Snowboard Holiday Tips

Nothing can compare to snowboarding on fresh powder on a beautiful sunny day. This is not to say that you don’t need to safety conscious when out riding on your snowboard. This article mentions a few safety tips for when you’re out there on the mountains.

Looking for signs of past events is part of planning your route down a mountain safely, and is an important skill to practice. Anytime there is a huge avalanche, you hear about it on the news. The news stories do a good job of showing how devastating and unforgiving this natural disaster can be. What you may not realize is that a small avalanche can kill you just as easily as a big one. It’s really about experience when it comes to reading your routes. It’s also not the easiest skill to acquire either, but it’s not something you should ignore. It can be difficult to detect the variations in the terrain but you need to learn to study them. Doing so can show you potential hazards as well as signs of past damage to trees. Neglecting you equipment is a mistake, maintain your snowboard gear properly and inspect it regularly as every part is critical to safe snowboarding. Head to your local snowboard shop to get it checked out and services regularly.

For beginner snowboarders, be smart and get some lessons before you go out tearing it up. Learn from a very experienced buddy or a professional snowboard instructor. This is one of the cleverest things you can ever do. Think about wanting to learn the proper way to snowboard from the start because if you don’t, then you are actually putting yourself in some extent of harm’s way because you’re possibly performing a move inappropriately. Check out your first snowboard lesson online here by reading our article about the parts of a snowboard.

Obviously like any sport especially extreme sports, you can’t stop all of the potential injuries from happening while you are snowboarding, but you can do your best to prevent a lot of them.

It usually just depends on where you are snowboarding. If you’re out in the back-country, then you need to take extra precautions for obvious reasons. If something happens you might be all by yourself. Going out snowboarding alone (which is absolutely not recommended) is not a good idea as it invites extreme risks. So, give some thought to what you’re doing and where you’re going.

I have often found myself going on my snowboard holiday for two weeks at the start of the winter. A few weeks after getting back, I’ve got the bug and there’s nothing I can do about it because I can’t take any more time off work.

It is for this reason that weekend snowboarding holidays are a godsend. Over the past 3 years I have probably been on 5 or 6 weekend snowboarding holidays because I hardly have to take any time off work and I can go on 2 or 3 of them in a season.

The cost of weekend snowboarding holidays can be very reasonable, it can quite often work out to be cheaper than you would think and is definitely worth a try.

Ski Weekends and Board Breaks are a company who specialise in this type of snowboard holiday, and I have used these guys a few times before and I would definitely reccomend them if you live in england. They offer loads of different packages and travel to destinations like the three valleys in France, Mont Blanc, the Swiss Alps and resorts in Italy.

One of the other great things sbout doing a weekend snowboarding holiday is that you will waste no time on the slopes. Most people who go away on a week or two week snowboarding holiday will have a day or two off during their holiday. With a snowboard weekend holiday you only have a few days and believe me, you will make the most of them.

When it comes to choosing a ski or snowboard holiday for a family, the most important thing to remember is to find out exactly which facilities you WILL need, and try and find a resort that has them all available to you.  This should leave you with a short list of ski and snowboard resorts.  Using this short list you can find out which resorts offer the best extras that aren’t really necessary but are nice to have should you wish to use them.

Below are a few of our Must-Haves for family ski and snowboard holidays

1. Professionally staffed ski and snowboard school. Nowadays there is a lot of competition between employees of ski and snowboard schools across the world. The majority of ski and snowboard resorts will have their own ski school which will have very well trained staff that have more than likely been teaching skiing and snowboarding for years.  It may be worth asking about the experience of the instructors and the turnover of the staff to try and get a rough idea of the standard of teaching provided by the ski and snowboard school.

2. Fully-licensed child care. Leaving children alone on holiday can be worrying.  Spend a little time looking around for a suitable child car programme and make sure that they are fully licensed (most will be in this day and age).  The care provided by these services should resemble that of your local daycare with structured activities, healthy snacks and fully trained and proffessional staff.

3. Activities for young adults and teens.  Many resorts have come to realise that additional evening activities can be very popular amongst teens and youg adults. Facilities such as movies, bowling and ice skating can give teens a chance to enjoy an evening without mum and dad and more importantly gives mum and dad an eveing to themselves.

4. Ski-in, Ski-out accommodation. This is obvously not for every budget, it can be a fair bit more expensive to stay in a ski-in, ski-out accommodation for your ski and snowboard holiday. However if you have the option then we would recommend you definitely do it.  The family could go their seperate ways on the mountain in the morning and meet back at the hotel for lunch and a quick nap. In the early afternoon, you could then easily head back out for a few more runs before heading back for dinner. This kind of day wouldn’t be possible if your accommodation was a bus ride away from the mountain.

This is not to say that you can’t have a great ski and snowboard holiday without it, but if you can then we would recommend it.

Here are some of the extras that aren’t really must-haves but would be nice extras if you could get them too.

1. Joint child/parent ski and snowboard lessons. This kind of lesson is a great way to spend more time with your children, not only this, but it will also help you to reinforce exactly what the instructor is saying to your children should you go off for the day together.

2. Tradable lift tickets. Northstar-at-Tahoe started a new trend with lift tickets.  Some resorts now offer tradable lift passes which will allow mum to take one of the children out for a ski in the morning while Dad and the other children get a lie in, all on the same ticket. This can be really beneficial for families on ski and snowboard holidays so if this option is available, it may be worth looking into.

3. Toddler lessons and daycare combos. This is normally aged at children between 3 and 4 years old. Families with children of this age want their children to have their first taste of skiing, but most children get worn out very easily and can barely manage half a day. Obviously you don’t want this to spoil your full day skiing and snowboarding so by opting for a toddler and daycare combo, your toddlers will have a few hours of skiing in the morning and then daycare during the afternoon. A brilliant idea which is becoming more and more popular across resorts worldwide.

4. Standalone kids center. A lot of ski resorts are now trying to develop the ski school / child care / teen center in its own building / area which can be really good for helping your children make new friends and really enjoy their time off the slopes as well as on them.