I would steer clear of the pyrenees at the moment, especially if you’re a beginner. Veer off the pista and you’ll be skiing down the grass.

I would say Flaine is o.k for beginners, there are a couple of free poma lifts in the village.
However Passo Tonale or Folgarida, both in Italy would be suitable, they have fantastic pizza palours too.

One thing, please remember the rules of the piste, for safety, don’t stand in the middle, or under the brow of a hill and always look before setting off. I actually told our Chalet guide off (in a nice way of course) for stopping our group bang in the middle of a 3 way piste.

March can be hit and miss for snow in the alps, icy mornings, turning into spring slush by lunch time is quite common, but with a few lessons, it’s easy to learn how to ski all kinds of terrain and conditions.

Having fun is the main thing.

There’s snow Cani’, but it’s somewhat hard off-piste. Three Spanish skiers died over the weekend having fallen over and gathered speed before sliding into woodland and hitting trees. I gave up, tiptoed back down and watched telly.

“chalet guide”

#tuts and phones “inspection de travail”

Why? They’re all snow-sure, good lift systems, loads of wide-open pistes, good kids facilities and ski-schools, plenty of ski-in-ski-out accommodation.

Because they are:

* very very busy which personally I find intimidating, even dangerous, and I’m not a beginner
* rip off prices
* expensive lift passes which a beginner will not get good use out of
* lacking any character

Ouch Edukator, where was that? Ski week with school at La Molina week after next, i’m crossing everything for snow. Webcams are showing narrow white strips snaking down the hills.

Formiguères, only two died, one survived.

Another vote for Alpe d’Huez. There really are quite a large number of green runs in the bowl close to town. Means you get a bit of variation.

That said I found on my first week that I struggled to move beyond the greens as there seemed to be a big jump in the difficulty of the blue runs.

Would love to go back now so I could laugh in the face of the runs that I found more difficult in my first week 😆

Someone suggested that Les Deux Alpes wasn’t appropriate for beginners. I agree that expecting a beginner to get down the flat but narrow demoiselles run or the black valentin or diable runs back to town is a bit too much. But there’s no reason why they couldn’t download on a lift. The runs close to town are very gentle, cretes is very gentle, as are the runs on the glacier (although it can be chilly!), so there’s still plenty for a beginner to ski.

* expensive lift passes which a beginner will not get good use out of

I learnt in Les Menuires. It was a while back now but don’t they have very good deals for complete beginners to try to get you hooked? Pretty sure my lift pass was free/heavily discounted with my first week of lessons.

I took the kids to La Clusaz, very small, not masses of runs but nice and easy in resort, a couple of restaurants and not intimidating in any way (oh & the TDF goes over the brow fairly often)

Oh LDA, those front slopes were quite steep. Was skiing there with a couple of guys (one became the editor of a well known MTB mag) & the other one fell about 5m from the top of the artificial slope. He made it all the way down – about 1km on his face, skiis left well behind.
We had to give him lots and lots of beer to stop him shaking as he thought he was going to die while heading for a small clump of trees in the middle of the slope.

Another reccomendation for Montgenevre. Was fantastic when I was learning to Snowboard and great once I knew how to do it as well. Very good mix of different graded runs and the town itself is really nice. Quiet too outside of the french/italian holidays.

Would reccomend Go-Montgenevre as the holiday company (as was reccomended earlier). Superb service and great prices. You get a discount on the lift pass as well!

Gee-jay, I’m guessing that was Valentin, it’s quite steep to get over the edge at the very top, can get scrapped and icy easily. Also tends to be packed, having to feed your way at the end of the day through masses of UCPA and Club Med groups is no fun!

Our instructor (Charlotte “Easiski” Swift) got quite angry at one group out with a UCPA instructor when she guided us down once 😆

That was it, we just referred to it as “the artificial”

Easier than the ones at Venosc end but a bit cheeky right at the top – which is when & where he lost it.

As you say end of the day was a nightmare when everybody was piling down to resort.

Now about the bottle of potcheen I found in the bottom of the freezer at Mikes bar when doing the end of season clean 🙂

I would go Saas Fee myself, it is high up so gets a lot of snow – I went late season having never skied before a couple of years back and it was fab. Had me skiing parallel within the day, so I think that is a pretty good ski school too!

I also like June Lake where I learned to Snowboard – very quiet, but getting there is a bit of a bind!

Personally, I like Austria and Italy best.
For beginners, I think it would be hard to beat Kronplatz
It has massive modern uplift capacity, predominantly gondolas.
There are allegedly some T-bars somewhere but I’ve never had to use one yet.
The resort centres on a domed mountaintop offering all grades of runs from a central point which makes it easy for groups to split-up to ski whatever they want, then to regroup at the top.
Been about 6 times as a big group of 5 or 6 families and we’ve always been happy with how well they manage their snow.
… and give me Italian food and German beer over that overpriced French garbage any day 😀

Our instructor (Charlotte “Easiski” Swift) got quite angry at one group out

Ah I know Charlotte, have had lessons from her and also skied with her in Scotland. She’s a real character.

Second Montgenevre for beginners.

Consider Sainte Foy as it is nice and quiet, easy to regroup, hard to get lost and there’s loads to progress to.

Call Stevo if you do

Les Menuires aka la manure. Vying ffor the most charmless ski resort in the Alps. 😀

Just back from Grand Bornand / La Clusaz. I’m a pretty beginner-ish skier (been twice many years ago, then to Tignes a couple of years back) and I really rate this place. Much quieter than Tignes (which makes a big difference when you’re skiing that much slower than the better skiers) and way more slopes that are accessible to relative beginners. I left Tignes feeling like I was ok with many blues but some scaring me.

This year (aided by a couple of years of MTBing which makes things look less steep and doesn’t half help your legs!) by the end of the holiday I was cruising down every blue happily and attacking every red I tried and making it down inelegantly but successfully. We had a big dump of snow overnight mid-week so had the fun of doing some unpisted reds in deep powder as well as the usual mix of pisted snow/ice combinations. We went with skiweekender (but for a week) – flew out Monday lunchtime, flew back Monday evening, got almost seven whole days of skiing in (skied down a long red to the bus to finish at 1430 on the final day). Very efficient operation, very reasonable prices (boot/ski hire onsite, lift pass and transfers included). Overall a much better choice for the beginner than the usual high alpine suspects.

I learned in Levignio and LaPlagne, the latter is the best IMHO. Glacier to below the tree line skiing on easy blues, a vast area to explore when you are still a novice. Whats not to like?

Another vote for Montegenevre – quite pretty for a French resort and the ability to ski over to Italy for lunch adds to the appeal.

My second skiing holiday was at Courmayeur in Italy – quite trendy, and need a gondola from the town to the slopes but has some lovely slopes and quite a few forested bits which many of the French resorts lack. Also has lots of lovely places to stop for a mid-morning coffee or choclat.

CGGuru, we did a couple of holidays with the kids there and it was very good. People seem not to want to go to the top of mountains when they start (I guess a feeling that mountains are steeper at the top) At Le Clusaz you park in a col and ski straight from the car or hotel if you staying there. You can see where you will be learning and certainly my kids enjoyed it

I’d say Pila in Italy. But you’re much better off staying down the gondola in Aosta if you want some night life 🙂 .

****, I’m going to the lakes

I went skiing for the first time on my honeymoon although like the OP, I learnt to ski on a dry slope beforehand. We went to Breckenridge in the US. It was a brilliant resort as a beginner as it has a massive range of slopes to choose (from very green to proper hardcore techy stuff) from so you can progress at your own pace plus, with the benefit of having skiing in France after, I realised that one of the biggest advantages was that there was no ice. As a beginner that was a major benefit – ice really saps your confidence. Also, there are other resorts nearby too for variety (we went to Keystone and Vail too)

The slopes are much quieter than Europe too – especially on weekdays – which is a bonus for a learner. Oh and it’s noticeable that people are more friendly and there are typically guides on slope all day to help guide you or suggest which slopes to try. Basically, it’s a lot more civilized 🙂

Cost-wise, it is a bit more expensive than Europe to book but when you add in all the costs of things that you’ll spend once there like ski hire, lift pass and your day to day restaurant/bar/etc I reckon it worked out pretty much the same overall so next time we go skiing, it’ll be in the US or Canada where you can guarantee (near as dammit) excellent conditions.

It’s not so much a question or where you should go but where and when you should NOT go. Any third-generation (purpose built) resort will be fine for a beginner because they have to cater for kids. Just don’t go in high season or school holidays because you will pay through the nose and be knocked over on the slopes by over-excited yobs then kept awake at night by rampaging pissheads out in the street.

I’m off to Pila in 2 weeks. I’m a second year boarder aka novice. I’ll report on its beginner credentials in three weeks 🙂

clubber – agree with everything you say ^^.

I do wish the French would take notice as to how to treat customers in Ski resorts.
The restaurants on the mountain are mostly owned by families, who need to move with the times and provide free facilities (paying to spend a penny, when you’ve paid a fortune for food and drink really gets my goat).

We had wonderful hospitality in Austria a few weeks ago.

Canada/North America, has free tap water, tissues, guiding, etc. All these little extras add up to and enjoyable experience on the slopes.

I liked Igls in Austria as a beginner, loads to do apart from Skiing with Innsbruck a 20 minute scenic tram ride down the mountain

Even get the chance to try out a four man Bob on the Olympic track, two paying guests in the middle. Go up to the top of the Bergisel ski jump and never take the piss out of Eddie the Eagle again

Even an alpine zoo in Innsbruck, short transfer time from the airport which is terrifying landing in a blizzard as we once did when you see its location in daylight.

I learnt at levi in lapland. excellent ski school, not overly busy and quite a few other things to do. snow always guaranteed as you are in the artic circle! booze is expensive, but everything else is reasonable. have been to austria few times since, but much prefer lapland and the quality of the instructors. and the twenty minute airport to resort transfer is fab