Photo: Nickphotos 

Spending your Christmas holidays in a European ski resort can be an unforgettable experience; just imagine the sun setting behind snowy mountains, a warm chalet with a fireplace and lit candles, a good French dinner with red wine and children waiting for Santa Claus to bring Christmas presents. Christmas vacation in a ski resort is definitely a great experience for a skiing family, but also singles, young couples and retired people can spend a lovely Christmas holiday at a ski resort.

At Homeboy Ski we have skied all the European countries and most of the well-known European ski resorts. We selected the 5 best ski resorts for Christmas travellers. The most interesting ski resorts are found in Switzerland, but France, Italy and Austria also provide unforgettable moments for Christmas skiers.

Zermatt - Lovely alpine village beneath the massive Matterhorn

Photo: Maurice Koop

The first time I entered Zermatt was a bit different, because I came over the mountains with two friends. We skied the classic Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt. As we skied down the glacier during sunset, I paused to look over the valley. I had never seen such a beautiful place! With Matterhorn on our right we continued skiing down to the carfree village of Zermatt, which is surrounded by over 30 peaks more than 4000 meters high.

In addition to breathtaking scenery, Zermatt features nearly everything one can ask for. It has 100 runs equipped with 74 lifts provide skiing for all skill levels, while a high altitude (1620 - 3820 meters) guarantees good snow conditions. Zermatt village consists of luxury hotels, shopping, fine dining and lively after-ski. Spectacular mountain scenery combined with alpine museums, stylish boutiques and horse-drawn sleigh rides guarantee a unique Christmas experience.

St. Moritz - Filled with luxury and style

Photo: Webdevil666

If you prefer luxury and style, consider skiing in the truly cosmopolitan atmosphere in St. Moritz. Located at 1856 meters above sea level, St. Moritz offers something you cannot get at average ski resorts. It features unique activities such as horse-riding on ice, ice-golf, and cricket and polo tournaments, to mention a few.

Over 200 runs and 56 ski lifts offer good skiing for beginners, intermediate and family skiers, but skiing in St. Moritz is not the main point. In St. Moritz you can easily spot a handful of your favorite celebrities and stars enjoying the lively after-ski. St. Moritz is a true winter wonderland!

Gstaad - Pure glamour, unadulterated luxury and excellent service

Photo: Speculando

There are few total luxury ski resorts in Europe, and among these Gstaad reigns. Gstaad, the glamorous ski resort in eastern Switzerland, is known for being the winter playground of international stars and celebrities. Like Zermatt, Gstaad is also completely pedestrianised. You won't see cars on the streets; only horse-drawn sleighs glide by the lovely boutiques.

The breathtaking mountains surrounding Gstaad provide more than 80 runs equipped with 66 lifts. Gstaad ski resort is best for beginners, intermediate and family skiers, but there are also a few black runs for those seeking challenges. As the sun sets behind the mountains, the wide selection of after-ski activities buzzes to life. Nightlife in Gstaad is not wild, but not sedate either. Because Gstaad is known for its luxury, visitors must be prepared for a bit higher prices than at other resorts.

St. Anton - The pearl of Austrian ski resorts

Photo: Daniel.Kelpe

St. Anton is a classic. This famous Austrian ski resort draws loads of skiers from all over the world. This is no wonder, because 134 runs equipped with 83 lifts in this snowy paradise provide skiing for all possible skill levels and tastes, from powder hunting to mogul skiing and from new school riding to relaxed family skiing. In addition to its versatile skiing opportunities, St. Anton features a cosmopolitan atmosphere with dozens of activities, such as tennis, ice skating, swimming and paragliding.

Although St. Anton is truly a family skiing paradise, it also provides the wildest after-ski in all of Europe. St. Anton's is known the world over for its after-ski, which begins at lunch time and continues through the evening and into the night. It is so legendary that every skier should experience it at least once in a lifetime.

La Clusaz - Charming and pretty old Savoyard village

Photo: Nicephore

If St. Anton is the party resort and Gstaad the celebrity paradise, La Clusaz is something entirely different. This charming little French village is one of the most beautiful places to ski at Christmas time. La Clusaz is less well-known, so it's a perfect place to enjoy a peaceful and quiet Christmas. Nonetheless, it is still quite a large ski resort, with 80 runs and 55 lifts spread over a large geographical area. In addition to good skiing, La Clusaz features parks, pipes, gaps and rails for freestyle and new school riders.

Nightlife in La Clusaz is much more peaceful than in St. Anton, for example, but it is not completely nonexistent either. La Clusaz has a few excellent restaurants serving delicious French meals, as well as a few pubs and bars in which to enjoy a drink after a long day of skiing. La Clusaz  also offers other activities, such as paragliding, ice skating, a cinema and a heated outdoor swimming pool.

Go further: Read Thomas Uhrskovs portrait of Sainte Foy and click here to find out more about skiing in Zermatt.

"This is my boyfriend Mike. He is a skibum and is going skiing in Chamonix this season", said my childhood friend Tina as she introduced me to her new boyfriend. The year was 1996 and I had recently moved to Helsinki.. I grew up in northern Finland and I was an active skier. For years I read Powder magazine and watched my idol Seth Morrison skiing in films, but I never had experienced anything similar. I wanted to ride the mountains as well, but I was a newbie and I didn't know where to start. When I was introduced to this radical-looking skibum Mike, I knew my chance had come. "Now or never", I thought.

Skibum living                                                                                                                     Photo: Per.Edin

Only three months later I took the bus from Geneva airport to Chamonix village. I was going to spend my first season at Chamonix ski resort. I was sooo excited. I knew Mike was already there, but at that time he wasn't my close friend. I also knew that there are about 30-50 other Finnish seasonnaires living in small but tight groups of skibums. There was only one way to get to the backcountries, and it was with other Finns. I knew I must break into the tight gang of Finnish skibums. I felt like I was going to a party without an invitation, but it was no problem for me, because I get along with people easily.

Skiing all the classic off-piste routes of Chamonix

Photo: Speedywithchicken

It took me a few days to make friendships and start skiing with other Finns and a few British and Swedish skiers. During the first 10 days I skied all the runs in the Chamonix ski area and that felt really good compared to Finnish ski resorts. Finally the guys asked me if I wanted to join their trip to the legendary E.N.S.A. couloir, which is a pretty easy off-piste run in the Le Brevent ski area in Chamonix. It went well, and during the next couple of weeks we explored many interesting easy-to-access couloirs, such as Poubelle of L'Aiguille du Midi, Poubelle of Gran Montets, Glacier du Ronde, Pas du Chevre, Couloir Rectiligne and Couloir des Cosmiques. During snowfall we went to ski the forests of Flegere, Argentiere and Plan D'Aiguille, or simply enjoyed beer while watching big mountain riding on a wide screen at a local pub. It was great. So great.

After my first season as skibum Chamonix I was already deep in the tiny powder-hunting culture and society of Finnish skiers. All I was interested in was skiing big mountains. Even in summer time I went mountain biking with other skiers, and guess what the main topic of our discussions was? Skiing, Chamonix and the upcoming ski season. Summers were actually nothing but preparation for the next ski season.

Skiing the mountains and exploring new cultures

Photo: Jmlasalsa

During the next few years I spent my ski seasons in France, Norway and Finland. I skied +100 days every year from November to May. Together with my friends we skied fabulous off-piste runs, large powder fields and glaciers and interesting forests. We expanded our playground to cover other ski resorts such as Zermatt and Verbier in Switzerland as well as the Aosta valley in Italy. Sometimes we went ice and rock climbing as well as mountain biking,or just visited nearby cities such as Grenoble and Annecy. Personally I loved to walk around the cities, enjoy good coffee and observe people and French culture.

I took pictures in order to preserve those moments. Those years were fantastic and they form a big part of my life. It was not all about skiing. In fact, the very best thing of all those years is the friendships. It was a great privilege to meet all those great and inspiring guys with whom I shared so many mind-blowing experiences.

Skiing with my little termites

Photo: Dannisullivan

Then it all changed again. I met my lovely wife and we now have four children. At the same time I started studying at the Helsinki University and working at a technology firm. I realized I am too busy with studies, work and family to continue as a seasonnaire anymore. I had to quit skibumming. Years went by and I found myself spinning the same hamster wheel as other suits. I got stressed but I persisted because I am strongly goal-oriented.

A couple of years ago I decided to show our oldest son what skiing in the Alps is all about. I didn't even think about different ski resorts as choices, so we went to Chamonix. For some reason it was obvious for me to bring our son to Chamonix. After a hiatus of many years I was back there, and I felt the same excitement and enthusiasm as before. I didn't enter the backcountries with our 12-year-old son, but we explored the pistes of Le Brevent, Flegere and Gran Montets. It was great to see that our son loves speed as much as I do, and we skied very fast together. Oh boy, we had a lot of fun.

The circle is closing. After eight years of a 9-to-5 job I had had enough of the hamster wheel. I founded my own company with a handful of friends. Now we focus on building our own business based on things we really like. Economical growth is important, but there is one primary goal and driving force in our endeavour. It's the freedom to ski whenever we want. We are all skiers willing to go back to the playground. Although building a business can be hard sometimes, it feels good to be back doing what we really love. See you on the powder fields!

Go further: If winter seems light-years away then find out about a good place in the Alps to go for pre-season skiing and what it is like going skiing in Chile in July.    

For some people winter isn’t long enough to fulfill their addiction for skiing or snowboarding. A few years ago I was so busy at work that I could only manage one week skiing in the Alps in early March. That week was spent in springtime conditions, skiing piles of heavy slush. Needless to say, in May I found myself searching intensively for southern hemisphere topographic maps and such…

Photo: Antti Zetterberg

After a few meetings with a couple friends, we decided that South America was the best bet for summer skiing and powder snow. There are some summer skiing possibilities in Europe too, but generally speaking you must head to the glaciers and stick to the relatively limited skiing they offer. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it just doesn’t compare to real winter conditions.

At first the obvious choice seemed to be to hit the biggest resorts in the High Andes near the capital of Chile, Santiago de Chile, resorts like Valle Nevado or Portillo. Or, alternatively, we could choose the Argentine side of the Andes and the resort of Las Lenas. However, we consulted with a Finnish snowboarder friend of ours who had been travelling to Chile for years for summertime training. We ended up with superb hints for a “secret spot” in the south: a relatively small resort called Termas del Chillan.

The Skiing Conditions in Chile

Photo: Antti Zetterberg

The weather in Chile can vary a lot. The resorts located completely above the tree line are worthless when the massive storms hit. This is the case with high Andean resorts. While they have the highest and largest terrain, visitors can miss many valuable days because of low visibility and storms.

Luckily Chile is a long country. Some five hundred kilometers to the south, the mountains get a bit lower and rounder, but at the same time the snow level starts at the significantly lower altitudes. This all means tree skiing lower in the mountains when the snow clouds come rolling in.

For us this logic worked really well: the two first days at the resort were spent skiing spring-like slush snow, but after that it started raining heavily in the valley for couple of days, which turned into a nice, light snow even at the lower mountain. All in all it snowed some 10 days in a row with only small pauses. We got about a meter of fresh powder – for a fanatic skier like me nothing beats floating, deep turns in the middle of July!

The Ski Resort Termas de Chillan

Photo: Antti Zetterberg

Termas de Chillan kind of puts a spell on you. I don’t know if it is the trees (weird ones for a Scandinavian), the smell in the air (I have honestly never felt the air so fresh anywhere else), the luxurious powder we had, or the people, who are warm hearted and friendly. Or the odd ski bum travelers we met suddenly, with whom that faraway feeling made us feel like immediate friends. Or perhaps it was the Andean Condors flying above when we were on the chair lift…

As a resort, Termas de Chillan might not be in the same league with the biggest and most famous ski resorts around the world. However, if the conditions are right the terrain just screams pure, unadulterated fun. You are not skiing high mountain couloirs found in places like Chamonix but nice mellow bowls, natural half pipes and other natural formations. This is the kind of skiing I like the most. I’ve had my share of steep couloirs and while that is a totally different form of skiing, I’ve always liked a more variable, forgiving terrain more. I am no Eric Pollard but the terrain in Termas de Chillan lets you imagine you can ski like the guys in the movies.

The condors themselves are one reason to travel that far. Patagonia is also relatively close, although in the winter (northern hemisphere summer) travel possibilities to it are extremely limited.

A very filling Chilean after-skiing meal                                                    Photo: Antti Zetterberg

Here is a carbon footprint hint: if you like to compensate for the environmental impact of flying or are just uncomfortable driving in foreign countries, then we recommend the local long distance buses. They are relatively comfy, cheap and seem to have a wide network of lines. We did not hire a car in Chile and the busses served us well.

All in all, I wholeheartedly recommend Chile, a beautiful, interesting country with lots of activities and very friendly people.

Go further: Read more about skiing in stormy conditions and find out about Wagrain's secret oasis.