Where are the best european green slopes at ?

A snowHead

Olá

Although I'm more of an intermediate level skier, my wife is a completely beginner with fear of heights Sad

Last year I tried to introduce her to ski at Les 2 Alps but failed miserably... although they have green slopes there, those green ones are quite narrow with a high drop in case of a fall... and that freaked her out, so I'm looking for a resort with at least 2 or 3 green slopes that are wide, with no edge to a cliff... something easy, in the middle of the mountain that if she fell, she will not have the feeling of falling to the bottom of the mountain Laughing

I was thinking about Solden, specially because of the blue piste 13, but that would be the only easy one for her I guess, I would like more options.

Any tips ?

Cheers!

A snowHead

a lot of green slopes are mountain roads. so quite flat, but narrow.
Maybe look at beginner resorts or smaller resorts in the Maurriene valley.

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@AndreSilva, somewhere like les Houches might be an idea - not because of green runs as they are indeed usually quite flat - but 'cos the skiing is muchly on a plateau at the top of the hill ... so might not trigger any fear of heights...

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@AndreSilva, I would say that Montgenevre is definitely the best place I've been to for what you are looking for. The best time to go there would be early March just after french school holidays. There are lots of wide open gentle runs on the north side and the ski schools are very good too. I would recommend booking her some lessons with Apeak.

Les Saisies would be another good option.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Have a look at La Rosiere, it has a good range of pistes and the green slopes are at the centre of the village - Front de Neige and Les Eucherts with the added benefit that a number are free to use. The village is recognised as being very good for beginners, it's Ski Esprits most popular resort, with a good selection of ski schools. Once beyond the green pistes there are excellent wide and long blue pistes that will ensure you can make the most of the superb views, in a week you could even get over to La Thuile in Italy for a change of scenery.
Have a look at their website www.larosiere.net for all the details, there are some really good video posts that will show you what to expect.

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Val d'isere has a love wide green area, no cliffs

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Plenty of long, gentle pistes, some through the trees, on genuinely green terrain rather than a road cut in to the hillside, around the Corvara/San Cassiano sector of the Sella Ronda in the Italian Dolomites. Throw in world class scenery and many top notch mountain restaurants and you have a good destination for nervous novices.

In France, Les Gets offers plenty of gentle terrain, plus some great British ski schools.

After all it is free

@AndreSilva, Alpe D'Huez - the resort itself sits at the edge of a big slightly off flat area which is mostly green runs. It does get a lot of sun, which has its benefits and detriments. A couple of the runs can get busy at times but the area above the Grenouilles/Sagnes doesn't get much/any through traffic

Sölden has slopes which aren't steep or intimidating at multiple altitudes, but I can't help thinking that it's not the best choice for a complete beginner.
You don't want to be having to carefully avoid bits of a rather large resort in order to find the quiet easy bits you want to play on.
You pay for a lot of stuff you can't use, and people who do use that stuff will get in your way.
It's just not where I'd start. That's also true of pretty much any big name / big area resort.

I'd avoid "big name" places all together, or at least look carefully at where the ski school works with beginners,
consider where everyone else is relative to that, and think about how easy it is for a lone beginner to get there and back etc.

I'd pick a smaller place. You only need a few runs to learn on, and familiarity with them is a positive benefit for nervous learners.
You don't want to have to compete with people looking for something very different
If you absolutely must go to a "big name" place, then pick somewhere which has the name for reasons other than the amount and range of skiing available.
Think small not big.

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@AndreSilva, on the assumption your wife can cope with lifts then look for places where the nursery slopes are up the mountain rather than clustered around the bottom lifts. This might sound odd but the worst snow is almost inevitably on the lowest slopes, much easier to learn on decent snow rather than ice or mush. Some places have wide fairly flat areas next to the mid stations which are ideal for beginners. You can then take the lift back down to avoid the inevitable crowds on the way home.

Some Austrian examples would be

St Anton actually has a perfect nursery area at Gampen, wide gentle area with good snow, though St Anton is hardly ideal for moving on from there. Another place is Brixen (good for lots of Dutch folk too) where the lift goes up to Hochbrixen which has a good variety of nursery and easy slopes with not a cliff in sight, SkiWelt has lots of friendly skiing to so ideal for moving on. Serfaus is another place where there is a focus on learning and has a large high nursery area. If you are keen on Sölden, perhaps Obergurgl might be better for a nervous novice, a good few high easy slopes, though not so much to keep a more accomplished skier occupied after a day or two. The nursery area at Ischgl is situated at around 2100m in front of the top station for the gondolas up from the village, in many ways ideal, no cliffs or drops nearby, potential downside is the crowds and Ischgl does not appeal to everyone.

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Alta Badia has plenty of gentle cruisers and superb mountain restaurants.

You know it makes sense.

Best green slopes are at Courchevel 1850- end of

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Valmorel? That's where we went when my wife was pregnant and decided even a red run was too risky. The whole area was accessible on just greens and blues.

I suspect you are going to have to spend an evening looking at online piste maps, unfortunately quite a lot of web images are poor so you need some patient searches to find ones that are interpretable.

A snowHead

First off, it might be a good idea to enroll your wife in a ski school... Costs some money, but will give her a way better experience and basis. When people are teaching spouses/family, often what they are teaching is wrong, and the beginner is almost always experiencing unneccessary stress and possibly injuries. Ski teacher education really helps; it makes you see skiing from a completely different perspective. I learned snowboarding by myself; what took me weeks to learn (including 4000 unnecessary falls) I am now teaching to people in three days.

I work at the ski school in Serfaus, and there are some blue slopes (austria doesnt do green) that are nice for beginners. There is also a nice build-up in slopes (first you ski gampen/bärenpiste, then when that works well you ski down to the village, then when that works well you go up Plansegg and by then you're almost on red), although there aren't that many really blue slopes, so the first few days you are limited to these slopes. Once you can ski red, you can go everywhere in the resort, because there is always a blue/red way down.

I haven't skied in many other areas while paying attention to blue slopes so other than that I am not much help... I think Val Thorens also has some blue slopes that are suitable for starting out, but they are pretty busy (at least that's how I experienced them). Courchevel 1850 also had a nice one I remember.

A snowHead

I think I forgot to mention a bit more about her Smile

It was not her first time, she already had ski classes with a proper instructor once, she can snowplough to turn and stop and in fact is on her way to parallel turns(but still need to practice).

@johnE:
We went to Snow world 5 times already, it's great for her!
She can manage but goes slow, takes her time but she can go down the indoor slope.

So right now I guess she doesn't need classes, she needs a VERY easy slope to get used to open spaces and longer ski time, because indoor she goes down the slope in 1 or 2 minutes NehNeh

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Sierra Nevada has a massive plateau at the half way point with plenty of enormous wide green motorways and some english instructors.

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At the top of the Princess bubble in Megeve there is a green that is about 3.5Km long and as wide as a airport runway, my wife learnt there last year

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Another vote for Alpe D'Huez. Lots of long green runs in the DMC 1800 area

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Alpe d'Huez, Couchevel 1850, Les Saisies and Megeve / St Gervais are all excellent.

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Check out the Socropes area, it will be perfect for her and allow progression. Also the town is simply fantastic and the scenery . . . . WOW!

https://www.bergfex.com/cortina-ampezzo/panorama/

After all it is free

My top picks would be;
Montgenevre - lovely wide green from top to bottom of the mountain, plus lots of other nice runs around. Although to get to the top you do need to ski a slope with a drop on one side, but it's very flat and pretty wide, so shouldn't be so much of an issue - even if this particular slope is an issue, there's still a lot of other nice runs around lower down you can access easily.
Yllas (finland) - I liked how there was always a slope just a little bit harder, no big jumps in difficultly needed, you could work your way up.

I also liked Val Cenis, La Clusaz and Alta Badia.

Avoriaz had some nice greens too, but the week I was there the lift queues to get back up them were ridiculous, so no chance to lap them.

I'm also based in NL, and I love the slope in Landgraaf for practicing and cooling off on hot summers days!

The Winklmoos in Germany is wide and flat You can move up the mountain into the Steinplatte to get a bit steeper slopes

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Another for Alpe d'Huez

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Seem to recall both Megeve and Flaine/Samoens having a large number of green/blue slopes

Val cenis has some really flat runs and the st Gervais side of megeve as has been said some long gentle runs, our two grandkids came there last year 4 and 7 they covered a fair bit of it.

You know it makes sense.

Dont forget Scandinavia where the resorts seem to be more on hills than mountains. No fear of a fear of heights on them.

We went to Trysil and the beginner can get around most of the resort on pretty benign slopes , so it gives a great sense of achievement be able to get around so much of it. Not to say it didnt have harder ones too.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

Here (guess the ski area)

A snowHead

@BoardieK, I just guessed Les Saisies before seeing you had left the name on the bottom. Toofy Grin

I agree with you and also recommended it further up this thread.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Austria.

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As a few others have said, I'd point you at Alpe d'Huez, staying in Alpe d'Huez itself. Not the most attractive resort in the world, but far from the worst either. For beginners it's by some mark the best resort I've visited as about 1/3rd the resort seems to be green runs, not just the usual "Here's the 2 greens you'll be skiing over, and over, and over, and over again for the next 4 days", or "Here's the one green and as soon as you've mastered side-stepping up the slope we'll throw you at blues" you can have elsewhere.

I was in the ski area with a load of beginner friends back in Feb but staying in Oz en Oisans. A much nicer looking place to stay but limited locally to 2 greens and those who picked it up quicker than others soon had "loop fatigue", solved by dragging them up the gondola and showing them the Alpe d'Huez bowl full of greens gave them a new lease of life.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

So many nice tips, thanks guys Very Happy

Apparently Alpe d'Huez is the winner here! For those that recommended it, do you think it's better compared to Courchevel for beginners ?

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@AndreSilva, not much in it in my opinion. I think the beginner area in Alpe d'Huez is wider, bigger and even flatter than Courcheval, but I think the snow is better in Courcheval. Sadly, like many of us on this forum, it has been a long time since I was a beginner and even then we were on the Austrian reds before the end of the week so our expereince of what a beginner or a nervous skier feels is pretty second hand.

If your wife can cope with Snowworld I am sure she would cope well with the greens and blues in both resorts. As others have said it is perhaps the level of instruction that will make the real difference.

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After all it is free

@AndreSilva, ok, I gotta say it, I enjoyed Snowland Gramado for a fun day out, the ice dance show was really good!
The slope es pequeñito, but the town is a great place to visit.

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Where are the best european green slopes at ?

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