Christmas skiing holidays Best Ski Resorts for Skiing at Christmas & New Year
Skiing at Christmas! What better way to spend your Christmas holidays than being on the slopes, surrounded by snow drenched mountains and wandering around authentic Christmas markets. However, skiiing this early in the season comes with the risk of there not being sufficient cover or that the skiable terrain is restricted to the pistes with artificial snow.
Thankfully, there are some snowsure resorts around the Northern Hemisphere that are usually fully open from the start of December meaning skiing at Christmas is pretty much guaranteed. Candidates for festive skiing are typically the glacial resorts such as Stubai in Austria, those in the Arctic Circle or the high altitude North American resorts.
Christmas in Lapland
For guaranteed snow, the Nordic countries offer some of the best festive ski resorts where you'll find more to do than just skiing. At this time of year, you'll be able to see the amazing Northern Lights plus stacks of other activities for all the family such as...
- Snowmobile safaris
- Husky adventures
- Snow shoeing
- Reindeer safaris
Christmas in the Alps
To be sure of seeing snow in the Alps at Christmas, its better to choose one of the high altitude resorts with a good snow record during the Christmas skiing period or one of the glacial resorts - these are usually open from early November. Some of the most popular include...
Popular Christmas ski resorts
Going on holiday to a ski resort at Christmas is not just about skiing as there are many alpine resorts that are not snowsure and yet still attract tourists in their droves because of the spectacular scenery, ambience and the array of other facilities on offer such as natural thermal spas, Christmas markets and fabulous dining.
North America Christmas skiing
What makes the North American ski resorts different in many cases to those in Europe is the incredible height of the ski resorts, many starting above 2000m especially in Colorado. Arapahoe Basin, for example, sits at 3286m whilst Breckenridge and Copper Mountain are at 2,926m. Given the high altitude, its a pretty safe bet that you'll be Christmas skiing in deep powder on the upper slopes. In Canada, Whistler is usually a safe bet as well receiving an abundance of snow every year being so close to the Pacific.
