Mountain Bike Trails in Tignes — 6 of Our Favourites

From the Palafour lift

Easy Ride

A flow beginners trail with nice wide switchbacks to practise your technique on. Distance: 5.5km and descends 460m. Start: Top of Palafour and ends in the same place.

Smoothie

Green and Blue and a perfect introductory trail for beginners and arguably the easiest green trail in resort. It's got lots of curvy, wide berms. Distance: 4.5km. Descends -460m. Start: Top of Palafour Lift and ends in the same place.

Val d'Isère side

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

Find them on the map here.

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 and 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, 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!). Descend -500m where you'll join Kangooride back to resort.

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 Toviere lift and meets 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.

Find 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

Two trails can be found on the Palafour side of Tignes bike park - Cow Lanta and Trailspotting.

Cow Lantra

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

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.

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.

Advanced trails

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 Toviére 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.

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 trail of 8km long there is no climbing, just -840m of sweet descent.

Expert trails

Conduite Forcée

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

Forest Bump

As the name suggests it's 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 long, +60m, -780m.

Wild 10 Nez

Starts from the blue DH trail Borsattack from the top of the Toviéres 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.

Expert trails - Val d'Isère

Rock ‘n’ Ride

6.5km long and 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 2nd right on the VBT trail. It follows the col all the way down to the bottom of the Olympique lift. 7.5km, +100m, -1,050m (the longest descent in the bike park).

Access from the Aeroski / Tovière Lift:

• Funky Tufs: Lots of variety on this smooth surfaced manmade 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: Is 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, a blue trail halfway down the Palafour face.

Val d'Isère Side:

• Bellevarde: A long red trail from the top of the Olympique lift in Val d'Isère. Distance 4.8km descending 850 to the valley floor in La Daille.

Find the trails on the map here.

Black trails - Advanced and expert

Karmasutrail

The longest of the black trails at 3km long with a drop of 340m. It's got some huge kickers and gap jumps, massive banked corners and a steep death drop into two jumps on one section. Definitely one for only the most advanced riders who can handle big air. Start at the top of Tovière and finish on Gypsy red trail then back into the centre of resort.

Black Metal

Very steep, very loose full-on descent - strictly for expert level riders. Distance 1km and descends 250m. Start from top of Aeroski and finish at Rosset.

Moustache

A very tough black trail, with steep narrow and very technical sections which links onto Black Metal. 1km and descends 250m. Start at the top of Aeroski and finish at the top of Black Metal.

Double black trail - Elite

Scarefresse

The only Elite graded track in resort, and as the name suggests it's hard as nails. Start from part way down the Taretaise 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 the trails on the map here.

There are a number of trails, which are all graded and well signposted, plus enduro trails and cross-country trails.

The Palafour lift

Access to a couple of green and blue trails and a few XC routes. This side of the valley is more grassy meadows with more gently rolling descents and a few sections of north shore and the odd wall ride. 

The Aeroski lift

Gets you up to the top of the Tovière peak where you'll find more loose shale, and rockier, steeper descents on red and black trails. Over the back of the Tovière area, a couple of really long blue runs (Gunpowder and Funky Tufs) which bring you back down to Val Claret, and an enduro loop called Ice Tignes.

Val d'Isère

You can also link up to neighbouring Val d'Isère to make even more of the vast number of trails on offer (over 150km of them), and the great thing is it's all FREE.

Look out for the blue trail called Sweet Sweet going from Val d'Isère to Tignes, or the Borsat Attack trail from the top of the Aeroski if going from Tignes to Val d'Isère.

Take a look at the different grade of trails available in both areas of the bike park in the sections below.

Find a map for the mountain bike trails here.