The Freeride World Tour returns for its 18th season with a six-stop tour, including a new stop in Val Thorens, France and a big tease for 2026.
The Freeride World Tour returns for its 18th season with a six-stop tour, including a new stop in Val Thorens, France and a big tease for 2026.
Get out your calendars, freeride folks: The Freeride World Tour has just dropped its schedule for the coming season of seat-of-your-pants freeride competition.
As usual, the tour will kick off in Baqueira-Beret, Spain, which has renewed its partnership with FWT until 2027. There’s also a highly anticipated new stop in France at Val Thorens. And looking two seasons ahead, Andorra will host the first-ever FIS Freeride World Championships from 1–6 February, 2026.
Here’s the breakdown on the 2025 FWT schedule and beyond.
As it has for the past several seasons, the 2025 FWT season kicks off in the Spanish Pyrenees. The home resort of Aymar Navarro is known for its spicy terrain and enthusiastic local crowds. On the Tuc de Baciver face, the question remains the same as every season: Will the Pyrenean snowpack be in shape in January to host a world-class freeride competition? Last year’s event had to be cancelled.
After Baquiera-Beret, the tour skips its usual stop in Andorra, heading for the Alps instead—specifically, Val Thorens, France. It’s the first time since 2016 that a FWT stop has been held in France, after the 2017 stop planned in Chamonix was relocated due to conditions. Expect the talented field of French freeriders to be eyeing the podium on their home turf.
According to Val Thorens Tourism Director Vincent Lalanne, hosting the FWT is part of the resort’s push to become “a premier destination for high-level freeride.” So if you’re a local, you’d better get those first-track drops while you still can, because the frothing hordes are on their way.
Next up, the Tour jumps across the pond to sample the Canadian white gold in Kicking Horse, BC. Traditionally the stop with the deepest snowpack and the best chances at blower pow, competitors will be keeping their fingers crossed for good conditions on the Ozone face. Astrid Cheylus and Max Hitzig took the win here last year on an alternate venue, T1 South.
Following a successful debut here last season, the FWT returns to Tetnuldi in the Caucausus Mountains for another go-round in Europe’s Wild East. Last year’s Georgia contest was an instant hit with great conditions, spectacular terrain and standout skiing, so we’ll be looking for more of the same in ’25.
What would FWT be without a stop at the Wildseeloder? Austria’s hallowed ground of freeride will once again host the Tour for the umpteenth time at a venue that can only be topped by the finale in Verbier. Ben Richards and Astrid Cheylus took the win here in 2024.
As always, the Freeride World Tour culminates at the legendary Bec des Rosses in Verbier, Switzerland. For freeriders, this mountain is the Holy Grail: a 600-meter vertical drop with pitches exceeding 50 degrees and bewilderingly complex lines littered with fall zones. To tame the Bec is to write your name into freeride history, and it’s here that the final story of the 2025 FWT season will be written. Last year it was Hedvig Wessel and Marcus Goguen who seized the day in Verbier.
It may be a side note in the announcement of this year’s FWT calendar, but it’s still the biggest news in competitive freeride since FIS bought the Freeride World Tour: In 2026, Andorra will play host to the first-ever FIS Freeride World Championships. Basically a FWT stop on steroids, the winners of this event will get to claim the title of World Champion for two years, regardless of who stands on the overall FWT prodium at the end of the season.
And, lest we lose sight of the big picture: The existence of a World Championships is a prerequisite for Olympic inclusion. 2030 French Alps anyone?
As always, you can watch all of the Freeride World Tour events live at freerideworldtour.com in what is without doubt the best livestream game in the ski business. World Cup Freestyle, please take note!