Europe's ski resorts are about to open, so if you're keen to hit the slopes, this is the time to book. So which resort should you pick, where's the best snow, how can you go independently and where can you take lessons and get the right gear? KILLIAN FORDEhas the answers
What to expect
You’ll have to look hard to find rock-bottom deals this year. Even though last season saw the greatest snow in 30 years, it was a tough time for tour operators and airlines, as the recession drove numbers down by a third. They have responded by cutting capacity this year, meaning fewer bargains. But don’t despair: there is still plenty of good value around.
Where to go
AustriaHome of spacious accommodation, raucous but not wild nightlife, wholesome, tasty food and large ski areas with fast lifts, Austria remains the firm favourite for Irish skiers and boarders, accounting for a third of the market in Ireland. Zell am See and Soll are good family destinations; St Anton and Kitzbühel appeal to the more experienced. Topflight (topflight.ie) has the best range of Austrian resorts, with 18 choices this season, including Soll from €499 in snow-sure January.
SwitzerlandCrystal has the largest choice for fans of Swiss skiing. Our recommendation is Grindelwald, a chocolate-box town with great skiing laid against the stunning backdrop of the infamous Eiger mountain. Switzerland has traditionally been perceived as obscenely expensive – but it's not. It competes easily in price with the popular French resorts. Half-board hotel deals in Wengen with Crystal (crystalski.ie) come in under €600.
ItalyAside from cold and bleak Livigno, where tens of thousands of Irish skiers learned their first turns, most Irish skiers skip Italy. Big mistake: the country has charming, good-value resorts. The Dolomite destinations and the villages of the Monte Rosa region remain authentically Italian and are well worth sampling. Bormio, a venue for the Ski World Cup, is a well-positioned spa town with good intermediate skiing. Directski (directski.com) has deals from €689 for a week at the four-star Hotel Residence Cristallo.
FranceFrance is in real danger of pricing itself out of the Irish market – €25 for a bland burger lunch is not uncommon, and a night in the pub will leave a nasty hole in your holiday pocket. The resorts of Three Valleys, Val d'Isère and Alpe d'Huez have some of the world's biggest lift systems, but high staff turnover, micro-sized accommodation and appalling architecture lend a factory feel to the ski experience. You could avoid this by booking through Highlife (highlife.ie), whose loyal customers come back for its good-value and well-managed all-inclusive chalets in Méribel and Val d'Isère. Its first-week deals, from December 13th, start at €485 for Chalet Élodie, in the Three Valleys.
AndorraThe price was for years the main reason why anyone went to Andorra. The good news is that it has solved most of its infrastructure problems; the bad news is that its prices are no longer budget. Coupled with poorer snow, Andorra has become a less attractive destination – although Directski has some well-priced holidays. Our recommendation is Pas de la Casa for snow sureness, sunshine and vibrant nightlife. A week self-catering starts at €409.
BulgariaBulgaria remains the budget choice for many new skiers. It's perfect for learning, for college groups and for bigger families on a budget. The expanding resort of Bansko is Bulgaria's best. Directski, Topflight and Panorama (panorama holidays.ie) feature it from €333.
SlovakiaTwenty years after the collapse of their countries' economies, the resorts of eastern Europe continue to modernise at a glacial pace. Although they have decent slopes, reliable snow and stunning scenery, Poland, Romania and Macedonia still suffer from painfully slow lifts, small ski areas and poor accommodation. But Slovakian resorts have quietly been attracting investment over the past few years and are now well positioned to compete for the budget market. Taking the plunge, Inghams (inghams.ie) has added Jasna and Tatranska Lomnica, in the Tatra Mountains, to its range. It has a week at the three-star Villa Siesta hotel from €508.
Going independently
Aer Lingus (aerlingus.com), Ryanair (ryanair.com) and easyJet (easyjet.com) fly from Ireland to more than a dozen airports within easy reach of the mountains. Although the airlines have pared back their ski-destination timetables, it’s still good value to fly with Ryanair to Grenoble, for the French Alps, and Gerona, for the Dolomite resorts. EasyJet has five flights a week from Belfast to Geneva; a return can cost less than €100 in mid January.
Beware of extra charges for ski equipment. If you bring skis and boots, Ryanair will class them as one piece of sports equipment and charge you an extra €40 each way. If you’re bringing only boots, pay to check in an extra bag, for €30 return, rather than pay the more expensive sports-equipment charge of €80 return.
You should be able to find inexpensive accommodation through a resort’s tourist-office website or by Googling a hotel that you see in a tour brochure.
Most of the major Alpine airports – Turin, Geneva, Milan, Munich and Salzburg – have coaches to nearby resorts. The airport websites have details.
You can book ski equipment through ski-republic.com for French resorts and intersport rent.com for France, Austria and Switzerland.
Finding snow
A rule of thumb is that Alpine destinations above 1,200m are under snow from mid December until mid March. Either side of those dates, the lower you descend the greater the chance that artificial snow or closed pistes will greet you.
Lower-lying resorts have continued to install snow cannons on their lower slopes; they are unsightly but should go some way towards avoiding any repetition of the bare slopes of the early 1990s.
Although Austrian resorts are quite low, most of their pistes cover grass, so they require much less snow to be skiable than a rocky plateau high in the French Alps.
See snoweye.com for coverage from more than 4,000 resort webcams, and see skiclub.co.uk for snow depths.
Learn before you go
The first few days on the slopes can be incredibly frustrating for novices: you spend a lot of time standing around, then typically end your bursts of activity face down. The frustration is even worse if you travel with a group of varying abilities.
Thankfully, there are three ways to learn to ski before you leave Ireland. The Ski Club of Ireland’s facility in Kilternan, in south Co Dublin (skiclub.ie), and Craigavon Borough Council’s ski facility, in Co Armagh (craigavon.gov.uk/ leisure/ski.asp), are well-run dry slopes that offer beginner modules, typically over four sessions. Ski Centre (skicentre.ie), a new indoor facility in Sandyford, Co Dublin, houses two rolling ski slopes that can be set to suit learners, with the advantage of the instructor being able to give feedback as you ski. A package of four lessons costs €178 (or €100 at Kilternan).
Clothes and boots
Browns, blacks and tans are out, funky oranges and greens are in. Look like an overdressed 1980s disco king on the slopes and you’ll have captured the fashion zeitgeist, apparently. Happily, the fad for pinstriped jacket and pants has passed – and lurid patterns that seem to have been designed on a Commodore 64 emerge. More disconcerting is that the dreaded all-in-one jumpsuit is poised for a retro return. The look is still loose and baggy, however, with the merger of snowboard and ski fashion accelerating.
You can buy a reliable waterproof jacket and pants for less than €200 in the likes of Arnotts (buy4now.ie/arnotts store), TK Maxx (tkmaxx.com) and regional outdoor shops such as Matthews of Cork (matthewsofcork.com). Labels such as Trespass (trespass.ie), Dare2Be (dare2b.com) and Columbia (columbia.com) will keep you dry and warm.
Snow + Rock (snowandrock.com), Great Outdoors (great outdoors.ie), 53 Degrees North (53degreesnorth.ie) and Onboard (onboard.ie) stock more expensive and fashionable clobber from Spyder (spyder.com), Salomon (salomon.com) and Burton (burton.com), with prices ranging from €200 to €650 for a good jacket.
If you plan to ski at least once a season, a good pair of boots is essential. Properly fitted, they will vastly improve your skill, and owning boots removes the annual horror of fumbling around on the first morning of your holiday, trying to get a decent pair in a rental shop that just wants to swipe your credit card and get you out.
Salomon leads the way in boot development. Previously only for expert skiers, its heat-mouldable custom shells are now available in beginner and intermediate models.
Neil Smith of Great Outdoors is a qualified bootfitter who knows everything that needs to be known about soles, toes and arches; take his advice.
Off the piste
We’re increasingly looking for other activities to cram into our week away. One of the most exhilarating off-slope activities is to hitch a ride in a bobsleigh. Lillehammer, in Norway, La Plagne, in France, Innsbruck, in Austria, and Turin, in Italy, have all opened their tracks to the public. Expect to pay between €30 and €85 for a ride with an experienced pilot. Bookings are advised, so talk to your resort rep or the local tourist office.
A somewhat more sedate, tranquil and green activity is snowshoeing. Guided into the hidden parts of a mountain region, you’ll see wildlife, peaks and valleys inaccessible to boarders and skiers. You can hire snowshoes from resort rental shops – which can also suggest a guide – for less than €15 a day.
Where to look for snow gear
Dublin
Great OutdoorsChatham Street, Dublin 2,01-6794293, greatoutdoors.ie. Higher-end outdoor specialist whose range of clothing includes some of the best from the North Face and Salomon.
53 Degrees NorthThe Park, Carrickmines, Dublin 18, and Blanchardstown Shopping Centre, Dublin 15, 01-2149352, 01-8249156, 53degreesnorth.ie. Practical designer gear if you like to kit yourself out in the latest outdoor fabrics.
Snow + RockDundrum Town Centre, Dublin 14, 01-2924700,snowandrock. com. Well-designed superstore that lends itself to easy browsing.
Onboard Creation Arcade, Duke Lane, Dublin 2, 01-6728767, onboard.ie. An Aladdin's cave of the wonderful and weird, with the funkiest labels, styles and colours. Trend-conscious skiers and boarders flock here.
Pamela Scott ski storeSouth William Street, Dublin 2, 01-6796655, pamelascott.ie. Open from November to March for mid-range jackets, pants and accessories. Its end-of-season sale can unearth real bargains.
Outdoor Adventure StoreUpper Liffey Street, Dublin 1, and MacCurtain Street, Cork, 01-8725177, 021-4504389, outdooradventurestore.ie. Smart mix of trendy and good-value snow-suitable outerwear. Worth a look for the fashion- and budget-anxious.
Cork
Matthews of CorkLavitt's Quay, 021-4277633,matthews ofcork.com. Specialist sports store that caters for both budget and top-end customers. Labels include Oakley and Animal.
Belfast
Macski 140Lisburn Road, 048-90665525, macski.com. Online specialist with an impressive range of products and labels made more competitive with the weakness of sterling.
Chains
Tog 24Kildare Village and Bridgewater Park, Banbridge, Co Down, 045-535903, 00-44- 845-3891873, tog24.com. Full range of sober outer and under snow-wear at prices suitable for once-a-year trippers.
TK Maxxtkmaxx.com. Good-value gems from designer labels, such as O'Neills and Quiksilver, if you rummage.
Lidllidl.ie. Functional and practical low-cost clothes ideal for big families and first-timers. In stock only occasionally.
Keep an eye on our weekly ski column, which starts in December, for details of festivals, other events and off-piste activities