To Ski School Or Not

Because my family decided they preferred Florida this year for our holidays :thumbdown: I'm having a few days on my own in Nendaz from next Sunday. This will be my 5th year in Nendaz and I'm trying to decide whether I should just ski on my own, which would give me a chance to explore more of the 4 Valleys (normally I get back to Nendaz to spend the afternoons with my children after they come out of skischool) or enroll in skischool as a way of meeting people. I'm worried skischool might restrict the amount of skiing I can do. The course is for 3 half day lessons which would mean I probably wouldn't get out of the Nendaz ski area in the morning and I'd be limited to how far I could go on the afternoon. On the other hand, my skiing could do with some improvement. A private lesson or ski guide is out of the question as I'm doing this on a budget just to get my ski fix for the year. Has anybody got any comments or suggestions?

There are 2 sides to this as I see it.

1 - how keen are you to improve your skiing?
If improving is a desire then lessons would win hands down - plus you may be lucky and meet some people to enjoy skiing with outside the lessons.

2 - do you enjoy skiing alone? I always think this is a very personal decision. I enjoy skiing alone, looking forward to Serre Chevalier in a couple of weeks when I expect I will be skiing alone all the time. But, I also enjoyed some Mark Warner hosting in L2A in January.

This may give you the answer - plus, who are you going with? DIY or tour op? If tour op. do they offer hosting/guiding?

If your "few days" is 3 days then my personal choice would be to ski alone and just blast around enjoying the freedom.

Whatever you choose have a good one.
:thumbup:

Hi Andy.

Thanks for the reply. I would like to improve my skiing but it's not number one priority. I can ski well enough to get down most runs, although not with a great amount of style! I could do the skischool thing for 3 days next year when I've got the family with me and still have 3 days left to get out further afield. As for skiing alone, I generally do that anyway as my kids are in skischool and my wife doesn't ski. Given the choice between skiing alone or not skiing at all, well that's no contest, but I do prefer skiing in a group. My "few days" is 3 (which may turn into 3 and a half if I can get on an early train from Geneva :-))

If it were me I'd ask around and see if you can find any ski buddies before you travel you can meet up with. If you're not bothered about improving your technique TO's and in resort companies will offer sort of on piste guiding days which are cheap or free, they won't teach you but rather take you to the best areas etc and hopefully you can make some ski friends that way.

If you weren't on a budget I'd get yourself signed up to some sort of technique based improving clinic.

Other alternative is that you could try skiing by yourself for a couple of days to start with and then contact the ski school to see about joining a class for the rest of your time there, we have done that in the past and you get the best of both worlds really.

Most skiers are pretty sociable and we have arranged to meet up with people from our hotel, ski school class etc, for a hot chocolate or beer, and then afterwards in some bar, and some of them are still friends years later.

Nice idea Dgou but I'm only there for 3 days. I have thought about doing it the other way round. Spending the first two days in ski school then maybe spending the last day skiing on my own.

Decision made. Booked it! My first time in ski school since 1993 (including 13 years when I didn't ski at all). Can't wait! 10 days and counting :D

It is a no brainer Ski school ....... the better you get the more enjoyment your will get out of the mountains, it not all about milage 8)