Where to ski with your wife who is a virgin skiier and is scared of heights

A snowHead

This is a plea to all you Very Happy

My wife has agreed to "try skiing" for a long weekend, but as you will all note from the title to this thread things are never that simple.

Any ideas for a venue which ticks the following boxes:

1. availability of low height chairs/gondolas
2. modern lifts
3. other activities available
4. best time of year?

I thought about Serre Che but any other suggestions would be great - thanks all

Puzzled

A snowHead

Not the year the year for low altitude resorts, best finding a low resort with good snow making, where they are i don't know.

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

Go to La Clusaz where you get on Beauregard by a big gondola and where the beginners green and two blues are very easy drag lifts to use. She can come down from there by the same gondola. It's high enough for snow, but looks like a wide plateau rather than a mountain. Besides, ESF is good too.

If you go, then go after beginning of March when most of the holidays are over to avoid the crowds.

Other activities: traditional town is quite lively. It's 45 mins from Geneva, half an hour from Annecy and Chamonix for sightseeing.

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I was (still am) terrified by heights Shocked

. However, the reward (skiing) now for me outweighs the risk of falling through the bars, being stranded overnight, the cable snapping, being decapitated by the chair as I get off, having my legs broken by my neighbour as he falls off the lift.

So get her hooked on the downhill bit 1st. Alpe d'Huez did it for me.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

simonmj66,

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Thanks all

Date is fixed then. She can take me skiing for my birthday present in early April!

But where - I fear Alpe D'Huez is a mountain too far for her first time - I'll check out La Clusaz

Cheers

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

doctor_eeyore, couldn't agree more! I'm not so much terrified of heights, but terrified of dangling in a gondola, chairlift etc! our first ski holiday (my idea)! Shocked

was in Kaprun, Austria at easter, so not much snow low down, I was petrified, we went up two gondolas stuffed to the rafters with skiers! then up in a chairlift, and a button lift all the first day! I loved the skiing so much I forgot the horrid bits. I got used to it though as the skiing more than makes up for the fear!!
Christmas we went to Vaujany, Alpes duez, didn't like the huge gondola or the little eggs and cried on the chairlift Sad

but I'm still going back for more!!
I have got a Rescue Remedy spray that seems to help, ( probably psychological) but tastes like alcohol and seems to do the trick!!
Good luck Very Happy

After all it is free

Courchevel 1850
Mid March

Not much else to do but great for people watching.
Some excellent greens and blues that are served by the Verdons gondola, which because if the gentle terrain never rises more than the height of a pylon above the snow. Once she is bored of the Gondola she can progress onto the Biolley chair which is detachable and has similar properties to the verdons Gondola. Some of the best learner territory in the world.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

simonmj66, go to Wengen.

Your wife can use the train to access most of the easy pistes, and by the time she needs to go on a chair lift, she will be so hooked on skiing that she'll brave it.

(It would be possible, in a good snow year, to ski for a good few days avoiding any lifts other than the train or t-bars)

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Nice little train up the mountain in Villars as well... worth checking out for beginners. Wouldn;t leave it til april though... think early - mid march at the latest.

snow reports

Not that I've been there, but what about one of the Scandinavian resorts - the mountains there look quite flat...

simonmj66,
If you are going in April I would go reasonable high and preferably north facing. Ifonly going for a few days your wife would probably go for private rather than group lessons, I don't think it should be difficult in any resort finding an English speaking instructor. In my experience worries about ESF etc. tend to be justified when complaining about large classes but the quality of many of the individual instructors is good.

Don't know the best place to go Bonneval sur Arc is very nice and quiet for beginners with a low chair access and tows on gentle slopes at the top of the access chair with some lovely snow sure terrain but has very little non skiing activity other than beautiful scenery.
PS I agree with Serre Che as well though I would go to Monetier for snow at the bottom of the hill at this tme and it will be getting very soft by the end of the morning at the bottom.

You know it makes sense.

Thanks all - keep the advices coming. I'll sell it to her somehow wink

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

What kind of heights? May look like a stupid question, but I am a reluctant observer of this - husband climbs, walks up mountains to the summits but doesn't fly, and 'survived' a gondola up and down at LDA in Dec but only once (this is more like an 'off the ground' phobia) but gondolas have a different effect to chair lifts I think and there seem to be differences in how people react.
I looked at St Luc- Chandolin in Switzerland and also at Tignes-Val Claret as there is a funicular there tho more limited choice once up but think the nursery slope is in resort - am sure the Tignes experts will put me right/add more - but I got loads of help in a similar thread that you should be able to find back around last August in the 'Resorts' section.
Good luck! Smile

A snowHead

Try Zell Am Zee in Austria- very short transfer from Salzburg airport and is a picture perfect Alpine town on the banks of a large lake. Loads of shops, restaurants, etc and great apres ski buzz.
The trip up to the nurery/green slopes is in an enclosed cable car which is a lot better than chairs for nervous folk. The nursery slope itself is seved by a moving carpet lift.

Also, only short, free bus ride to Kaprun which is fairly snowsure until end of season.

A snowHead

doctor_eeyore, feefee, Hurray, I'm not alone - I call it dangle-itis. It's not so much the height that bothers me - I'm more than happy to 'look down' from most heights. It's the dangle/sway factors that gets me. The climb from mid point in the wire up to the next pylon is never so bad as you climb up hill but then you get to the high point on the pylon and it races down to the wire mid point downhill and then suddenly slows and 'sways' when you get there - that for me is the worst bit - the hanging and swaying. My first cable suspension was a huge cable car from the foot of the Corvatch to the halfway station (some of you might know it) - if it hadn't of been for my want to see snow in August, twenty quidsworth of ticket burning a hole in my pocket, and 3 large brandies I don't think I'd have got on again for the rest of ride to the top. Even last year I was in resort for 4 days before I condescended to get on the chair lift with the sledge and only then because my friends had spent money buying me a ticket to force the issue and I felt obliged to ride it - I did then go up several times with the sledge, but never went up on skis for the whole trip (but then I'd only just mastered the basics of slowly skiing back down then) providing we get some snow maybe my instructor will want to take me up there this year and hopefully be able to help me off at the top.

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

Late starter has a point. I've climbed a lot, well into extreme grades, with and without ropes, but am afraid of heights when on scaffolding, ladders, etc. I think its a perceived risk thing. Somehow, my mind takes the view that when hanging off a rock face, I'm still on the ground and will only fall if I let go. On a ladder, it wobbles, it might break, slip, fall over, etc, etc. I'm told that this is somewhat twisted!

As for ski lifts, I'm mostly fine but did freak a little on that little cable car above Hohtalli in Zermatt.

simonmj66, in answer to your question, Tamworth Toofy Grin

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Where to ski with your wife who is a virgin skiier and is scared of heights

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