Champéry:Ski resort, ski area and webcams

What is Champéry like?

Champéry is a village at 1,050 m in the Val d'Illiez, in the canton of Valais, below the Dents du Midi. The Région Dents du Midi tourist office calls it one of Switzerland's oldest tourist destinations, and its Rue du Village is lined with historic chalets. The Portes du Soleil describes the village as the first Valais Olympic site and notes a curling tradition dating from 1912.

The tourist office is at Rue du Village 54. At the time of writing its page gives opening hours of 08:30 to 12:00 and 13:30 to 18:00 daily.

Skiing in Champéry

Champéry skiing is part of the Portes du Soleil. On the Swiss side the lifts are run by Portes du Soleil Suisse, which covers Champéry, Les Crosets, Champoussin and Morgins. The Swiss lift company describes the whole Portes du Soleil as over 600 km of skiing, 208 lifts and 12 resorts. For 2026/27 its timetable lists the Swiss area opening in full on 18 December 2026 and the Portes du Soleil on 19 December. Champéry and Les Crosets are listed as closing on 11 April 2027. All dates may vary with snow.

The Champéry ski area

The way up is the Croix-de-Culet cable car, which leaves from the village. The Portes du Soleil lift page gives it as 2,144 m long, arriving at 1,936 m, with two cabins of 125 seats each. The tourist office says it reaches about 2,000 m in under five minutes. The Swiss timetable lists it, with the Planachaux, Mossettes and Grand-Conche chairlifts, opening on 5 to 8 December 2026 and from 11 December.

The second way up is the Grand-Paradis chairlift, a detachable six-seater built in 2004. The tourist office gives its base as 1,063 m and its top as 1,697 m, in the Planachaux sector, and calls it quick access to the Portes du Soleil.

From the top, the Portes du Soleil's Champéry lift page lists links between Les Crosets and Avoriaz. The page counts 17 lifts and 26 slopes in the Champéry sector, in blue, red and black, ranging from 0.25 km to 7.4 km. The Portes du Soleil's Champéry page also describes the Swiss Wall, a run it calls 1 km long, ungroomed and steeper than 70%, known as one of the most difficult in the world.

Coming back is where Champéry differs from a village with a lift at the front door. The tourist office says a free shuttle links the Grand-Paradis sector with the cable car, and that it runs in winter only. Skiers who finish at Grand-Paradis take the shuttle, or ride the cable car down.

Champéry piste map

Use the Portes du Soleil Suisse site for the Swiss lift company's maps and timetables, and the live lift page for Champéry for which lifts and slopes are open.

Lift passes

Prices below are CHF for winter 2026/27, from the Swiss lift company's fares page, online rates. Adult is ages 26 to 64 and child is 5 to 15.

The Swiss area also has a season pass, at CHF 941 for an adult and CHF 659 for a child. The fares page lists youth, senior and super-senior bands. Pedestrians can ride the Champéry cable car for a return fare of CHF 24 adult and CHF 18 child. Check the fares page before booking.

Champéry ski hire

The tourist office lists five hire and sales listings in Champéry. Two have detail pages that give a location and what they hire.

• Berra Sports, at Rue du Village 59. It hires downhill skis, snowboards, cross-country skis, ski touring and telemark equipment, snowshoes and toboggans, and sharpens skis. The listing says it has traded in Champéry since 1938. Its site is berra-sports.com.
• Experience Champéry, at Rue du Village 48. It combines a ski school with hire and sales. Its site is experiencechampery.ch.

The tourist office's hire page lists the village's other hire shops.

Ski schools and ski lessons

Two schools in the village have tourist office detail pages.

• Swiss Ski & Snowboard School (ESS), at Rue du Village 60. The listing says it has operated in Champéry since 1932, gives private and group lessons for skiers, snowboarders, freeriders and telemarkers, and runs a Kids Club for children.
• Experience Champéry Ski & Snowboard School, at Rue du Village 48. It gives group and private lessons and freeride and ski touring with mountain guides. The listing gives instruction in eight languages, including English.

Where to stay

The tourist office lists hotels, chalets and apartments in Champéry, with an online booking route through its site. Two hotels have detail pages showing them open all year.

• Hôtel Suisse, at Rue du Village 55. The listing gives 40 rooms, a restaurant and bar, parking and a coworking space, in a wooden building it describes as 150 years old. Its site is hotelsuissechampery.ch.
• Hôtel Le White, at Route de Chavalet 3, at the village entrance and 100 m from the railway station. The listing gives 25 rooms, a wellness area with sauna, a restaurant and a ski room. Its site is lewhite.ch.

The cable car and the main street are in the village centre, so check how far you are from the cable car and the Grand-Paradis shuttle stop.

Champéry for families

The Swiss lift company's child fare covers ages 5 to 15, and its cable car page for pedestrians has separate rates. The Swiss Ski & Snowboard School runs a Kids Club for children.

Off the snow, the Palladium sports centre has an ice rink, an indoor pool, a climbing wall and curling. The Portes du Soleil page also lists a sledging slope near Grand-Paradis. Opening times and prices change, so use the Palladium listing.

Things to do in Champéry

The Portes du Soleil's Champéry page lists snowshoeing, curling lessons, climbing, paragliding, cross-country skiing, mushing, sledging, ice skating and escape games for winter. Cross-country skiing has a marked circuit near Grand-Paradis.

Eating and drinking

Two restaurants on the mountain have Portes du Soleil listings.

• Restaurant La Croix de Culet, at the cable car's arrival station. It serves traditional French cooking with cheese specialties. Its listing gives winter opening from 19 December 2026 to 11 April 2027, subject to lift operations. Its site is lacroixdeculet.ch.
• Restaurant Chez Coquoz, at Route de Planachaux 107, on the slopes. The listing says it was founded in 1952, gives winter opening of 09:30 to 16:30 daily from 19 December 2026 to 11 April 2027, and a list of 200 wines from 30 vintners. Its site is restaurant-coquoz.ch.

In the village, Hôtel Le White and Hôtel Suisse each list a restaurant.

Champéry in summer

The Croix-de-Culet cable car runs in summer. The Bikepark Champéry, Les Crosets and Morgins uses the cable car among its lifts and has up to 11 downhill runs, among them a black-rated World Cup trail at Champéry. The Portes du Soleil lists the cable car as running daily from 20 June to 25 October in the main season, so check the bike park page for the current year.

The tourist office's Champéry page also lists hiking, trail running, the Tière via ferrata, an adventure park with zip-lines and rope courses, and the Palladium's outdoor pool. The Portes du Soleil's page adds horse riding and trout fishing.

How to get to Champéry

The Région Dents du Midi gives the road distance from Geneva Airport as 128 km, about 1 hr 20 min, and from Lausanne about 1 hr. The Val d'Illiez is 15 minutes from the St-Triphon exit on the A9. A Swiss motorway sticker is needed, which the tourist office gives as CHF 40.

Geneva to Champéry

By rail, the tourist office gives 2 hr 30 min from Geneva and 1 hr 35 min from Lausanne. SBB trains run to Aigle, and the AOMC rack railway climbs the Val d'Illiez from there to Champéry. For timetables and fares, use SBB and TPC. The tourist office says local TPC services connect the valley's villages.

Weather, snow and webcams

The tourist office lists a Champéry village webcam at 1,050 m on its webcam page. Forecasts and the daily snow report are linked from the same site.

• Champéry webcam
• Champéry weather
• Which Champéry lifts are open

When to visit Champéry

For 2026/27 the Swiss timetable lists the Champéry cable car opening on 5 to 8 December 2026 and from 11 December, the whole Swiss area from 18 December and the Portes du Soleil from 19 December. Champéry and Les Crosets close on 11 April 2027, a week after Morgins and Champoussin. All dates may vary with snow.

The cable car also runs in summer for walkers and bikers, so Champéry is open in both seasons.

Champéry vs Morgins

Morgins is the other Swiss village on the same lift company's pass. Both are in Valais, but Morgins sits on the French border at 1,350 m with a gondola from its centre, while Champéry is at 1,050 m with a cable car and a railway station.

The two share the Swiss area pass and the Portes du Soleil pass. Champéry has the Croix-de-Culet cable car, the Planachaux sector and the Swiss Wall nearby. Morgins has a lift route towards Châtel. Check which sector you plan to ski, because the villages are not joined by a lift.

Choose Champéry if you want a village with a railway station and the Croix-de-Culet cable car.

Choose Morgins if you want a smaller village with the lifts towards Châtel.

What's nearby

• Morgins

  The Swiss border village on the same lift company's pass, with a gondola from its centre.

• Châtel

  A French village on the far side of Morgins, with its own Espace Liberté ski area.

• Les Gets

  The far end of the French side of the Portes du Soleil, on a col at 1,172 m.

• Montriond

  A French village below Avoriaz, on the far side of the circuit.