passo tonale nursery slopes

hi, i have just booked a holiday to passo tonale for 2 adults and 2 children age 11 and 6. we plan to just mess around the nursery slopes for the first few days as the 6 year old in not to keen on skiing. do we need a lift pass for the nursery slopes if so is there a local pass or a points pass system available .thanks mary

[b]mary21 Wrote :[b]

hi, i have just booked a holiday to passo tonale for 2 adults and 2 children age 11 and 6. we plan to just mess around the nursery slopes for the first few days as the 6 year old in not to keen on skiing. do we need a lift pass for the nursery slopes if so is there a local pass or a points pass system available .thanks mary

I went to passo Tonale last year it is a good resort for beginners but you will need a lift pass for the nursery slopes, but remember as in most Italian resorts children under 8 ski free which is a great attraction to families,
the slopes are fairly easy but be careful of the easy run to Ponte Legno as there is a steep section near the end.
Overall a cheap not a pretty resort but the locals are friendly as the resort is 2000 + meters high it can be very cold and at times foggy as we found last year, we packed up skiing early on the last day because of the thick fog.
We went independently and found the standard of hotel and hotel food very good, we would not normally stay half board but found the standard very good. Any other information send me an email or check out the local website, have a great holiday.

I went in Jan 2008 and had a god awful time.

This was mainly down to the quality of snowboard school - learn to board with people who have boarded for a couple of years :evil:

HOwever, the ski runs themselves were very good, the nursery slopes are great - however all of the main runs feed onto them at the top so they can be a bit hectic!!

We also sufferred from fog and imense cold in March.

Dont get me wrong, we did not hate it but just the quality of boarding tuition was pants.

Have fun though :mrgreen:

I had a short break in Passo Tonale in Jan. 2008. We had fog on the day of arrival (along with about 30/40cm of fresh snow - so we didn't complain to much ! lol) but the rest of the week was glorious. We had everything from total beginners to near experts in our group and everyone had a great time. Worth taking the free bus down to Madonna for the day to if you think the children will cope with it.

If you enjoy an apres ski beer then El Bait offers a good selection and free nibbles from about 4.30/5pm, sure I saw children in there around that time so I'd assume they are family friendly at least in the early evening - there is a side room just off the main bar room which has a selection of baorda games, Jnega things like that which we made good use of.

Enjoy your trip

Dave

Oh and as another poster mentioned watch out for the link to Pontedilegno - if you have beginners/timid skiers with you it's probably better to cut the run at the mid station of the return gondola.

The final section is quite a bit tougher than the easy blue cruise down to that point - and the chair at the end if you miss the turning is an old slow 2 seater which leads on to what can be a very busy (and icy) red/black combination!

The green/blue slopes behind Tonale itself though were really nice for bringing on and confidence building in beginners and near beginners. The reds though a bit steeper were very wide and most folks in the group were happy to attempt them by the end of the 4 days.

Some of the fast chairs behind Tonale are covered which helps when the weather closes in a bit (and I seem to remember heated to - or maybe hat was the new one in Zell am See - old age is creeping up on me and the memory is going!).

Dave

I do not want to disappoint but I only found covered lifts not heated, unless they have been added post March 2008.

It probably is my memroy going then ! Either that or it just seeemd like they were heated when you escaped under the cover from the wind/fog/snow that first afternoon!

Dave

It was the worst fog I have ever experienced, you really could not see your glove in front of your face, and there were still idiots coming down at full pelt. In thirty years it was the only time I have packed up skiing due to the weather, by the end of the fourth day I was getting a bit bored though, it really is an up and down resort .