The crowded week.

A movable peak, not a date.

Most winter planning problems in China are about weather. This one is about people. The Spring Festival holiday is the country's largest annual movement of travellers, and because it follows the lunar calendar its dates shift against the ski season from year to year. In some winters it lands in the cold core of January or February when every region is open; in others it falls later, when the ice city is already thinking about closing. We do not publish a fixed date on this plate: we check the announced public holiday for the winter you are travelling in and then look at what it does to the region you have chosen.

The effect is not uniform. Chongli, an hour from Beijing by high-speed rail, absorbs a large weekend and holiday crowd from the capital. Harbin fills with visitors to the ice city. The Altai is far enough away that the pressure is more about flight seats and a small pool of rooms in Hemu than about lift queues. A private journey can be built for the holiday week, but it should be built deliberately — with the beds, instructors, transfers and restaurant times reserved before the rush, not after.

For anyone with flexible dates, the simplest answer is often the best one: travel in the quiet fortnight before or after. The snow does not disappear, the cold is usually no worse, and the same itinerary runs with more room in it. Where the holiday is the point — a family travelling on school breaks, or a group that wants the lanterns and the winter atmosphere — we say so at the outset and plan for the crowds rather than pretending they are not there.