Where to? Lots of greens for a nervous adult learner?

[Dontwearmysocks]

Nervous but keen adult beginner here! Would like to find a resort with plenty of green/easy runs to build confidence. Really fancy Italy but open to ideas - hit me with your best suggestions please - thinking March time, outwith school hols!

Sauze d'Oulx, Italy, has been reckoned to be good for beginners, but check the snow, it's not the highest resort. Shortish transfer from Turin airport too.

I’m in Cervinia right now! I think it’s very well set up for beginners - a baby slope at ground level to learn, and the blues I’ve been on have been very wide indeed - that what makes the difference for me.

I am very well qualified to advise on this, naturally!

I would look at Flaine. In the main area there is an almost perfect layout of a beginner slope plus magic carpet, with a slightly longer beginner slope right above it. This one is an ideal slope with no steeper sections or funny camber. A small ‘obstacle’ section for beginners is off to the side, all very easy and fun. Then there is at least one very easy green slope going off into the forest, all accessed from the same point. Even if you

Hope that helps.

Love all of these recommendations! Googling the lot now! Thank you 😍

The achensee is mostly beginner / easy downhill runs. It is predominantly a cross country ski resort so focussed on that with only small downhill bits.

Passo tonale. I e not been but a friend has and it’s high up and meant to be very beginner friendly.

Don't worry too much about a large choice of easy runs. Unless you are a very sporty person generally, you will not be good enough by the end of the week to get bored on one or two. In fact you'll probably find it easier to build skills by taking the same corners a lot of times. Use other criteria such as price, flight/transfer time, degree of luxury, etc to choose a place. Also make sure it's high enough to be sure to have some snow — gone are the days when you could be sure of skiing at 1000m in Febuary.

Alta Badia! It's a beginners paradise with lots of blue slopes (they don't use green, so blues are the easiest) in incredible scenery and gourmet food in the huts (if that appeals, also some standard ones if not)

Cevinia for certain.

I'm not sure about cervinia -there is not much that's easy all the way down and it's not pretty enough to distract you from your fear. La rosiere is better imo. Cervinia is great for intermediates

It’s got the longest green to the bottom! … lots of blue that’s just a French green.

Nowhere in Europe has that much green

Weirdly I thought La Ros was quite steep apart from at the bottom.

Not Sauze - it's not that good for beginners (I was a beginner there, and have been 5 times since, with beginners on 2 of those times). It is almost all red, and whilst they are 'kind' reds, they're not blue!

But a big yes to Alta Badia. Corvara is a beginner's paradise, with the amazing Dolomite scenery thrown in.

Agree with Flaine, Montgenevre also has a lot of cruisy blues, not so sure about the Greens.
Le Grand Bornand has a good bit of easy skiing, try Ski Weekenders if you want a fully organised long weekend - it is low though so not ideal if its late season.
Pila has a good selection of easy skiing as well.

i would not recommend Flaine for beginners. Various reds converge on the main green piste and some people come down the reds too fast. Les Carroz and Morillon would be better in that ski area and despite being on the low side are normally ok snow wise in mid March.

I would also recommend La Rosiere, Montgenevre and Les Saisies.

Following! Are any of these typically snow sure over the Christmas/new years holidays?

I went to Courmayeur a few years ago and there were lots of easy runs.

Hmm not sure I’d agree; Courmayeur is not generally recommended for beginners. I’d agree that the runs are not that difficult even the blacks (compared to French blacks for example) but they are not super easy like greens! You really need to ski reds to get much out of Courmayeur IMO.
There are loads of greens in Val d’Isere and courchevel but it’s true what people say, you probably won’t get the most out of the ski pass in those areas.
There was a poster on here whose husband was nervous and I think they found Les Arcs very confidence building.

I love Cervinia and go every year but I'm not sure it's the best for beginners. The huge area is of no benefit and the bottom of the hill gets very cut up quite quickly.

France is the only country which uses the green classification. Many blues in Italy, however, are easy too.
I was very nervous back in the day and learnt in Courchevel 1850 where there are long greens - trees lining the wide edges. Perfect. You only need a local lift pass, don’t buy a 3 valleys one. And although it’s a famous resort, many visitors there don’t actually ski so I don’t remember lift queues (this was a while ago though!!)

Montgenevre and La Rosiere are definitely good options early season. La Rosiere in particular gets large snowfalls but it lacks trees on the French side meaning visibility can be an issue on whiteout days so Montgenevre would be slightly better. Montgenevre usually opens in early December. If you are a beginner or less confident skier Christmas is a better week to go than New Year as New Year week can be crowded.

Les Saisies is usually good for Christmas week onwards but is not as high as the above resorts.

Les Carroz and Morillon are less reliable early season. the Grand Massif ski area which they are part of can also get very busy in peak weeks like New Year and half term. They are good places to go if you have school holidays at the end of March as by then there should be good snow cover but they will be less crowded.