- - Childhood Adventure, Triumph and Tragedy: Inside the Royal Family's Winter Ski Vacations

Simon PerryJanuary 1, 2026 at 5:15 PM

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Princess Kate and Prince William with Prince George and Princess Charlotte in Courcheval, France in March 2016 -

Royal minds traditionally switch to skiing once the holidays are behind them

Skiing is as associated with royals as polo and horse racing

Prince William and Kate Middleton are keeping up a tradition of taking their children skiing, immersing them in the sport from an early age

With Christmas in the rear-view mirror, the thoughts of the royals traditionally turn to their favorite winter sport: skiing.

Throughout their childhood, Prince William and Prince Harry would be taken by their father, King Charles, to their favorite resort in the Swiss Alps, Klosters, for several days of sport.

It was a tradition that the then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana encouraged their sons from an early age. Charles had been introduced to Klosters by his friend Patty Palmer-Tomkinson, and he became so enamored with the resort that he would take himself off into the mountains to capture it with his watercolors. (Indeed, Charles first visited with his then-girlfriend Lady Sarah Spencer, the older sister of his eventual bride, Diana.)

Princess Diana, meanwhile, was an ace skier, as she worked as a maid in the Alps when she was a teen. She “was incredibly good at it,” her former bodyguard Ken Wharfe has said of her prowess on the slopes.

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Prince Harry, Princess Eugenie, Princess Beatrice and Prince William in Klosters, Switzerland in Jan. 1995

Their sons continued skiing into their adult lives, and William and Kate Middleton have taken their children to the Alps a number of times, including in spring 2025, a vacation that made headlines when the couple successfully took legal action against French magazine Paris Match over the use of photographs of the family during their break.

In 2016, the couple did release an image of themselves with a young Prince George, now 12, and Princess Charlotte, now 10, on what was thought to be their first ski vacation as a foursome.

In the days of Charles’ marriage to Diana and in the years afterward, there was an agreement with most of the press that a photocall would take place in exchange for them being left alone for the rest of their vacation, and it would become a regular stop-off for the traveling royal reporters.

In January 1995, the photographers had a bonus: William and Harry posed for a picture with their cousins Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, who were in the resort with their parents, the former Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.

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The then Prince Charles and Princess Diana in Klosters, Switzerland in February 1986

It wasn’t long before both Prince William and Prince Harry were impressing with their grasp of the sport — or certainly their daring.

Harry “just wanted to go fast, so he skied solo down a mountain and ended up in some mud and flowers,” Wharfe has described some of the younger prince’s adventures. “We had to go and dig him out!”

As night fell over the resort in the years, the princes relaxed in one of the few bars, their protection officers keeping an eye from a few yards away. One such night in March 2005, Kate joined William and his group of friends as they were all in the resort celebrating what was dubbed as Charles’ bachelor vacation ahead of his marriage the following month to Camilla.

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Prince Harry in Klosters, Switzerland in Feb. 1994

Being away in the mountains hasn’t always been associated with happy times. In March 1988, when Diana was on holiday with Charles and a pregnant Sarah, she learned that Charles had been involved in a skiing accident.

An avalanche had caught some of Charles' party as they skied off piste, and his friend Major Hugh Lindsay, a former equerry to Queen Elizabeth, was tragically killed. Palmer-Tomkinson was seriously injured and was reportedly only saved by the swift actions of guide Bruno Sprecher.

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Prince William and Prince Harry, with their late mother Princess Diana, and nanny Olga Powell in Lech, Austria in Mar. 1993

In March 2002, when Charles and his sons were in Klosters, they received news that his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, had died at the age of 101. He and the princes rushed back to the U.K. to be with the family.

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The then Prince Charles painting with watercolors in Klosters, Switzerland in 1994

Further family heartbreak happened in March 1992 when Charles and Diana were away in Lech, Austria, and the princess was told that her father, Lord John Spence,r had died following a heart attack.

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