Aaah, the Ski Train. Slipping out of the new sparkly St Pancras, slithering under the Channel, slinking through the French countryside and only sliding to a halt once deep into the Alps. Could there be a lovelier way of leavening the wintry gloom than hopping aboard for a week of ski-related shenanigans?
It's unfortunate, then, that I am not a skier, and have no interest whatsoever in learning. After all, if God had intended us to ski, he'd have given us indestructible knees and free winter sports insurance. But that, of course, leaves me at an impasse, for the Ski Train is evidently far too good to leave to skiers. The solution? A week in the Alps non-skiing.
To find out whether such a thing were indeed possible, I headed to La Rosière, a snow sure resort in the Haute-Tarentaise just a hop away from the Ski Train's final stop, Bourg St Maurice.
Imagine the village Heidi lived in, turn the tweeness down a notch or two, and you've got La Rosière. Pluckily hanging on to the side of the mountain, the chalet-filled resort is reputed to be blessed with more snow than anywhere else in the Savoie region. Being a rare south-facer, it's also one of the sunniest spots in the Alps, which means that the living room at Snow Crazy's extensive Chalet Chantelauze, where we spent the week, becomes gloriously drenched in sunshine whenever the snow clouds depart. Outside, a hot tub on the terrace offers some of the most remarkable views you're ever likely to encounter while being lit from below and cradled by warm bubbles.
The icing on the cake was that our friendly chalet hosts, Claire and Keith, were entirely unfazed by the revelation that I inhabit a misty region somewhere between vegetarian and vegan. In an ideal world, their recipe for egg-free banana cake would be the stuff of an entire documentary series.
Happily ensconced, we kicked the week off with a raquette walk, the first of a whole slew of activities chalet owner Laura had booked for us. For the uninitiated, raquettes are tennis-racket like snow shoes (don't make the schoolboy error of hiring raclettes, unless you fancy taking to the mountains sporting two chunks of melted cheese). They enable the wearer to wander over vast morasses of snow and slide down alarmingly steep slopes which, after a bit of practice, turns out to be tremendous fun. Our guide was Xavier, a man who has recently become a very minor celebrity in France after one of his raquette walks was televised. His favourite pastime was announcing in a grave voice, "Thees bit is vaaaary daaanjerous," before whizzing over some tricky obstruction or crevasse with gay abandon.
When we reached Xavier's chalet - a former shepherd's hut he rebuilt himself - he produced three bottles. This, he explained, is his stock of homemade alcohol: Génépi (the local Chartreuse), Anquebuze and a suspiciously clear distillation that he claimed was made using the foetus of a robin. It was at this point that we began to suspect that not everything Xavier told us was gospel truth. This included his insistence that he could tell the sex of a pine tree by pulling at a low branch and listening for vibrations up the trunk. However, we did take his lead and eat the buds from a silver birch, which are said to improve the circulation of the blood.
My heart was certainly beating a little faster the next day as I watched Ben, the pilot who was about to take me on a tandem paragliding flight, enjoy what appeared to be the final smoke of the condemned man. His colleague assured me that it was "just to test the direction of the wind" but, as a slightly nervous paragliding virgin, I remained sceptical. "It's relatively straightforward," said Ben finally. "We run slowly down the hill then very, very fast and then we take off." He went on to school me in the many things that I should not do if I didn't want to send us hurtling to an untimely if spectacular death, and then we were off. Or at least that was the plan. In reality, I took two strides, plunged through the crust of the deep snow and fell flat on my face, bringing Ben tumbling down on top of me, much to the amusement of onlookers. After this happened a second time we were forced to fashion a rudimentary runway, at the end of which, much to my relief, I suddenly discovered that there was nothing under my feet but air.
Sitting hundreds of feet above the ground in a world noiseless but for the wind in the canopy above, was an extraordinary feeling. I would happily have spent hours up there, riding the thermals and lording it over the toy cars snaking their way down the mountainside. When Ben allowed me to have a go at flying the paraglider I came to understand why people who do this sort of thing become so obsessed with it. Who needs to join the cast of Heroes? This is the superpower gift of flight for real. After we landed, I asked Ben how old he was on his maiden flight. "Thirteen," he replied, matter-of-factly. "And how old were you when you first went solo?" "Thirteen." Mountain people - they're a different breed all right.
Furthermore, they know how to build a half-decent igloo. Grégory, a man who could earn a living as Jude Law's double, took a motley assortment of mothers, small children and me into the woods. By the end of the afternoon we were proudly posing for photographs by our very own ice home-from-home. Basically, there were three things to remember: firstly, the opening should face south; secondly, you must make the walls windproof; and thirdly, the proper plural of igloo is iglooit. This last fact will impress your friends during the long wait for the next time there's enough snow in Britain to show them you can actually build one.
There's not much to remember when husky sledding; just one thing in fact, but it is a cardinal rule: Don't Let Go of Your Sled or I'll Kill You. (Huskies roaming free around the countryside are very hard to catch, apparently.) After a refreshingly brief few moments of tuition from our instructor - we were let loose. Standing on two wafer-thin runners and clinging on for dear life as your huskies set off like the proverbial rocket is one of the great experiences Earth affords. By the end, my dogs had even become more or less obedient to my commands of "stop" and "devant", though I discovered that the more extreme my French accent, the more liable they were to heed me, though this might have been a show of irony on their part.
The following day, I made the rash mistake of remarking that Nordic walking was a posh way of going for a wander with a couple of poles. Not so. According to Richard - something of an evangelist for the activity - it's a whole philosophy of exercise and second only to swimming as a full-body workout. Accordingly, he made our little party stop every couple of hundred yards to perform some sort of aerobic manoeuvre.
I had saved a solo assault on La Rosière's mountaintop fort until my last day, the very first on which we'd had any wind. However, in the true spirit of the late Sir Edmund Hillary, I grimly boarded one of two local chairlifts open to pedestrians. It took me about half way and left me staggering upwards in the face of lashings of powdery snow and regrets that I had omitted to bring my goggles. All the while, smugly begoggled skiers zipped past me, no doubt imagining I had lost either my skis or my marbles. The fort was well worth it, however, since it commands the Petit St Bernard pass, as used by Hannibal and his elephants en route from Spain to Rome. It was largely destroyed during World War II but still cuts a dramatic figure among the peaks and provides a fantastic viewpoint from which to gaze upon Mont Blanc.
For the rest of the holiday, the whirl of activities left me no time to sample La Rosière's swimming pool and spa, 10-pin bowling, assault course, or skating rink.
However, by the time the Ski Train wafted me homewards I counted myself a paraglider, a raqueteer, an igloo-maker, a husky-sledder, a Nordic walker, an expert on the Roman influences on Haute-Tarentaise architecture, and a connoisseur of the delights of après non-ski, which is much like après ski but with mercifully less talk of powder depths and piste maps. With so much to do here, I'm amazed anyone has time to ski.
· Chalet Chantelauze from Snow Crazy from £645pp pw (snowcrazy.co.uk, 01342 302910). Raquetting, €24, and dogsledding, €40, from Evolution 2 (evolution2.com, 0033 47 940 980). Raquetting, igloo-building, Nordic walking with Twinner from €13 per activity (twinnerlarosiere.com, +4 79 068 085). Paragliding, €90 (darentasia.com, +6 12 10 32 42). Eurostar Ski Train runs direct to the French Alps from St Pancras every Friday evening and Saturday morning until April 13. From £179 rtn, 08705 186186, eurostar.co.uk.
Totally off piste: Six resorts for non-skiers
Saas Fee, Switzerland
Beneath looming glaciers and 4,000m peaks you can toboggan or sled to your heart's content, day and night. You hop in the toboggan at the village, are pulled up the mountain on rails, then released for the hair-raising, self-drive mini-roller-coaster run back down. Hannig mountain has a 5km trail reserved exclusively for sledding.
· Ski Total (08701 633 633, skitotal.com) has one-week packages from £509pp including flights from Stansted or Gatwick to Geneva and half-board at Chalet Hotel Ambassador. saas-fee.ch.
Åre, Sweden
Scandinavian winters and landscapes combine to make the perfect non-ski backdrop. Try Europe's longest zipline - 60mph dangling from a cable above snowy forests - before dog-sledding, snowmobiling or the ice-bound version of windsurfing, the "snowfer".
· Packages with Neilson (0870 333 3356, neilson.co.uk) include Heathrow-Ostersund flights and accommodation at the Neilson Chalet Timber Lodge from £534pp. The Åre Torg Hotel (hotellaretorg.se) is a new budget place, from just £14pp pn. visitsweden.com.
Courmayeur, Italy
Known for its exceptional restaurants both on and off the mountain, Courmayeur is also home to stunning cross-country skiing and walking in Val Ferret; follow up with the Roman baths at nearby Pre St Didier, taking in the views of Monte Bianco as night falls.
· Momentum Ski (020-7371 9111, momentum.uk.com) tailormake packages: three/seven nights B&B including flights and car hire from £395/525pp. Hotel Pilier D'Angle, in the neighbouring village of Entreves (0039 0165 869760, pilierdangle.it) has doubles from €90.
Igls, Austria
Two reasons to come here: the Olympic bobsleigh run and the city of Innsbruck, almost at the foot of the slopes, for unique views from your paraglider and a lot more to do at night than in your average ski resort.
· One week half-board at the Hotel Gruberhof costs from £352pp with Inghams (020-8780 4444, inghams.co.uk. austria.info.
Madonna di Campiglio, Italy
The Dolomites and Italian chic make a good combination in winter; try the full range of alternative sports or just window shop, eat, drink and be merry.
· "Slope to slope" airport transfers run everyday throughout winter from Milan, Venice, Verona, Bergamo, Brescia and Bolzano airports. Hotel Garni del Sogno (0039 04 65 441033, garnidelsogno.it) two-night weekend stay from €320pp. campiglio.to.
Chamonix, France
This is the original place to do something/anything/everything other than ski and snowboard (though there's plenty of that too). It's known for its ice-climbing, but offers the whole range from snow-shoeing to paintballing.
· Coach transfers throughout the winter from Geneva airport (sat-montblanc.com). Collineige (collineige.com) from £500pp, excluding flights in a catered chalet for one week, including airport transfer. chamonix.com.
Eric Kendall
