To ski or not to ski - just had big row

[msmatcha]

Ridiculous first world problems row but still...

I want to book a last minute ski holiday in the Easter holidays. Maybe Courchevel or similar. DH says conditions are awful, everyone is cancelling, would be an insane thing to do. I looked at webcams and I see snow! But he is insisting that there is no frozen base so the snow will be gone in days. Says he's spoken to people who have recently returned but won't say which people! Arghghghgh!

So I'm asking you lovely lot - please anyone who has recently been skiing - what are conditions like where you are?

DS was in Meribel at half term. There was snow on the slopes but it was all snow cannons. It snowed briefly once in the week. No snow in the town or much off piste.
Easter is a bit late for a lot of resorts most years but this year has been bad everywhere.
You would need to go high and glacial. We did Val Thorens a couple of years ago at Easter. Really icy in the mornings and very slushy after lunch. It wasn't great skiing.

We're off at the end of this coming week to La Rosiere. Levels at the top have gone from 120cm to nearly 3m over the last ten days or so. We were booked in already but I wouldn't have hesitated to do a last minute booking and in fact I have three friends in separate trips who have gone out to the alps this week who only booked in the last few days.

If you go high you'll have a great time. But it sounds as though your DH just doesn't want to go and is using the conditions as an excuse, because the conditions are the best now that they've been for more of the season.

Look at Tignes or Val Thorens as good snow sure high options

Tignes or Val D’Isere you’ll be fine

Tignes - nearly 4m at the top and snow forecast through next week:

Conditions are amazing at the moment after huge snowfall and more due. Why don’t you go without him? ⛷

It is warm this year. Go as high as you can for the best snow. Spring snow can be quite sticky anyway.

I’ve been at Easter before but would only book a high resort unless doing it really last minute to check the conditions. Tignes/Val d’Isere is usually a good bet for Easter.

My friend lives in Courcheval.
She sent me lots of lovely snowy pictures last night and said that they are fortunate to have lots more snow than other resorts

It snowed really heavily this week in Chamonix, there's tons of snow and the sky is blue. Do it!

How cheap is cheap? If you don’t pre book lift passes and ski hire (especially passes will be the same cost in resort) can you go and just have a chilled week if no snow?

I’d go!

OP go on the snowheads forum - they have ongoing condition reports for most alpine resorts (and others). Ski club of Great Britain also.

Agree with others you'll need something over 2000m. Tignes, Cervinia, Val T all good options for Easter ski. Have fun!

Another vote for Tignes-Val D’Isere. You can ski the 2 glaciers in August so it’s as guaranteed as you get, I was there at HT and it was a little icy in places as so warm but they have apparently had plenty of snow since so you should be good. Probably bad luck but every time I’ve been to Courcheval or Meribel the snow has been shit, Val T was the only decent bit and consequently it was like a zoo, so not a good experience at all.

It snowed in Meribel this week. I was there the previous week and it was fine, even before. A little slushy in the mid-afternoon, but we found plenty to do.

He’s crazy. There has been buckets of snow recently and conditions are great in the higher resorts.

We have lots of snow and good downhill conditions here in Norway. Dombås was super good last week and Bjorli too. The resorts aren't massive like the Alps, but cosy, friendly and often quiet. We rarely have to wait for lifts.

I’m going the last week of the season. I was a bit worried as there wasn’t much at new year (though perfectly skiable and all natural snow). They’ve had loads the past 2 weeks and more forecast, possibly better than usual at Easter as it’s still cold.

Thank you so much everyone- I am going to show him all of your posts.

Going to research holidays now! Will focus on the higher resorts and will also check out Norway!

the conditions sounded poor at half term this year. However it has snowed a lot since then so I would book Easter without hesitation. I think on piste will be fine and I’d book a resort with plenty of runs over 2000 m (as some of the recent precipitation would have been rain on the lower slopes particularly below 1500m. ) the recent snow might melt more quickly off piste.

You could check out Trolltun.no for Dombås. There are little self catering hyttes to stay in or the hotel. It's ski in ski out and also 100s of km of cross country skiing too. We drove down and spent a week skiing there.

DS is off to Bormio in Italy next week.

25cm of snow in the resort, 50cm on the higher slopes. They had 15cm of snow on Tuesday. and are due some more.

It sounds more like your DH doesn't want to go for some other reason...financial? Just doesn't fancy skiing?.....

We do have a slightly different view about skiing. He thinks it is VERY important that the snow is good and we get to ski every day, whereas I am happy to sit in the mountains with a vin chaud and the sun on my face and a good book.

After reading all your posts he has agreed we should book! Yessssssss - thank you all.

Currently on the Norway website.

My dad's been in Meribel the last 10 days he's only missed one day of skiing due to the weather

This is all sounding really encouraging.

We're booked for Les Arcs the first week of Easter. We skied at Christmas, but it was so icy that we felt a bit cheated. Have doubted our decision to book Easter a couple of times due to snow cover, but there's been loads of snow recently, so I'm feeling good about it again.
Our plan is to ski high and download if it's slushy by the end of the day. I find downloading quite relaxing anyway.