The Bellecôte Glacier sits above La Plagne at around 3,400 metres — a serious piece of mountain terrain that gives the resort its highest skiing and some of its most dramatic scenery. The gondola ride up is worth doing for the views alone, even if you’re not planning to ski the steep faces that drop off the glacier’s edge.
At this altitude, the scale of the Alps becomes properly apparent. The Mont Blanc massif is visible on the right day, and the view back down across the Tarentaise valley gives you a clear sense of just how much mountain you’re sitting on top of. The snow up here is drier and lighter than lower down, and the runs that descend from the glacier’s base are among the best in the area.
The gondola station itself — a functional concrete building perched on the ice — has a utilitarian charm that’s pure 1970s Alpine engineering. There’s a small cafe up there, reliably expensive, that does hot chocolate that tastes like the best hot chocolate you’ve ever had when you’ve been out in -15°C for three hours. The old gondola cables that once ran to an even higher point are still visible rusting on the mountainside — a reminder of the ambition that once pushed these resorts towards the very top of the accessible mountain.