Nendaz Beginner Skiing

Although the Four Valleys has a lot of challenging skiing, Nendaz is a beginner’s dream.

At the top of Tracouet, a quick bubble ride from Nendaz town, there are rope pull lifts, magic carpet lifts and a children’s snow play area with large inflatable toys. The flat kiddie area is actually situated on a frozen lake and it’s a suntrap. Novices will appreciate the gentle and extremely wide blue run slopes off the rope drag and a short button lift on Tracouet and, as confidence progresses, testing their turns on the longer blue and red runs down to resort at the bottom of the Prarion chairlift. You can take a blue run all the way in to Nendaz and the snow is normally good because of the north-facing aspect.

Ambitious beginners who are up to skiing red runs by the end of a week’s skiing and are willing to go further afield may find it a good plan to try the blue and red runs into Siviez. These can get crowded in peak season as Siviez is a hub in the Four Valleys system. If you are not up to a well-groomed but quite high gradient black run down to the Prarion lift up to Tracouet, you can take the bus back or drive back from Siviez. If you decide you want to try it, you can get the gondola down the itinerary section of this face.

The blue runs off the back of Ethérolla, such as the choice of easy runs from the top of the Trabanta chair, would be a great place to stretch your legs if you are a beginner. But you need to be skiing red runs to get over to the Thyon side and back.

Again, you would need to be skiing red runs confidently before heading over to the Verbier valley, and then Savolyeres will be best for its winding blue and fairly gentle red runs. You need to get a bus to the Savolyeres bubble from the bottom of the Medran lifts, which is a bit of a mission.