Snow sure in early Dec?

[DistrictCommissioner]

DH has got a week booked off in early Dec & just suggested we take the kids out of school & go on ski trip - any recommendations on snow sure locations early on in the season?

Nowhere is snow sure then, which is why the holidays are so much cheaper than the rest of the season

your best bet would be somewhere like Tignes that has a glacier and should be cold enough for them to use the cannons on major runs, but it’s not going to be much fun if you all need beginners lessons and are stuck on the nursery slope for the morning only because everything is slush after lunch

Would you consider further afield? We’re going to Vail 2nd week of December, which will be the 4th time we’ve done Colorado between Thanksgiving and Xmas and it’s never disappointed. I wouldn’t do the Alps that early.

Obergurgl, Solden, Saas Fee, Zermatt etc - go high and glacial.

Would you consider further afield? We’re going to Vail 2nd week of December, which will be the 4th time we’ve done Colorado between Thanksgiving and Xmas and it’s never disappointed. I wouldn’t do the Alps that early.

In early December, you're really limited to the glacier resorts - Tignes, Sölden, Hintertux, Kaprun etc. - which will be snow-sure. If the kids can already ski then these might be OK, but for beginners they can be too cold and too daunting. Even with the snow, the major drawback of glacier resorts are that the weather can be bad (cloud, blizzards, v. cold) and the ski "resorts" are not close to the lifts. Also, not much opens before the week before Christmas, which limits the availability of accommodation, transport and restaurants. If the snow-canons (#1) are working, they will be laying down a base layer for the Christmas/New Year weeks and the runs themselves are unlikely to be open, except perhaps at the weekends in Dec.

If I had to choose somewhere, I'd choose Sölden because the season there traditionally starts at that time (so things will be open) and the glacier does have some easier beginners areas.

Sweden and Finland are pretty snow sure in December.

I would avoid the alps in early December

Hmm, thanks for this. The kids have all done one week of private ski lessons & can ski blue slopes so not total beginners but not experts!

Might suggest to DH that he re visits for annual leave - he booked the leave & then suggested the trip rather than picking the right dates for the trip, if that makes sense! It’s annoying this year as he can’t have any leave during any of the winter school holidays.

We have been to Cervinia (can ski Zermatt too) a couple of weeks later quite a few times and it's always been great. We go the week before Xmas, thibk the earliest we've been is 16th December- still get some cost savings then. Can he delay it a couple of weeks?

Sunshine in Banff, Canada opened on November 11. It closed this weekend.

Tignes!! As snow sure as you can get, we go every year for first two weeks of the season starting end of November and have never had a bad time. Always been good snow and lovely and quiet. You can’t guarantee snow at anytime, we’ve had barely any snow over New Years before so early season it’s all luck of the draw.

Also Tignes is a great family resort- our favourite time of the year is early December there. Take some layers in case of it being really cold but generally we’ve had good weather with some big dumps of snow. We had our 2 year old skiing there in December so there’s something for everyone!