⛷️ ❄️ The STW Ski and Snowboard thread : the 2024-2025 season

We’ve bought a season Ikon pass and figure that will pay for itself within a matter of days at Deer Valley at their day rates (we didn’t do Deer Valley last time but too many of the locals were keen on it we feel obliged to check it out this time around).

I get the US experience might not be as pioneering as before, but the swing factor for us is that we went in 2022 and the locals were muttering about what a poor winter had been and we’re sat there thinking “this is pretty good compared with Europe”, and we’ve had a policy of aiming higher altitudes for years.

USA was great back around 2007 when it was almost $2 for £1. Combined with good early season snow and more flexibility on accommodation you could put together a 10 day Christmas and new year stay for not much more than a high altitude Euro trip. Nowadays it’s swung the other way with east coast Americans looking at Europe.

hopefully this season has some more consistent snow across Europe or at least low enough temperatures to allow what does fall to last.

Sorry to hear about your accident, I’m definitely excited to get back on the slopes, and will be taking out some skiing insurance this year I think. I have a friend who recently just did a chalet cooking course and now shes going to do a ski season, so can’t wait to go out and visit her !

https://www.9news.com/article/weather/weather-colorado/first-snow-colorado-mountains/73-496778f7-79d3-482f-a515-d99f6ce0d1cd

Decided last night to get early bird season passes for the Grand Massif. We used skillco last year and it was slightly better value than the season’s pass due to 2 days of heavy rain (I will ski in a lot of conditions but not torrential rain) and a day when we couldn’t leave the valley due to lift closures.

As plans involve 9 days in Jan and 14 in March ….. season passes needed

Question about the train, does anyone know if it will be possible to book train and holiday independently, or will it all be packages (if so, where should I look for these please?) I can’t find much useful stuff online so far.

snow train bookings are live now, these are just train

https://www.eurostar.com/uk-en/train/france/ski-train

this might be helpful to folks as well

European school holidays

https://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=167136

Thanks @stevie750 for some reason I’d looked at the Friday on the way out, but it’s a Saturday out, Sunday return I’ve read since. Hmm, it’s Jan and Feb only (ignoring December as there’s not been much snow then), finishes on 2nd March, which doesn’t feel that useful.

Look at Travelski for train packages.

You get transfers etc included, and full 7 days skiing – they put you in a hotel in the valley of Saturday night.

We’re heading to Tignes for Xmas (? ?)

Nothing booked as yet, but plans a-foot for something in Jan (old men only) and then I might take the eldest (13) to Tignes at Easter as he’s desperate to go and some friends are already headed there at the same time for a family trip (one of the afore-mentioned ‘old men’).

Have just found some discounted Cartel-X bindings to replace my circa 2006 Cartel’s but that’s all I really need to update after getting a new board last year.

January trip to Flaine booked (well the accomodation is booked, I need to sort the eurotunnel etc), season passes also purchased to cover that trip and the potential second jaunt in March

Now that we’ve switched from ‘summer’ to autumn it’s all we have to think about anyway, right?

Season starts

Sitting here in cloud after several glorious bonus summer days, it’s only natural one’s thoughts turn to skiing. So has anyone any recommendations of places/sites to look for sc accommodation in the NW Alps at half term? Usual moon on a stick requirements of budget/great location apply but not requiring anything remotely fancy.

Should add, this is for adults and kids possibly meeting up with another family based in Annecy, hence approx location requirements. Could meet up in FR or CH but IT Aosta side of MB tunnel) probs out of the equation.

Thankfully not a problem I have to contend with as don’t have kids, but friends who do have gone to Villars Gryon the last few years at February half term and say it’s very good. Really quiet in comparison to French resorts and generally snow sure, though can get a little patchy compared to high altitude alternatives. Only real issue is the price of food and drink according to them especially when eating out.

Consider the Haute Maurienne, friends of ours went there every half term. Quieter than the mega resorts, plenty to ski, and accessible from annecy

^ thanks @nbt and @tuboflard both areas not really on my radar so am checking them out. Probably meant more in terms of where to find the accommodation itself though – ie sites like sunweb, resort websites, interhome, booking.com, that kind of thing. We’ve got a long list of potential ski areas but not really any idea about finding somewhere to stay directly unless it’s a hostel or mountain hut…

Hi everyone. I have Les Arcs 1800 booked for Christmas week, and I’m looking at the best way to get there. The train is very expensive for four people, I’ve driven it before, but never in Winter. Is it a stupid idea?

@ransos it probably mostly depends where you’re starting from as to merits of driving versus train, and who is going.

Driving gives more flexibility especially if you have multiple drivers but factor in holiday traffic (are you fixed to certain days?), will you have to sort a stopover or two, resort parking etc? Will you need to buy chains? All those things to me would tend to favour the train to Bourg IF (big if) you can get to London OK – always the trickiest part of travelling to Alps IMO.

Cheers. The distance and practicalities are fine, I’ve done it before. It was more about winter conditions. The train is at least £600 more and doesn’t come back on a Saturday.

@ransos The road to BSM will be as clear as possible as it’s the autoroute, the road up the hill will also be cleared. If it snows, you may be delayed, but if not then it will be fine. Drive.

@bajsyckel i suggest starting by deciding where you want to go or at least limiting the choice to one or  two resorts, then try the things you mention. Add on snowtrex and chalets direct

Cheers @nbt

Driven lots of times, only ever used chains once, that was at Easter.and had to use 4×4 once over the Col de lauteret in Jan last year. A boat would have been more useful when we went at NY a couple of years ago. It was solid rain from Troyes to La Tania. Good tyres and a pair of cheap chains and you should be fine. Gets expensive if your car needs low profile chains or ones that fix only on the outer side.

You have to have chains or socks if you haven’t got All Season or winter tyres. That’s law now afaik.

Roof box, if you need one, cheap used from Ebay or borrow (from me if you are in Bristol)

Loads of used chains on Ebay too..

I am hoping it will be a snowy drive for you, I’m out at NY so will be nice if there is a healthy dump before we get there..

Just had a quote from our usual place in Mayrhofen for half term next feb (22-1st) I had to call them as I thought there’d been a misprint.

7 nights. Self catering. In an apartment for two adults and three kids.

£4840.

I did a Airbnb/booking.com/vrbo sweep just to check they’d not lost their minds. But no seems that’s generally the going rate – more than double what we normally pay. I passed. Also checks a few other resorts around Europe and hit similar results back. Found a place a bit further down the valley for a load less on interhome so just need to sort transport now. Anyone else seeing massive inflation of accommodation this year?

Last new year we queued from Chambery to La Plagne. It took 4 hours. Arrived at 11pm, after we’d stopped for an hour in Albertville to eat.

We still always drive from Scotland. Mainly on cost, but also environmental grounds.

Yeah we’ve done the queue thing but for us at least we only joined the queue just after Albertville. We aim  to get to Moutiers before 10 if possible, or after 4pm

Half term cost is why we ski at Easter. It’s cheaper more available and much much quieter than HT. The HT costs seem to gave inflated more than other weeks. (Just feels like that,I haven’t got a spreadsheet to prove it). Easter is late this year so that may have consolidated the family crowds on HT and inflated prices?

I concur with theDTs – Easter is a fabulous week to go, especially if you have young kids but this year it falls late. I have an apartment in Morillon which normally we rent out at half term but this year we will use it ourselves, neighbours seem to be doing the same. For Xmas/NY there have been less enquiries for obvious reason that down low is becoming unreliable. So for half term, anecdotally, less supply / more demand will mean higher prices. Probably be this way from now on.

Yeah it seems that’s the case. We normally do Easter, but it’s so late this year with Easter Monday falling on the 21st April: the day the lifts shut and halfway through the school Easter break. The Church really need to be told to do one with Bede’s stupid formula and fix Easter on a specific date.

The last time we did February week was in 2019. That came in at €1337 for the week s/c. It’s trebled in cost in 5 years for the same apartment with the same occupancy.

Easter is a fabulous week to go, especially if you have young kids but this year it falls late.

Yeah we went to Samoens last year, kids were complete beginners so quiet slopes and warmer weather was ideal.

Just had a quote from our usual place in Mayrhofen for half term next feb (22-1st) I had to call them as I thought there’d been a misprint.

7 nights. Self catering. In an apartment for two adults and three kids.

£4840.

Are you fixed on Mayrhofen?

A week in Sainte Foy Tarentaise (a super little family resort) is currently €2910.60 in the Etoile des Cimes

There are activities for the kids and a pool etc includined in that price

Just booked trip 2. Appt in La Daille. Thursday to Thursday over Easter. Leave after School on Wednesday, arrive Thursday.  Going to have to hot foot it back as the kids have Ten Tors training the weekend after.  I’m expecting the roads to be a bit quieter on Thursdays though.

I would happily drive as BSM is easy and work on the assumption that if the coaches full of package tour people like me can get up then so could you. If your staying at 1600 and don’t have too much stuff you could always park in BSM and take the funicular up.

We are going to Canezi in early march with outer usual group of about 50 people so it’s booked a year in advance to get us all in the same hotel. We might see if we can get a cheeky last minute for new year just the 2 of us depending on the prices and snow. We’ve done it before and got good deals booking a week before travel.

Week booked in Les Gets in Jan with a few friends and their families. First time we’ve ever done the whole Chalet thing (we’re normally slumping it in whatever was cheap or available at the time) so really quite looking forward to a taste of how the other half lives a wee bit.

@nbt – thanks for the extra suggestions.

Currently weighing up a sunweb place in Flaine versus a couple of places in Nendaz/Veysonnaz. Former includes lift pass but less interesting terrain and probably busier in holidays, latter is surprisingly good value but most interesting terrain trickier to access for everyone and lift pass costs will add up fast if going for the whole area.

I love Nendaz / Verbier. But not the friendliest place unless you are happy on more challenging reds. We were there for HT just before the pandemic. Skier standard is high in the 4 valleys, it didn’t feel like a particularly forgiving or friendly place to be skiing with the kids when it was busy*. Depends on the group and individuals I suppose. (*Protective dad may have been feeling prickly)

Mrs BH (a decent skier) hasn’t allowed us a return to Verbier since she had a tumble on Tortin.

I’ll go with you Blackhat, leave all the incumbents behind!

We went to Whistler last Dec and got a few reasonable days skiing in before it all melted. We then hopped over to Verbier (where I had my first ski experience when I was 39). Lucked in with the snow and had 5 really fun days skiing. Played on the blues and reds to our hearts content. Spooked ourselves on 1 black run. Wisely decided not to do that again.
Hoping to get back to Verbier January 2025.
Moving back to Australia next year so ski access will be considerably limited – but MTBing greatly enhanced :D