Like an eagle on the snow, was how Aimé Favre put it. Back curved and weight over the toes, as if about to fell prey. Arms, clad with invisible feathers, raised as inner wings. Ski poles, the metacarpus bones in ornithological terms, swept down and back. Hands, the joints between the two wing sections, thrust forward.

The trouble was, this eagle had landed in all the wrong places. If there was snow deep and heavy enough to lift my boots out of their bindings, I found it. If there was a concealed rock, I hit it. Clambering back up the bank of a stream down which I had slid inadvertently drained my energy. After two days of falling with monotonous regularity and - to mix metaphors - chickening out of a rocky traverse which any self-respecting raptor would have rejected as too easily accessible to humans, my confidence was shot.

Aimé needed to restore it before he could even think about improving my technique. There could not have been a better man for the job. He had a happy knack of creating the right image, saying the right thing. "I really appreciate it," he told me towards the end of our first day together. "You are obviously very tired, but you are still working hard." It was encouragement enough to provide a much needed lift.

Aimé is a guide with Evolution 2, who describe themselves as "professionels de l'aventure", and whose menu of winter activities ranges from teaching beginners to ski, to diversions such as diving beneath the surface of a frozen lake. I had joined him to explore some of the many off-piste routes in the vast French Tarentaise ski area of Val d'Isère-Tignes.

Our group was provided with those essential safeguards without which it would be folly to embark on such adventures: avalanche transceivers, whose signal can pinpoint the location of a buried skier; and backpacks containing collapsible shovels, with which to dig the victim out.

Confidence, I had long maintained, was nine-tenths of deep-snow skiing. But just as I was getting it back, my new-found guru suggested that I should not place quite so much faith in it. Body position was crucial. Arching the back would ready me for instant adjustments to ever changing bumps and snow texture. Hands forward helped to stop me rocking back on my heels after a turn - a surefire way of picking up too much speed.

With the new carving skis it was possible to exert more pressure on the outer one, before, during and especially after each turn - another way of staying in control. But how about trying shorter skis, with slightly broader tips, which would make it easier to float through the snow?

Now, I confess to having a hang-up about length. It's a generation thing. When I rented my first pair, I was asked to raise an arm straight above my head and where the hand was, so ended the skis. So they were at least two and a half metres long. Even when choosing carvers, I tended to opt for 1.85m or more, if only to avoid flutter on long, straight pistes. And here was Aimé suggesting I dipped below 1m, to a mere 80cms.

It proved, however, to be sound advice. Next morning he pointed us down a wide open snowfield of moderate pitch, and everything suddenly came together. I was coping with the conditions much more fluently. The sun shone for the first time that week, heightening the feeling of euphoria. "Yes, Roger," Aimé yelled. "Now you look like a skier, not a pedestrian."

Time, then, to enjoy properly the enormous range of off-piste skiing which Val d'Isère and Tignes offer. After a glowing hot chocolate break, we made a long traverse to the couloir du telephone. On the brink, I took a sharp intake of breath. This looked mighty precipitous. But by now I felt anything was within my capabilities, so after the first, slightly apprehensive turn, it was steady as she goes.

That afternoon held an exciting prospect. We were to climb for 25 minutes or so to the summit of Tovière, ski down or around the north-facing couloir des gendarmes, cross a long shoulder of mountain, descend through the forêt de la Laye and end the day by the lac du Chevril, on the floor of the quarry from which the rock was taken to build the nearby dam.

The first section looked daunting. New snow had already fallen away, and we could hear the muffled boom of more avalanches in the distance. "It's no more difficult than the couloir you skied this morning," said Aimé, not very convincingly. "Ski to the foot of the avalanche and wait." So far, so good. It was just above the upper limit of the forest that I began to feel nervous. There were cracks in the snow all around. Aimé secured a 30m rope and let himself down sideways into a steep gully, stamping the snow with his skis to start a slide.

The gully was barely two metres wide. I side-slipped and turned more in hope than in optimism, winding up in an ungainly sprawl at the bottom. Heaving myself out of the deep snow was stamina-sapping. It had been a long, tough day. The tight trees were a challenge too far. It was made more difficult by the fact that we were the first skiers of the season to tackle it. This far down the mountain the going became progressively heavy and tricky. My companions joked: "Thank you for finding that log - so we could see to avoid it."

It had been an inglorious conclusion, I felt, climbing aboard the helicopter, but I preferred to remember the good things. Later, over a beer, I told Aimé that I thought he had raised the level of my skiing. "I am sure, Roger," he replied, "that you are on the way."

Way to go

Getting there: Inghams (020-8780 4433, inghams.co.uk) offers seven nights in Val d'Isère, staying half board at the Hotel Latitudes, at the foot of the Solaise access lifts, from £699. A pre-bookable six-day adult lift pass costs from £132, adult ski and boot hire from £82. Excursions with Evolution 2 are bookable through the firm's representatives in the resort. A half-day off-piste session costs 40 euros per person for a group of four to eight people. The Tovière-lac de Chevril descent, with helicopter pick-up, costs 65 euros.

Further information: Maison de la France (0906 8244123, franceguide.com).
Country code: 00 33.
Flight time London-Geneva: 1hr, 30mins.
Time difference: +1hr. £1 = 1.41 euros.