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The obscure Norwegian ski resort your family should visit this winter

Most British skiers and snowboarders won't have heard of Norefjell - Ole Christian Klamas
Most British skiers and snowboarders won't have heard of Norefjell - Ole Christian Klamas

Demonstrating a technical skill that would put less agile parents to shame, the man was riding a drag-lift with two children – one between his legs, the other sharing the bar – and he made it look effortless.

Judging by the language he spoke he was from Norway, a nation so in tune with skiing that its citizens are practically delivered from womb to piste, as made abundantly clear in the recent Winter Olympics in PyeongChang when the country topped the medal table, racking up 39.

The other giveaway? I was in the Norwegian resort of Norefjell (pronounced Nora-Fee-Yell), just 90 minutes’ drive from the capital, Oslo. Less skilled than our Norwegian counterpart,

I was riding the drag-lift with my eight-year-old daughter Zoe, and my wife Vere was behind with five-year old Holly. It was day three of a week-long family holiday and we were well into the swing of riding drags – just as well, as they make up 10 of the 13 lifts in the resort. Along with Norefjell’s three chair lifts, they access a modest 23km of mostly beginner and intermediate runs.

Extent of terrain, however, is not why you ski in Norefjell. I wanted to avoid the crowded pistes so common in half-term week. While steadily growing in popularity, Norway is off the radar for most Brits, who are still primarily fixated on France and Austria.

Savvy skiers and snowboarders might be able to name a handful of Norwegian resorts – Hemsedal, Geilo and Trysil are likely candidates – but I bet few have heard of Norefjell. It’s hardly surprising, as it didn’t feature in any UK tour operator programmes until 2017/18, when it was introduced by Ski Safari.

druce family
Th Druce family trade their traditional family holiday in the Alps for a new destination

We reached the top of the lift, miraculously, none of us having falling off during the five-minute ascent. My legs are like jelly and my brain weary from the concentrated focus of sharing a drag with someone half my height. The key is to lean in, not out – an instruction I’d repeated many times to my increasingly irritated daughter. “Yes, I know, Daddy,” she said. Then why aren’t you doing it, I think.

At the the summit, the highest point in the ski area at 1,188m, we drank in the impressive views of the Scandes range – more hill-esque than mountain like – think Peak District rolling glory rather than jagged Alpine splendour. Directly below us stretched a wide open expanse of terrain, coated in a 15cm blanket of fresh snow that had conveniently fallen overnight, and now shimmered invitingly in the sunshine. There were tracks down off the side of the pisted blue run (imaginatively titled 22) but the area was easily big enough to find untouched sections.

The gentle gradient meant Zoe and Holly were easily capable of skiing the off-piste terrain and they whooped with delight as they made turns in the soft, forgiving snow. They overtly expressed the joy both my wife and I also felt, but showed in more discreet, Cheshire-cat grins, as we chaperoned them down the run. It was the first time we had skied off piste together and when we reached the end of the run, we high-fived each other to celebrate the achievement.

off piste
Family-friendly off piste

It’s here in Norefjell that the phrase, “Families that play together, stay together ” really began to resonate. So far the holiday had been quite hard work, and not just because most of the lifts were drags. We had signed up the kids for an hour and a half of ski school per day – the Norwegian standard – which only gave Vere and I the chance to ski three runs before taking charge of our offspring, who were with us for the rest of the day.

This was in marked contrast to previous family ski trips where we’d farmed our kids off to ski school for at least the mornings, and preferably (in my view, but not one completely shared by my wife) for afternoons, too. But when in Norway, and considering our kids had four weeks of skiing experience, we decided to take the same approach as the locals.

Their nominal morning group lessons, mostly with Swedish and Norwegian children but with instruction in impeccable English, were held on blue-run slopes a short slide away from our on-slope hotel. How were the lessons? I’ve no idea, as when asked they simply said, “Good,” using the universal sub-teen response to describe anything that wasn’t catastrophically bad.

Typically, we would then warm up on the two red runs, accessed by a couple of drags from our hotel, the Norefjell Ski & Spa. This is very soon to be complemented by a new chair starting near the base of the first drag, and ending near the top of the second. One of these gentle reds – they’d be classified as blues in other resorts – is home to an easy set of rollers, jumps and box slides, which my kids, and their parents, loved. It was difficult sometimes to motivate ourselves to leave and explore further.

This was always worth doing, though, as the meaty element of the resort’s slopes, and all five mountain restaurants, lay on the other side of the hill. So, after ascending the two long drags closest to our hotel we would scoot along number 25, a green run. When I say scoot, this would inevitably mean me intermittently pushing a child along a long flat stretch, while pulling another who was hanging on to the basket of one of my ski poles. It was like having a free gym workout.

Scoot done, we then had access to a plethora of red, blue and black runs on tree-lined slopes, ending on the shores of frozen Lake Krøderen. From summit to base there is over 1,000m of vertical, Norway’s biggest. The Drucelets’ all-time family favourite was blue run number 1, zig-zagging its way down the mountain. Zoe and Holly loved heading off to the sides on trails weaving through the trees. My impatient self became a little frustrated with how long these diversions took, especially as it was a refreshing -5ºC to -10ºC most of the time we were there.

My wife and I took turns chaperoning while the other explored the vertiginous black runs, most notably one used for the giant slalom and downhill courses at the 1952 Winter Olympics. I imagined racers from the past hurtling down the slope as I navigated a challenging mogul field and then made cappuccino turns on a stretch of untouched powder.

On another occasion I managed to leave the family behind and sneak a run with Geir Bottolfs from Norefjell’s sales and marketing department. This ex-pro freerider led me down a glorious off-piste route, where we weaved our way through well-spaced trees and bounced through thigh-deep powder. He told me that he’d been skiing this face all morning and had found fresh lines every time.  

Post-skiing, there were none of the kids’ club facilities or child-care services we’d so willingly made the most of on previous family trips to the Alps, but there was more than enough to keep us entertained as a family. My kids love swimming and so the hotel’s pool proved a predictable winner, as did the 16m-high climbing wall. The hotel also has an award-winning spa with outdoor pools and hot tubs, but we never found time to visit.

Winter Olympics run
Henry samples the Winter Olympic run

After dinner – an extensive buffet featuring everything from fresh fish to meatballs and calorie packed cakes – we’d play ping-pong, table football or a few rounds of the Drucelets’ much-loved card game, Uno. While playing for the umpteenth time one night, I thought we haven’t just survived a full-immersion family holiday, we’ve thrived.  

How to get there

Ski Safari offers half-board packages at the four-star hotel Norefjell Ski & Spa including return flights to Oslo and transfers to and from Norefjell. There’s still availability at the hotel this coming half term, costing from £1,330 per person for a family of four