The skiing and snowboarding season is a matter of weeks away. The first Austrian snowboarding event starts on October 19 and, for the really keen, the Grand Motte glacier in Tignes opened today.
An excellent all-round site, with particularly good sections on learning the basics of skiing, the merits of different resorts, and negotiating the dreaded lifts. The Travel Centre includes youth hostels and apartments as well as more conventional packages. Iglu.com (which has just expanded its links with Austria) and Rocket-ski.com are both good alternatives; Iglu in particular has improved immeasurably since last year.
Apparently children can learn to ski from the age of two. Babygoes2 has advice on ski schools and childcare in resorts.
Skiclub
Although this is far from the most comprehensive guide to resorts, joining the Ski Club of Great Britain (£48, or £12 for under-24s) has various advantages. Some Swissair and Sabena flights are half price, discounts of 5 -15% are available with some operators, and there are reductions on otherwise exorbitant ski paraphernalia. You can also call on the Ski Club's network of reps in the more popular resorts, who will ski with you for free and dispense advice.
Invaluable job and advice site for those planning to work their way through the season as a chalet manager, cook, plongeur or instructor. Unpleasant comments about novice skiers notwithstanding, it really is quite entertaining.
Tips on various trips and spins, coverage of top British snowboarders, and news and events organised by the snowboarding community.
Not to be confused with snowboarding site 10feet.com, 9feet sells winter sports clothing and accessories. At the time of writing, it had just been rescued from bankruptcy by Cotswold Outdoor (cotswoldoutdoor .com), but neither was available. The relatively pricey Snow+ Rock (snowandrock.com) launches a new and reportedly exciting site on Monday.
Commercial portal for snowboarders, and the sister site of 1ski.com. Large sections of both are still being prepared for the new season.
Links to the webpages of French resorts, which often have the most detailed weather forecasts and details of ski schools. Germany's edition is at germany-tourism.de/e/2408 .html, Austria's at Visit Austria, Norway's at <a href="http://www.skiinfo.no and Canada's at Discover Canada. Italy doesn't appear to have a ski portal in English yet, and the US states run their own sites.
