Wear the Right Gear
It’s important to start with the basics and wearing the right gear is as simple as it gets. Well-insulated and waterproof clothing is essential to your safety on the mountain, as the weather can turn very quickly on your ski holiday. Even if it’s a sunny day, you should always be prepared for more extreme conditions.

Eye protection in the form of goggles or sunglasses is also vital. Acting to protect your eyes from harmful UV rays and to ensure clear vision during snow fall, getting a good pair of goggles – preferably double lensed – will allow you to stay safe in any condition.

Have the Right Equipment
Very similar to having the right gear, ensuring your skis are the correct length for your height and your boots are well-fitted is just as important. The DIN settings on your bindings, which dictate how easily your bindings release, should also be set correctly and if they are too high, can cause you to break your ankle or leg even during minor falls.

Get Some Good Rest
Being well rested is essential if you’re going to be safe and enjoy your time on the slopes. A good night’s sleep will make you more energetic and alert and you’ll be less likely to make any silly mistakes. If you’ve been out drinking the night before, as a lot of people do on group skiing holidays, it is advisable to make sure you’ve had sufficient rest before hitting the slopes.

Remember P.E.? Stretch!
It seems obvious but you would be surprised how few people actually do this. Stretching before exercise can reduce the risk of injury and prepare your muscles for activity, which allows you to perform better. It only takes a few minutes to run through a few basic stretches, so there’s really no excuse.

Don’t Push Yourself Too Hard
Pushing yourself too hard can be dangerous. A common problem among new skiers is becoming too confident and overestimating their ability, a mind-set that can result in any number of accidents. Don’t succumb to peer pressure on group skiing holidays, While a degree of pushing yourself is necessary for progression, you do also have to know your limits and realise what is safe to attempt. A good way to learn your capability is to take intermediate or advanced skiing lessons, which will not only help you know where you stand but also help you to progress further.

Keep Fit
Ensuring that you are at least marginally fit before going skiing is a good idea. If you’re overweight, the pressure you’re going to put on your joints can be quite damaging. Also, being fitter and healthier will allow you to be more in control in physically demanding situations.

Know Your Environment
Always get to know a slope before you attempt the ambitious. If, for example, you’re skiing a slope for the first time and speed over a blind section only to find an unexpectedly steep drop on the other side, you could be a in a lot of trouble. Find your feet and ski a particular slope a couple of times

Minor Injury? Don’t Ski
If you feel a hint of an injury, it’s advisable not to ski and seek medical advice. You won’t know if a tweak could be serious until it’s checked out by a professional and you may aggravate it if you continue to ski.

These tips may appear to imply that wherever you turn, there are opportunities to hurt yourself while skiing. The reality, however, is that if you follow a few simple rules, you can ensure that you are safe on the slopes and get maximum enjoyment from your skiing experience.

David Gerrard works for The Snow Centre, an indoor ski slope in Hemel Hempstead.

According to recent research by Sainsbury’s Travel Money*, 73% of people taking skiing holidays this winter plan to try to reduce the cost of their holiday. So how do you get more skiing for less of your hard-earned cash?

Avoid the Alps
Major alpine resorts in places like Austria, France, Italy and Switzerland offer the best skiing conditions in Europe – the largest numbers of runs, the biggest capacity lifts and top quality accommodation. But all of this comes at a price. If you’re just looking for intermediate skiing with decent accommodation and facilities places further afield like Slovenia, Bulgaria and the Pyrenees are usually far better value. One exception to this rule is duty-free Livigno in the Italian Alps which is always worth a look for value-conscious skiers – as long as you like to party once you’re off the slopes too!

Self drive
If nothing but top notch alpine skiing will do, consider self-catering. On the surface, a flight plus hotel package often looks cheaper than a self-drive, self-catering one. But factor in all your costs before you decide. Once you’re in the ski resort, the cost of eating out every evening – and most lunchtimes – can rack up quickly. If you take the car, you can stock up on food and drink at a hypermarket somewhere close to the mountains and save a fortune by cooking your own meals and making packed lunches. Take the ferry late at night or early in the morning to get the cheapest crossings, but don’t bother taking non-autoroute roads to save on tolls. Any money you save here you’ll spend on the extra fuel you consume.

Choose smaller resorts
Another smart way to get alpine ski time for less is to aim for smaller resorts attached to large combined domain ski passes. Try smart and fun Les Gets for access to the vast Les Portes du Soleil area instead of Avoriaz or Morzine, or cosy St Martin De Belleville for easy access to the Three Valleys. Instead of St Anton in Austria, head for friendly Sonnenkopf also covered by the Arlberg ski pass and pretty Pragelato in Italy is a good value base for exploring the vast expanses of the Milky Way ski area.

Pre-book your ski gear
You’ll often find it’s cheaper to arrange ski gear at the time of booking your skiing holiday, particularly if you’ve gone for a flight-plus-accommodation package. You’ll also find a better choice of gear on offer ahead of time as well. This is less of an issue in the big resorts, but smaller places have limited numbers of ski hire outlets with smaller quantities of stock.

Don’t cut corners
One thing you shouldn’t skimp on when it comes to skiing holidays is insurance. Before taking part in any winter sports it’s important to make sure you have adequate travel insurance – something which will likely involve paying an extra premium. If you’re planning to go off-piste, check your policy’s terms and conditions to make sure you’re not caught out if you take a tumble. You may find your existing annual insurance policy covers you for certain winter activities, but not all, so read the small print carefully. Use the internet to shop around for the best travel insurance quote and double-check the skiing cover is adequate.

*2,024 GB adults were interviewed by ICM in an online survey between 23^rd and 25^th September 2011. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults.  ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.  Further information at www.icmresearch.co.uk

Issued by Sainsbury’s Finance

Sainsbury’s Finance is a trading name of Sainsbury’s Bank plc. All information correct at time of publication, but may be subject to change. Any views or opinions expressed in this article are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any part of the Sainsbury’s Group of companies.

Sainsbury’s Finance is a financial services provider engaged in savings accounts, credit cards, and personal loans.  It also supplies insurance services in car insurance, home insurance, life insurance, pet insurance and travel insurance as well as being a provider of travel money services.

The specially created football pitch is one of the highest in the world and gave the leading German club a unique training venue, with spectacular scenery all around.

Trainer Michael Oenning and the players rated the training conditions as, “quite heavy going in this thin air.”

Mladen Petric, Marcel Jansen, Jeffrey Bruma, Heung Min Son and the other members of the team took the opportunity to have a short high altitude training session and found out how a football reacts on top of the Alps.

“The team will find out next season if the high altitude training on the Hintertux Glacier will bring the Hamburgers from the top of the mountain to the top of the German Bundes League” said a spokesperson from the year-round ski centre.

A premier Vail Valley mountain residence, originally listed for $14.25 million, will be sold at a live, luxury real estate auction on August 6th 2011. The property is selling Absolute, which means it will sell to the highest bidder no matter what the eventual price.

Located on the most prestigious street behind the gates of the Arrowhead Resort, Cresta Road, the 13,700-square-foot estate comes with unparalleled ski-in/ski-out access to Arrowhead and Beaver Creek areas. The building also includes 7 bedrooms, 8 full and two half bathrooms, 10 fireplaces, a wine cellar, theatre room, elevator, expansive outdoor terraces, chef’s kitchen with pizza oven, and an indoor pool.

“Having represented buyers and sellers in the Vail Valley for over 16 years, and having knowledge of the luxury properties in the area, I will definitely say this is one of the region’s finest ski homes in one of the most premier locations,” stated Laura Brady, Vice President of Marketing for Concierge Auctions. “Selling without reserve, this may seem like a ‘too-good-to-be-true’ opportunity, but it is the real deal. The sellers are ready to find a new owner, hand over the keys on the day, and move on to other endeavours.”
The auction will be held live, on-site, on August 6th 2011. Attendance will be limited to registered bidders and their representatives. Phone and Internet bidding will also be available. The property is open for preview daily from 1 to 4 pm by appointment.

“Vail Valley is and will always be one of the most sought-after mountain destinations in the world. This is not only an auction of a premier home – but of a premier lifestyle,” stated Brady.

www.ConciergeAuctions.com

The most expensive six-day ski lift pass in Europe is now believed to also be the northern hemisphere’s most expensive ski lift ticket thanks to the strength of the Swiss Franc, say www.Skiinfo.co.uk.

A 483 Swiss Franc six-day pass offered by the village of Täsch would currently cost around £364 / $580, whereas the most expensive lift ticket currently available in the US is sold for $561 would cost about £351.

Täsch is a small village below Zermatt where many of the resort’s guests park before taking a rail shuttle to Zermatt itself. The 483 Franc pass includes both daily use of the shuttle and ski lift access to 350km of piste above Zermatt and over the border to Cervinia in Italy on Europe’s highest lifts.

This is the first time that a European lift pass has been known to cost more than the most expensive in North America. For two decades, US resorts have topped the worldwide lift ticket price tables only occasionally being beaten by Australian ones. Prior to that, Japan was the most expensive destination in the world before its economic collapse in the early ’90s.

Bulgaria’s Minister of the Environment has said that she will legalise the expansion of Bansko ski resort on to national park land, rather than tell the resort to remove the illegal construction.

Bansko has been one of the big success stories of European ski resort development in recent history. However, environmental campaigners have long sought to highlight the fact that part of the expansion has taken place on national park land, which should be protected from development by law.

Various Bulgarian ministers have made seemingly contradictory and often inconclusive comments on the issue over the years but the latest statement from the Environment Minister does say that Bansko built ski lifts and pistes illegally on 250 acres of national park / UNESCO World Heritage site land.

The environment ministry surprised journalists and environmental groups by saying there was nothing that could be done about the development and that asking Bansko to remove the lifts would be against the national interest. She has said that the government will legislate to make the illegal development retrospectively legal instead.

Chamonix has cut the three choices of lift ticket options they provide down to just two.

Chamonix le Pass, the first of the options available covers all lifts in Chamonix up to 2800m (not les Houches) and costing 210 Euros for an adult ticket for most of the season. The second option is the Mont-Blanc Unlimited – covering all of Chamonix Valley and Courmayeur it Italy (as well as Verbier in Switzerland for 6 day passes and above). This will cost 255 Euros for most of the 2011-12 season.

The third pass that is no more was called The Ski Pass Mont-Blanc which for several years was Europe’s most expensive lift ticket. It covered 800km of terrain including the slopes of neighbouring Megeve, St Gervais and Les Contamines and more.

“It was not very flexible but not in great demand.” said a Chamonix resort spokesperson, who said that at present there was no longer a reciprocal lift ticket in place that allowed skiers based in Megeve, St Gervais and Les Contamines to ski in the Chamonix Valley on the same ticket, or vice versa, but that that might change before the start of winter 2011-12.

Breckenridge aims to add 550 acres of terrain on Peak 6. The plans include a mix of groomed and ungroomed slopes, a mixture of intermediate and advanced level terrain and some terrain accessed by a new six-seater lift. However, some of the new areas will need to be hiked up to.

The expansion plans, which have been developed over several years, have advanced recently with the publication of an Environmental Assessment document which is open for the next 45 days for public consultation. If the process moves ahead smoothly, the expansion could take place as early as the 2012-13 season.

Full proposals for the 12 new runs can be seen at www.breckenridgepeak6.com

The third National Skiathon from Disability Snowsport UK (DSUK) will take place on Tuesday 17^th May 2011.  Skiers and snowboarders of all ages and abilities are invited to take part alongside the British Disabled Ski team and some of Britain’s top freestylers and celebrities (soon to be announced).

Teams of 6 are challenged to ski 666 runs in six hours at any one of the six UK indoor ski slopes. These include The Chill Factor in Manchester, Tamworth Snowdome in Staffordshire, The Snow Centre – Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire,  Sno!zone Braehead in Glasgow, Sno!zone Castleford in West Yorkshire and  Sno!zone Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire.  Entry is £66 per team with the requirement to raise a minimum of £666. Equipment hire is included in the entry fee and there will be prizes for the teams that raise the most money and ski the most runs.

Disability Snowsport UK, established in 1980, gives those living with disabilities the chance to experience the thrill and joy of skiing alongside and on an equal basis with, able-bodied helpers.  The intention is to enhance quality of life for disabled people through fitness, mobility, freedom, social interaction and independence as well as identify and nurture potential athletes and help disabled people to conquer the barriers that confront them in daily life.

You don’t even need to be a professional skier or boarder to take part in the Skiathon as quizzes and games give everyone the chance to win extra runs for their team.  Each participant will also receive a T-shirt and a goody bag as a memento of a great day out raising money to help bring joy and excitement to many people living with disabilities throughout the UK. DSUK’s target is to raise a minimum of £35,000.

To enter, visit:  https://regonline.activeeurope.com/disabilitysnowsportuknationalskiathon  or contact Sophie Wood: SophieWood@disabilitysnowsport.org.uk / 0161 749 2290.