It’s a date that’s firmly ingrained in my memory, 25 April 2008. I was skiing with a friend in Val d’Isère and after a quick lunch at Solaise he spotted a slope of untouched powder that could easily be accessed by chairlift. It had been snowing heavily for the previous couple of days, leaving many slopes heavily coated in fresh snow. In the morning the weather had cleared up, and we’d already made the most of nature’s fluffy white bounty. We thought that by late lunch our appetites would be sated and all slopes tracked out. Wrong on both fronts.

We ended up doing that same run three times, finding fresh powder on each occasion as the picture below shows. It was a great day, made especially satisfying because at that point in the season the slopes were deserted and the snow was much better than expected.

We feature a number of amazing experiences on the slopes in our Perfect Days feature (p35), with contributions from the editorial team and some of our key freelance writers. The aim is not just to share the wonder of the day but provide a rich vein of ideas to help each of us to achieve more magical mountain moments.

One of our writers, Leslie Woit, certainly grabbed her share last year. She captures the lure of heading to the slopes of South America (p68), and the challenge of cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats (p125) for Rush, our summer activities special. Regular readers will know the summer special means this is the last issue of the season. Our next issue is on sale in September. Meanwhile keep up to date and check out the snow reports at our constantly improving website www.metrosnow.co.uk.

Enjoy the slopes and hopefully see you in Val d’Isère in April for our end of season reader holiday (p9) where maybe we will be able to share a perfect day together.

Cheers,

Henry Druce

All the features mentioned here are available in the March 2009 issue - on sale now.