lifts
-Some lifts closed for consecutive days for no apparent reason (perhaps a lack of skiers)
-The 2 ski domains require transport to get between
-Town is sleepy
-Outside of Saturday, no apres
-Ski rental more expensive than France
-Beginners will struggle; lack of cruisy blues and essentially no greens.
plog108
Lovely little town accessible by train from kings cross.
Very friendly and relatively quiet. Good food in the area
Well kept pistes even when it hadn’t snowed for more than a month
The two sides of the valley offer very different terrain
Lots of wooded areas for some off poste fun and at Jaffreau you can go anywhere when good snow cover
Loved it and we will be back
Phil O
A smaller resort best suited to new intermediate skiers (1 -3 weeks experience). The resort lacks any long greens for novice skiers to progress onto and most blues have at least one challenging section more red grade. Advanced skiers will quickly ski the resort. Quite nightlife but plenty of good mountain cafes to stop at when skiing. The resort is a short 1 hour transfer from Turin. Snow cover I sense is not great but difficult to judge as we visited in a unseasonal warm period in Feb 19.
matt Holden
The pistes are long and empty, and, despite previous comments are perfectly challenging for intermediates. There are no queues on the lifts, even at the weekend when the Italians come over its hardly busy compared to other resorts. Yes, some of the button lifts are long and I'd hesitate taking a youngster on them but its not a big deal and most of the pistes are accessable by chair lift. Perfect for families - not a great deal of night life. Amazing snow for the end of the season esp. up high. Coffee, beer etc half the price of france. A week is perfect
Aaron
Several reviewers have pointed out that the resort is primarily for intermediates, but there are plenty of off-piste opportunities for experts that want to challenge themselves. The full run from top to bottom is very enjoyable since the surface conditions and steepness vary enough to challenge the average skier. On a clear day, views from both mountains are simply stunning despite the fact that I've seen plenty of mountains in my lifetime.
Andrew
To start this review I have to make one thing clear - there is Jaffreau - which is a proper Alpine mountain and then there's Campo Smith/Melezet/Les Arnauds which is much lower and below tree line. While Jaffreau will offer great skiing the other less so. When you get up to Ban on Jaffreau you will have a great choice of blues and reds, but with good snow cover you can ride anywhere on the ondulating slope, it's brilliant. The only gripe would be the really old chairlift from the gondola. Now with the Campo Smith area - firstly the Smith chairlift will most likely be always crowded so get up there and then keep avoiding it for the rest of the day. Aim for Les Arnauds/Mezelet areas. The weird thing is that if you want to go to the top of that hill you will have to use surface lifts - if you're on a snowboard or with kids - this might prove really hard, even though I'm a confident rider I found them really hairy in places. It's a shame because the views from the top and the routes are quite scenic. Oh btw - some of the surface lifts might not be working at all. Another problem with this area is the grooming of the slopes - it's terrible - the cord is so shallow the slopes turn into a moguls by noon, some are icy, one was even brown. Black runs aren't maintained at all, and I swear some reds aren't either. Some reds were closed, not sure why as there was plenty of snow. The blues are nice although some are really flat in places and the one going from Chesal to Plan de sol will require you to unstrap around Clos. Some blues also have pretty red bits. The snowpark on the piste map doesn't exist - the halfpipe isn't maintained. If you want to do some freestyle you need to go up Sellette the Snowpark will be on your left when going down. Can't miss it unless it's foggy. The Seba lift gives you an opportunity to freeride in the powder if you let go before the top. They serve pretty good doughnuts at Chesal, pretty good pizza at Harald's next to Campo Smith, and you can often get a voucher for free coffee at the bar at the top of Les Arnauds - they give them out at the bottom of Smith. There are quite a few shops and there's a market on Saturdays but they are quite remote from Campo Smith. The prices are ok, cheaper than French resorts. The town is basically just this - a town. It might sound weird but the purpose built French resorts have more character and better atmosphere. If you want to get to Jaffreau and don't live in Jaffreau hotel you can use the free shuttle. Takes 10 mins from Campo Smith and comes every 30 mins. Unless you have your own car which you want to use every day don't get accommodation on the Jaffreau mountain. The shuttle there doesn't come that often and stops too early, plus there are no shops there. So yeah, unless someone else is paying it's probably not worth your time and money - oh did I mention that although it's easily reachable by motorway you have to go through Tunel du Frejus which will cost you around 50 euros both ways (if you are going for a week get an alle-retour you have full 7 days to return).
Tonygilly
Love Bardo. Great little town friendly people. Perfect piste.
Martin's iphone5s
Perfect for families and most experienced skiers. Advanced may be better suited elsewhere if not with family / friends of lesser experience.
Snow conditions at 17th Jan are perfect - really cold but clear blue skies. Snow well managed so not an issue - you will be pleased, unless you are really fussy in which case go to USA or Canada and pay the privilege!
i would recommend bardonecchia if you are looking for a family ski holiday/ relaxing ski holiday as the slopes were very empty - i went at the start of january so wasn't expecting it to be too busy but half the time me and my mates had the slopes to ourselves.. bardonecchia would also be good if you are on a budget as compared to other ski resorts everything was very reasonably priced. If you are looking for somewhere that has a buzzing nightlife and loads of other non ski related activities to do then dont go here - there are a few reasonably decent bars and i did discover a good apres ski party on a saturday but there are no decent clubs and nothing much in the town other than restaurants and a very limited choice of shops. also if you are not confident on chairlifts avoid going to Jafferau as the chairlifts there are very fast and do not slow down when you go to sit on them. also i wouldn't go for much longer than a week unless you are happy to go on the same runs several times as the resort is not that big.
Alan Ratcliffe
This was our second visit to Bardonecchia and our fourth skiing outing overall. We particularly liked the variety of runs although rather challenging at first to us inexperienced skiiers. The ski school staff are excellent and we have made good progress because the instructors really push on well with the lessons. The absence of any snow during the week made skiing on icy patches a bit more difficult but the snow cannons do a good job of compensating for this. As we became better we found the higher slopes including Selette excellent. Our tour company was Crystal and we found the reps friendly and helpful. Furthermore, Crystal have significantly improved their apres ski activities since last year. We stayed at De Genysis hotel and this meant a 20 minute walk to Campo Smith. Previously we had to rent lockers at Campo Smith to avoid carrying skis to and from the hotel and we did again this time although the hotel now provides its own transport to Campo Smith. Last year we found the food and service at De Genysis was pretty good. This year it was even better. Finally I should say that the ski equipment that we hired from Campo Smith was of a high standard and seemed fairly new. It was our intention to not go to any resort for more than 2 years in a row but there are just too many plusses here and we have booked in at Bardonecchia and De Genysis for 2012.
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