Right place, white time

Make the most of this winter with a multi-centre skiing holiday – where everyone can get a piste of the action

Canada

AS THE day of departure looms, skiers experience angst unknown to most other travellers. Excitement at the prospect of those first uncertain turns is clouded by doubts. Will there be powder snow? Will the resort live up to expectations?

Time and money are precious. Picking the right place is crucial, particularly if you have only one opportunity for a winter trip to the mountains. The last thing you want is to be frustrated by bland skiing or deterred by slopes that are too frightening. One way to lengthen the odds against disappointment is a tasting menu – hiring a car and taking in several resorts on the same trip. To test the theory, try Canada.

Kicking Horse beckoned. We were aware of its reputation for fearsome steepness, so would it prove too much for my wife, who these days prefers cruising on less-demanding slopes? Jasper (Marmot Basin) looked intriguing, but was an unknown quantity. And while we had skied Sun Peaks, Big White and Silver Star briefly in the past, we were unsure whether, individually, they would sustain us for a week.

The answer was to ski them all in two separate itineraries and in consecutive winters. Fears that Kicking Horse might prove too daunting or Marmot Basin too limited were allayed by combining them with Banff and Lake Louise, which offer plenty of challenges plus acres of gentler skiing. Concern about the other three resorts was overcome by splitting a two-week holiday between them.

Kicking Horse has some of the most exciting skiing I have experienced. Its runs, on average, are among the steepest you will encounter. Several times, as we completed runs classified blue for intermediate, we shook our heads in wonder that they were not marked with a black diamond, signifying advanced. That said, mastering them does wonders for the confidence. One visitor from Edinburgh confessed that when she had arrived she was as timid as a gazelle. A week into her holiday, she was skiing with all that animal's grace and the courage of a lioness too.

Starting the trip in Banff and Lake Louise had at least enabled us to get our ski legs. But we had other reasons to be grateful that we had elected to stop off here. This will be only the eighth season since the opening of a huge new gondola lift transformed Kicking Horse from a modest ski hill serving the small railway town of Golden, and the choice of places to eat there is limited. There are probably more in the Banff Springs hotel alone.

We put up at the Banff Springs and at Château Lake Louise, both built to attract sightseers to the Canadian Pacific Railway and patronised by guests royal, rich and famous. The former, particularly enormous and rambling, is full of Scottish baronial pretensions. It has so many eateries that you don't need to look elsewhere, with the choice of everything from sushi to schnitzel.

Our final stop was Marmot Basin across the glacier-flanked Icefields Parkway. Though its slopes are best avoided on Saturdays, when hordes pour in from Edmonton, it is among the most remote and stunning areas anywhere. Its trails are frustratingly short, but closer acquaintance reveals that this is not such a drawback, even for accomplished skiers and snowboarders, as there are lovely routes through the trees.

The second itinerary began in Sun Peaks, domain of Canada's ski idol Nancy Greene, who won gold and silver at the Grenoble Winter Olympics 40 years ago. "How do you get to ski with an Olympic champion?" asked a fellow visitor in awe. Truth is, anyone can, because Greene, though in her 60s, still regularly skis here in the afternoons with guests who care to join her.

Greene, who has promoted the resort since its inception, proudly shows us the latest addition to its terrain on Mount Morrisey, which is reached by a new chairlift. Stretched out in front of us is the treeless Crystal Bowl, with it wide-open spaces and superb snow.

Like Big White and Silver Star, Sun Peaks is a compact, easily negotiable and attractive development, whose main accommodation is only a few yards from the slopes. It has a good range of eateries, of which the best is the Austrian-style Servus.

From there, it is a drive of about three and a half hours to Big White, in the Okanagan Valley. Big White's predominant characteristic is the snow ghosts on its exposed upper slopes – fir trees shrouded in frozen snow that have been sculpted by the wind into weird, fantastical figures. On clear days, you can ski between them before heading down long, exhilarating black runs to lunch at Westridge or ducking into glades and weaving through forest. To find these glades, it is worth joining a free tour led by one of the resort's volunteer hosts. Skiing through them in fresh snow is pure joy.

Silver Star is modelled to resemble a Victorian mining town, though nothing was mined there. Of the three resorts on this itinerary, it probably offers the widest spectrum of slopes – from easy to daunting. For the former, ride the Comet Six-Pack Express lift to access broad, gentle, cruising trails. For the latter, make for Putnam Creek, whose single-black-diamond runs provide a stiff work out and whose double blacks demand something close to a leap of faith. In between, there is the recently opened, mostly intermediate Silver Woods area. When it came to dinner, the restaurant that impressed us most was the Silver Grill.

The conclusion drawn from these wanderings is that a good skier should have no qualms about booking a week at each of these resorts, with the exception, perhaps, of Marmot Basin, which is best combined with, say, Lake Louise. But then, you could conduct the same experiment and make up your own mind.

Roger Bray

Serre Chevalier, France

AN ENTIRELY unscientific straw poll among my skiing friends has revealed that none has ever heard of Serre Chevalier, France's fifth-biggest ski area. Having visited there this time last year, I know that the loss is all theirs.

There's much to like about this super-Gallic ski area, which is just a few miles from the Italian border. For a start, it's within easy reach of both Grenoble and Turin, which are both served by budget airlines from Scotland (Ryanair flies to Grenoble from Prestwick from £20 return for much of January). There's also a railway station in the main town, Briancon, with direct TGV trains and sleepers from Paris.

The valley also has some great skiing: 250kms of pistes, with a drop from 2,760m to 1,200m, a sunshine record that beats just about anywhere else in the Alps and some of the best tree-skiing in Europe. There are 66 lifts, including three cable-cars and six gondolas. It even has one of the few schools in the world that will teach you paraponting, where you are attached to a huge kite and dragged along at dizzying speeds, slowed only by your aerial acrobatics (or at least that's the theory – my reality was entirely different).

Based around the ancient southern-alpine town of Briancon and the pretty outlying villages of Chantemerle, Villeneuve and Monetier-les-Bains, Serre Chevalier's strength is its diversity. If you're young and want a lively nightlife, then Briancon has clubs and pubs aplenty; if you are a family and want to savour the local baths (one of the area's specialities) and go for a quiet walk in a twee village square before enjoying an authentically French meal, then any of the other villages will fit the bill.

One thing to bear in mind about Serre Chevalier is that it is very French: in our three-day visit we didn't hear any other Brits, either on or off the slopes. So if drink-fuelled Caledonian hedonism is your style, this may not be the holiday for you.

But the fact that this is an area traditionally used almost exclusively by the French does bring lots of benefits. The most obvious is that France's new 35-hour week means few local families can afford to go skiing, so there are lots of bargains to be had in Serre Chevalier.

Even more importantly, the food in the area is spectacular. Whether you want the traditional alpine fare of tartiflette and raclette, or if you want to go upmarket and are in search of a huge plate of foie gras, there are no end of mouth-watering options. We ate at two traditional French fine-dining restaurants – Le Loup Blanc, in Chantemerle, and the Restaurant le Chazal, at the Hameaux des Guibertes – and both were sensational.

Richard Bath

Big Sky, Montana, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, USA

I HAVE been lucky enough to ski with virtually every one of the handful of full-time British ski journalists, and when it comes to skiing in the US there's a firm consensus: Jackson Hole, in Wyoming, is the best America has to offer. With the finest back-country skiing in the country, 70% of runs being designated 'expert only' and the fabled Corbet's Couloir, Jackson is the self-styled skier's mountain.

Unfortunately, Jackson Hole is even more difficult to get to than most other top mountains Stateside. There's no easy way to get there from Scotland, although my route via London and Dallas worked very well. Even so, America is a long way to go for a week, especially as many people lose a day to jetlag, so I decided on a ten-day, two-centre trip.

I'd always wanted to visit Jackson Hole, but three hours further north across the Yellowstone National Park, another resort is making a name for itself. With 150 runs over 5,000 acres, Big Sky, in Montana, is the largest ski area in America. It was known as an intermediates' mountain until the opening of the Lone Peak Tram in 1995 opened up the Big Couloir and gave access to some of the country's most formidable in-bounds skiing – plus a vertical drop of 4,350ft from a peak of 9,980ft, putting it in the same league as Jackson and Whistler.

The two resorts have much in common. Both are for intermediate and expert skiers – although Jackson Hole's terrain is more relentlessly challenging, its reputation drawing top-class skiers from far and wide, while Big Sky is popular with families. Both resorts have over 400 inches of snow per year and are vistas of empty pistes.

Yet there are also some crucial differences, and the biggest is ambience. Big Sky is a manufactured village, built around the ski resort in the 1970s. And while the ski-in, ski-out hotels are fine, and there are some very good restaurants in the hotels and in the valley, the base area where Scots would normally expect to indulge in some alcohol-based après-ski activities is a grim concrete monstrosity to rival Flaine in a bad year. There is an extensive £265m building programme in the pipeline to remedy this shortcoming, but until that's finished – in a couple of years' time – four or five days here is perfect.

By contrast, while Jackson's excellent slopeside accommodation and Mangy Moose bar puts Big Sky to shame. The place's real charm is that it is built near an old mining town that has cheap hotels, great restaurants and exceptional nightlife. You can still see ranchers striding around town in Stetsons and cowboy boots, while the relaxed vibe is summed up by the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, rightly revered as one of skiing's most famous drinking holes.

If you want to squeeze as much as possible into ten days in America, you can fly to Jackson and spend four or five days there before driving to Big Sky (you could break your journey at Grand Targhee en route) and, after another few days in Montana, fly out of nearby Boseman airport. You're packing in a lot, but what a trip.

Richard Bath

FACTFILE: Canada

Edinburgh-based Ski Independence (0845 310 3030, www.ski-i.com) can organise a custom-made itinerary that includes flights from Heathrow to Calgary or Vancouver, connecting domestic flights and a hire car. Prices for a fortnight split between Banff, Lake Louise, Kicking Horse and Jasper, including accommodation, start at £1,907.

A similar holiday split between Big White, Silver Star and Sun Peaks costs from £1,674.

FACTFILE: USA

Edinburgh-based Ski Independence (0845 310 3030, www.ski-i.com) has a ten-night itinerary that includes five nights in Jackson Hole and five nights in Big Sky from £1,523 per person, flights from Scotland with British Airways and 4x4 hire for the duration.

FACTFILE: France

Erna Low prices start from £53 each a week, based on seven people sharing a chalet at Les Chalets de Jardin Alpin (0845 863 0525, www.ernalow.co.uk). Ski Independence (0845 310 3030, www.ski-i.com) is offering seven nights in the four-star Le Hameau du Roc Blanc from £86 per person. For more details, visit www.serre-chevalier.com.