- Details
- Written by: Sam Haddad
The Group: Sam, and two teenage boys, aged 14 and 16
La Plagne in numbers:
- Altitude: 1,250m–3,080m
- Ski area: 225km of pistes
- Pistes: 61% green & blue / 25% red / 14% black
Getting there: Geneva Airport: 151km / 2hr 30minChambery Airport: 120km / 1hr 42min. Aime TGV Station: 33km / 58km
Indicative prices: 6-day liftpass: £318 / £254 5-12 year-olds / free 0-5 year-olds. Food and drink are comparable to London prices. Expect to pay £7 - £8 for a draft beer on the hill.
Family factor: Massive ski area offers something for everyone. A ton of dedicated kids zones on the hill, and unparalleled variety of activities off it.
Don’t miss: A high-speed thrill ride down an Olympic bobsleigh track. Built for the 1992 Albertville Games, it’s open to anyone aged 10 or over, and at least 1m 30 tall. Cool Runnings!
The fact my kids – now 14 and 16 – love skiing and being in the mountains as much as I do is one of the biggest wins of my parenting career. We’ve had some hugely enjoyable trips together as a family and with friends, and those painful early days of ski school, when I had to bribe the eldest to go on the magic carpet with torn up pieces of pain au chocolat because his skis “felt funny on his feet,” feel light years away.
But as they edge closer to adulthood, and future snow trips where I won’t be there to keep an eye on them (my eldest is keen on doing a season) I’ve started to worry that I’ve given them a taste for adventure without educating them enough on the importance of mountain safety. Last January the concern took on a whole new weight when the algorithms decided to flood my feed with avalanche footage from Europe, North America, and Japan, along with heartbreaking posts from parents, partners and friends mourning the loss of loved ones. These tragic accidents often—though not always—involve young men.
So I decided to take my boys to La Plagne, where I enrolled them in the ‘Pro Rider’ course run by Oxygène Ski & Snowboard School—an advanced, off-piste skiing course specially designed for teenagers. That way they could learn some important safety pointers, improve their technique on the steeps (as a snowboarder I’m no help at all) and have fun charging about the mountain with other good skiers their own age.
Due to a quirk of our arrival time, the boys are the only two in the class on the first day. So I ask to join them and their ski teacher, Julie Peytavin—in part, this is so I can find out more about the programme, and report on it. But I also want to tag along so I can ride the secret powder stashes which Julie has promised to find them. It’s the start of the Easter holidays, but the Tarentaise region has been blessed with a metre and a half of fresh snow a few days before we arrive, and the sun is shining.
In safe hands
Julie has been teaching with Oxygène for the last 10 years—save the two winters she spent working as a ski patroller in Banff—and right away it’s clear we couldn’t be in better hands. In her excellent English, she constantly imparts knowledge to the boys—she starts the day by talking through their safety backpacks, which include a shovel, probe, and avalanche airbag—but acts more like a fun, responsible older friend than a formal teacher. This makes a welcome contrast from some of the stricter ESF instructors they’ve had over the years.
She takes us on a quick warm up run to check we’re all good enough to ride off-piste. The boys try, and fail, to keep up with Julie, which I can tell impresses them. She then takes us to one of the ski patrol huts to read the day’s avalanche bulletin, explaining that despite the recent snowfall, the snowpack has stabilised well, so the avalanche warning for the day is only two out of five. However, she points to certain slopes on the map we’ll need to avoid due to potentially dangerous wind-loading.
“Instead of their usual ironic detachment, they’re grinning from ear to ear”
After a quick transceiver check, we’re off. The boys have been lucky enough to ski most years of their life, but they haven’t had many powder days, so I can see they’re a bit tentative as we follow Julie on a long traverse and then cut down through a field of lovely deep fresh snow. By the bottom, however, they’re both nailing it, helped by Julie’s tips to move their skis closer together and keep their weight centred. Instead of their usual ironic detachment, they’re actually grinning from ear to ear.
We do a fast fun route through the trees, and then another on the front face before catching the swish, new Roche de Mio lift, opened at the start of the 2025-26 season. From the top, Julie shows the boys some runs off the legendary North Face of the Bellecôte, which she says they’ll be able to do one day, when they have more off-piste experience. It’s a future I can sense they’re impatient for.
On one of the gondola rides, Julie pulls out her avalanche textbook and shows the boys the slope angles which are most prone to avalanche: over 30 degrees. She also warns them never to duck under ropes, or follow tracks on a route they don’t know. It’s advice that seems obvious to me now—but I don’t know if I would have known it when I was younger.
For our last off-piste run, Julie shows us how to set up our ABS backpacks, attaching the cord through our legs and preparing the pull strap at the top. We drop into the face one at a time, as per her instruction, and don’t stop until we’re out of any potential avalanche path. When it’s my turn to go, my heart is thumping even though I know from the bulletin, and Julie’s shared observations, that the risk of any major slide is low. If the boys are feeling the same, they don’t show it—they just look stoked.
Mindset matters
Later, Julie tells me that the most important thing she wants to share with her young charges is a mindset. “You want to help them develop an understanding of the mountains where they can read the terrain and learn to make safe decisions,” she says. The following day six more teenagers join the group, including 14-year-old Sam Holmes and his friends Sydney, also 14, and Wilbur, who is 12. Sam has done ‘Pro Rider’ a few times, and as we share a chairlift overlooking a challenging off-piste run, I ask his mum Lyn what she likes most about it. She points downwards and says: “Because we’ll never be able to take him down stuff like that, and I don’t want to break my bones trying!”
Lyn explains that her family has been coming to La Plagne for 20 years—it’s superb for young families, she explains, but also has plenty of challenging terrain to keep older kids occupied. She chose Oxygène as the instructors all speak great English and seem like a good laugh. Lyn relays a story of a student who was being too cocky in a lesson so one of the teachers picked him up and dumped him headfirst in a pile of fresh snow—to everyone’s amusement, including the boy himself. She says the groups are also a good way for solo teens to meet other kids.
The cloud has come in, so Julie and the group spend most of their morning in the forest developing their tree run technique. I also spy them doing a few weight transfer drills on the piste and practising with transceivers in the snow. As we ride together in the afternoon, their skiing definitely looks tidier and more assured—especially in the choppy tracked-out snow we find next to the piste.
As a parent trying to raise feminist boys in the age of the manosphere, I liked that they got to spend time with someone like Julie—a friendly, shit-hot skier who, once the season finished, would ski down Mont Blanc, according to my eldest, who saw it on her Instagram. It’s not that the boys’ regular feed is necessarily toxic, but it’s mostly just funny men and footballers, and somewhat lacking in positive female role models. I’m sure meeting and spending time with Julie will have provided a welcome corrective.
For her part, Julie told me: “Introducing teens to powder, sharing the safety basics with them, and watching their confidence grow is what I love to do.” When it comes to mountain safety, they’ve clearly learnt a lot. The danger is, of course, that they still don’t know what they don’t know. On our last day, I tell the eldest if he does do a season, he’ll have to do an avalanche safety course in resort first. “Has this not been it?” he asked. No boy, this is just the start.
Snow how
Our trip
Sam and her boys’ trip was supported by La Plagne’s Office du Tourisme.
Where to stay
La Plagne’s 11 different villages each have their own vibe, and offer a vast range of different accommodation options to suit every budget and group size. We stayed at the teen-friendly PopAlp Hotel in Plagne Centre, where rooms with three single beds start from £337 per night.
Guides & courses
The ‘Pro Rider’ programme with Oxygène La Plagne starts at £393 for five days. The ski school also offers other courses and classes for all ability levels—from complete beginner to seasoned powderhounds.
