Ski and Snowboard News, Deals, and Events

Ski weekends has reduced the price by £60 per person for four days of skiing in Chamonix for departures to Chamonix 9 April. The new price is £299 with three nights' accommodation and breakfast at the two-star Hotel Le Vert.

All the above prices include return overnight coach travel from London Victoria, Thurrock, Maidstone or Folkestone. Call 0870 442 3400 for more information.

Chamonix Mont Blanc (as the resort prefers to be known) has the world's biggest lift-served skiable vertical drop of 2807 metres (9209 feet), one of the world's longest runs through the Vallée Blanche at 22 km (13.7 miles), and staged the World's first Winter Olympics in 1924. Beyond these spectacular statistics is Chamonix's relatively undisputed status as the world's tough mountain sports capital, the subject of endless ski magazine reports each season from editors wishing to prove they descended between the glacial crevasses and lived to tell the tale.

For lesser mortals there are plenty of on-piste kilometres to soak up, all dominated by the spectacular scenery of Mont Blanc, Western Europe's highest peak (and Europe's second highest after Mt Elbrus in Russia, although some dispute whether Elbrus is in Europe).

Chamonix's history has been traced to Bronze Age times and its current status was confirmed in a report as far back as 1751 when the locals were described as "the most uncompromising men in Europe. Ten years prior, Englishmen William Windham and Richard Pococke had been on the first recorded tourist trip, reaching the Mer de Glace.