Alpe d'Huez Half Term holidays
Nicknamed “The Island in the Sunshine”, Alpe d’Huez gets 300 days of sunshine a year, so if you’re after a warmer week of skiing in February, this is certainly a safe bet.
Just an hour away if you fly into Grenoble, you really get to make the most of the week off school here. Self-drive holidays work well too – extend the holiday with a stop off in Paris and the skiing is just 5 hours away.
If you’re bringing the kids, this is of France’s ‘famille plus’ resorts, which means it’s committed to making family holidays amazing. The tourist office are known to do special events over school holidays and half term is no exception – often including drinks and entertainment outside the tourist office at the beginning of the week, shows and workshops throughout the week and a disco for teens at the ice rink.
If you’re brining tots who are too young for ski school, Les intrépides is a crèche for children from 3 months to 4 years. You can even hire a school teacher to help out with school work during the week off... Even the lifts (most notably the Télémixte des Jeux) have been specially made with little ones in mind. Some of them (École, Grenouille, Rif Nel and Télécentre) have even been free to use in recent years, so you might want to hold off on buying the lift passes until the beginners have learned the basics. Spend time at the Milka Piste to boost children’s confidence, it has fun, games and mini-moguls for hours of snowy fun.
If you’re here with more confident skiers there should be more than enough red and black pistes to fill the week. This is a terrific time of year for freeriding or if you prefer park to powder, head to one of the snowparks or ski/boardercross. There’s no shortage of après, with bars like Underground and Smithys. Our favourite restaurants include Snack 2000 (at Rond Point des Pistes) and Au P’tit Creux.
The 2 kilometre sledge run under the DMC lift is always good fun for some time off the skis and the Eclose piste is floodlit for night tobogganing on certain evenings. If you fancy something indoors, the Palais des Sports has climbing, archery, paddling and swimming pools, mini golf and a ball pool.
February Half Term snow & skiing conditions in Alpe d'Huez
Half Term Snow History
Top alt:3,330m
Average snow depth
Half Term249cm
Bottom alt:1,100m
Average snow depth
Half Term133cm
Resort alt:1,860m
Half Term ski rating