Skiing Gudauri with children

Gudauri works for families because the distances are short and the easy terrain is genuinely easy: the gondola is a three and a half minute walk from the door, and an Altimera studio takes 2 adults and 2 children. What it does not have is a large indoor family complex, so a bad-weather day needs a plan.

That is the trade, stated up front. Below is what it looks like day to day.

Why does the mountain suit children?

The nursery areas near the base are gentle, and the progression from them is unusually kind. In a lot of resorts the step up from the beginners' slope to a real run is abrupt, and a child who was doing well suddenly finds themselves on something too steep. Gudauri has a great deal of wide, long, forgiving blue terrain to move onto, so confidence builds in stages rather than in one frightening jump.

The second thing is space. The skiing is in open bowls above the treeline rather than down narrow tree-lined corridors, so the runs are wide. A wobbling child has room, and so does everyone trying to get past them. There is a wide spread of groomed piste above a base at 2,200 metres, and a family will use a fraction of it, happily, for a week.

Ski school: book it before you arrive

Book lessons before you travel rather than on the first morning. Schools fill in the school holidays, and the first morning of a holiday is the worst possible time to be standing in a queue with cold children.

Two of the schools in our Gudauri directory run structured children's programmes, and both are worth reading before you choose:

• Ski Gudauri takes children into group lessons from age five, in groups of no more than six, organised by age and ability. It also rents equipment, including snow-wear, for all ages and abilities, and instruction is available in English and Russian among other languages
• Gudauri Ski and Snowboard School caps children's groups at four per instructor, offers half-day and full-day options, groups children by age and ability, and puts each child in a coloured vest so they are easy to identify on the slope. Its group lessons run at 9.30am and 1.30pm, two hours each, with a maximum of four students, in English, Georgian and Russian

Both are independent businesses. You book with them directly, and the price and the terms are between you and them; Altimera keeps the list current and can make an introduction, but is not an agent for any of them.

Two practical notes that hold whichever you choose:

• Morning lessons work better than afternoon ones. Children learn while they are fresh and while the snow is still firm
• Try not to ski with your children immediately after a lesson. Let the lesson be the lesson: parents undo instruction without meaning to

What does a family day actually look like?

What exhausts families is not the skiing, it is the logistics around the skiing. Here they are unusually short.

• 8.30. Breakfast in the apartment, because there is a full kitchen and nobody has to be dressed and downstairs for a hotel service window
• 9.10. Down to the first floor. Boots on in the ski depot, skis out of the locker. Nothing wet has been upstairs overnight
• 9.30. Three and a half minutes on foot to the gondola, and the lesson starts
• 12.30. Lunch back at the apartment, which is the part that changes everything: no queue, no bill, no getting four people into a restaurant booth in ski gear
• 2.00. The child who has had enough goes home with one adult while the rest of the group carries on. This is the single biggest advantage of a short walk
• 4.30. Everything is racked downstairs. Wet gloves go on the underfloor heating and the washing machine takes the base layers

None of that is remarkable on its own. Together it is the difference between a family week that works and a week of transport problems.

The apartment side

The studios are one-room apartments and the occupancy is set honestly: a studio takes 3 adults, or 2 adults and 2 children, and the fourth-floor apartment takes 4 adults, or 3 adults and 2 children. Children means under 16. A family of four is therefore in one room, which suits some families and does not suit others, and it is much better to know that now than on arrival.

What is in each of them matters more with children than without:

• A fully equipped kitchen with an electric stove and microwave, so breakfast, lunch and a fussy eater are all solvable without leaving the building
• A washing machine, which after two days of snow is not a luxury
• Underfloor heating, which dries gloves overnight and makes a bathroom floor survivable at seven in the morning
• A dedicated locker in the ski depot on the first floor, so four sets of equipment never come upstairs
• Self check-in, so a late arrival is never a problem. That matters more than it sounds: the drive from Tbilisi is about two and a half hours, and flights into Tbilisi frequently land at night

What is genuinely hard about it?

Gudauri is a mountain resort rather than a manufactured family resort. Three things are worth knowing before you book.

• Bad weather needs a plan. There is no large indoor play complex and a narrower choice of children's activities on a storm day than a big Alpine resort offers. This is the real argument for an apartment with a kitchen and somewhere comfortable to sit rather than a room you only sleep in
• The arrival is long. About two and a half hours from Tbilisi on the Georgian Military Highway, in winter, at the end of a flight. Plan a soft first day and do not book a lesson for the morning after you land
• Childcare is limited. Ski school covers the hours it covers, and there is not a broad nursery infrastructure behind it

Choosing your week, and booking it

February half-term is the obvious family window and, after New Year, the busiest fortnight of the season, so it needs booking early. If you have any flexibility at all, March gives you a deep base, longer daylight and noticeably warmer sun, which children appreciate considerably more than they appreciate powder.

One thing to know before you commit: the 30% deposit taken on booking is non-refundable. Book dates you are confident about rather than provisional ones.

In short

Short distances, gentle progression, wide runs, a locker downstairs and a kitchen upstairs. Book lessons before you travel, plan a soft first day, and bring twice as many gloves as seems reasonable.

See the collection for the floors and occupancy, or the winter page for the season. For the bag, what to pack for a week in Gudauri; for the journey, getting from Tbilisi to Gudauri in winter; and for the walk to the lift, what ski-in, ski-out really means in New Gudauri.