Four Great Winter Getaways

Four options to get you thinking snow.

A cold weather getaway is the antidote for the winter blahs. And if you don’t get much snow at home, choosing a destination that’s bathed in white gives the whole family the chance to learn winter sports like skiing, snowshoeing, ice skating and snowboarding.

Tucked into the snowy embrace of the Colorado Rockies, Beaver Creek offers the ultimate in a family ski vacation. Although just a few miles from the nearby town of Avon (a good place to provision if you’re in one of the swank mountain-view condos), the village feels like a secluded storybook kingdom, with a level of service and comfortable luxury that is easy to get used to. Kids are treated like royalty, with free activities six nights a week, from a family snowshoe tour to cocoa and cookies, disco ice skating and more. Don’t miss a Snowcat –powered sleigh ride up the moonlit mountain for dinner at Beano’s Cabin, a decadent prix fixe indulgence that pampers mom and dad with refined frontier cuisine and offers kids a yummy menu of their own (can you say mac and cheese?)  Plenty of groomed trails for all levels of expertise await, along with the fun of skiing village-to-village from Beaver Creek to Bachelor Gulch to Arrowhead.  Add in plenty of good restaurants, both casual and upscale, boutiques and art galleries in a Swiss mountain village setting and an award winning ski school for kids, and Beaver Creek is tough to top. Not into downhill? No problem. Beaver Creek’s McCoy Park is an enormous Nordic playground with 20 miles of winding trails perfect for exploring by snowshoe and cross-country skis.

(800) 608-4849, www.beavercreek.com

Helen and Jim Palmquist have been welcoming families to their country farmhouse for more than 30 years, with cross-country skiing and snow shoeing a main attraction in the winter. Stay in one of the fully equipped cottages, complete with wood-burning fireplaces, and enjoy the authentic wood-burning sauna–great for soothing après-ski muscles. Meals are served family style in the kitchen or main lodge. Kids love the farm dog, Otis, and all the cats, bunnies, chickens, and the Belgian team of draft horses that pull the horse-drawn sleigh. Trails start right at the farm, with rentals for children’s skis and snowshoes available. A sledding hill and skating pond adds to the fun.

800-519-2558, www.palmquistfarm.com

Kids are VIPs at this grand mountain hotel, a destination for vacationing families since 1879. The largest ski trail system in the Northeast is right outside the hotel’s front doors and downhill skiing and boarding is offered at several nearby mountains. The resort partners with Jackson Ski Touring Foundation, which offers junior lessons, rental skis and snowshoes. Kids ski free through 9 years old, with junior skiers ages (10-15) half-off of the adult rate. Other options include snow tubing, snow shoeing, ice climbing, snowmobiling, sleigh rides and a weekly ranger-led nature hike.

800-966-5779, www.eaglemt.com

Getting into Yellowstone in the winter is part of the adventure. Two of the park’s nine lodges are open, but only the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel near the north entrance is accessible by car. At Old Faithful Snow Lodge and Cabins, approach is by snowmobile or snowcoach—a pretty cool experience for kids (and adults)! Kids activities include skiing, snowshoeing and ice-skating. There are ski trails near the lodges, and families can arrange “ski drops”—snowcoaches take them to the trailhead and return to pick them up at an appointed time. As an added bonus, winter is prime wildlife viewing season. Check out the Lodging & Learning packages on the website, multi-day excursions led by naturalists via snowcoach, cross-country skis and snowshoe.

866-GEYSERLAND (866-439-7375), www.TravelYellowstone.com.