ski

The ski resort of Riksgränsen is the most northerly in the world, sitting way into the Arctic Circle. It is treated to regularly displays of the Northern Lights and delivers midnight skiing at middsummer

If you think that you’ve missed your chance to go skiing in Europe this year, then you’d be wrong.

There is a resort where the slopes remain open not just through April and into May, but in the high summer days of June.

Riksgränsen, a small ski resort in Arctic Sweden, is the most northerly in the world. It’s 94 miles further up the road from the famous ICEHOTEL, which has melted away into the river by this time of the year.

By June 21, the snow farmers of Riksgränsen have been hard at work for weeks, making sure there’s enough coverage on the 909m tall mountain for the Midsommar downhill jamboree. They’ve dug, they’ve blanketed and they’ve cornered off sections of the mountain.

The reward is three hours of skiing, unlike anything you’ll find elsewhere in the world. From 10pm to 1am, T-shirt-clad skiers whizz down Riksgränsen’s 21km of pistes, basking in the strange phenomenon of bright sun and blue skies throughout the night. At 68.4266°N, the sun won’t disappear again for another month.

When I visited the Swedish resort, it wasn’t nighttime and the sun was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a heavy cloud hung over the mountain, the wind whipping my face as I sat shivering on the ski lift. Skiing in Sweden in March hits a little differently.

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Unlike the Alpine ski season, where the temperature hangs around the 0 °C mark and there’s a 10 euro hot chocolate to warm your cockles at the bottom of every piste, Sweden’s resorts get really, really cold. -20C cold. Cold enough that after a few trips down Riksgränsen’s jump-littered slopes, you need to retreat to one of two food huts for a finger-thawing plate of meatballs or a veggie hot dog loaded with crispy onions.

The resort also stands out from others I’ve been to in terms of vibe. Gone are the Dior all-in-one après-skiers of the French Alps, replaced with gnarly 20-something youth hostellers who all seem to know how to backflip.

Riksgränsen is known as a paradise of off-piste skiing, and it does not disappoint. Either side of every piste is acres of mazy terrain, perfect for exploring and throwing yourself down. The resort also specialises in heli-skiing and snowmobile tours. You can even book yourself a caving tour at the nearby Kåppasjåkkagrottan, the largest cave in Sweden.

Riksgränsen translates as national border. Its area extends into Norway, meaning when you ski down the “Gränsleden” (border run), you swing into a different country at every corner.

This boundary-hopping continues with the Arctic ski pass required to access Riksgränsen’s slopes. Starting from about £140, it also gets you onto the lifts of Björkliden, Fjällby and Narvikfjellet.

The two other resorts offer very different skiing experiences.

Björkliden is perfect for families, with a gentle mountain criss-crossed with runs through the pine trees ideally suited to beginners. Hotell Fjället sits metres from its bottom ski lift and is an excellent place to stay. Comfy, staffed by friendly ski enthusiasts from across Sweden, and boasting a dramatic view of Lapporten from its breakfast room. The U-shaped valley is known as ‘the gateway of Lapland’ and for providing a framing of the Northern Lights, which I was lucky enough to witness twice during a three-day trip. The 11-year solar cycle recently peaked, meaning the Arctic was doused in glorious streaks of green on a near-nightly basis.

A little further north is Narvik, where the mountains are higher and the slopes more intense. The resort is currently undergoing a major upgrade ahead of the FIS Alpine World Ski Championship arriving in 2029.

The warming effect of the Gulf Stream means the port does not freeze. The view along the deep blue Ofotfjorden that treats skiers as they descend down the biggest drop in northern Europe is simply breathtaking.

Book it

The Arctic ski pass costs from £140

Chalets at Björkliden’s Hotell Fjället cost from £166 a night.

Flights to Kiruna (a short train ride away from Björkliden, Fjällby and Narvikfjellet) cost from £96 in June.

HAVE you ever dreamed of becoming a famous Olympian?

It might be out of reach for most of us mere mortals.

But at one resort in Italy, you can feel pretty close to it — especially if you’re skiing alongside one of Britain’s greatest Olympic snowboarders.

I joined two-time Winter Games star and World Cup winner Jamie Nicholls on the slopes of the dreamily named Milky Way (Via Lattea) ski area in the Italian Alps.

The snowy realm played host to the stars of the Turin Winter Olympics in 2006 and you can feel like a hero as you ski off from the original starting huts of the giant slalom or downhill black runs.

Remnants of the Games can be seen everywhere from the former bobsled track ­— a giant concrete cobra now disused and frozen in time ­— to the vertigo-inducing ski jump, as well as the downhill slopes.

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The main athletes’ village — now a four-star hotel — dominates the village of Sestriere, from where more than 400km of pistes stretch all the way to Montgenevre in France.

I was staying at a smaller former athletes village in Pragelato, which is now owned and run by the all-inclusive holiday giant, Club Med.

It is the company’s only village concept, with the many chalets housing 350 rooms and surrounding a main hotel building to give it a cosy feel.

Club Med celebrated its 75th anniversary last year and the mantra from its founder, Belgian Gerard Blitz, is: “The purpose of life is to be happy. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now.”

The always smiling, helpful and friendly staff try their best to make this true every day.

Every evening, a show including music, dancing and theatre is performed for both children and adults in the main bar, and the partying goes on long into the night.

Club Med was the original all-inclusive holiday company and packages include ski passes, ski lessons and all food and drink from a main ­buffet restaurant serving delicious local pasta, meats and cheeses, as well as a pizza trattoria and a fine dining option.

And what is exceptional about Club Med Pragelato is that it also has four restaurants on the mountain where you can eat out and drink for free as part of your package.

This means you can make the most of your day’s skiing as you don’t have to trek back to your hotel for lunch.

Olympian Jamie is a convert and regularly takes his family — wife Jenny and their two young daughters, Lily and Rosie.

He said: “It’s just very easy. You don’t have to think — everything is done for you.

“You drop the kids off at the kids’ club, they get them dressed, they get their ski boots on, they get them off to ski school . . .  it’s no faff for you.

“They really put the kids at ease. They’re very energetic, very fun, so it takes their mind off them leaving their parents.

“My eldest has always been a bit scared of doing stuff on her own, but they are really good at making sure that they feel happy and OK.

“They’re very flexible in terms of when you want to pick your kids up after ski school.

“You can go and eat lunch with them and then bring them back, or you could just leave them there the whole day at the kids’ club.

“For family holidays I’ve not experienced a better one.”

Access to the slopes is also simple — just a one-minute walk to the cable car up the mountain. The skiing at Pragelato offers everything from beginners to the most hardcore advanced.

Avalanche kits are also available for those who want to do some of the endless back-country woodland routes and mountain-top off-piste adventures.

Ski lessons are included for free and there is a kids’ club all day and in the evening so you can enjoy ­supper in peace.

And while the children are being entertained, the adults can slip off to the spa for a massage and to chill and repair tired limbs in the ­hammam steam bath and sauna.

With so much included, the price is definitely not cheap.

In fact, you might need some of that Olympic gold and silver to afford a family holiday here.

However, if you value the stress-free convenience, it’s definitely worth it.

Some of that Olympian spirit could even rub off on you and who knows, your dreams of becoming an Olympian might just come true.

‘Want to come skiing in Austria at half-term?” I asked my 13-year-old son. “It’ll be just like one of those luxury chalet holidays, only we’ll make our own beds, cook our own dinners and carry our gear back to our accommodation ourselves.” Osian didn’t hear the caveats. “Sounds amazing,” he said, his eyes glazing to a cinematic sweep of white powder and the chance to perfect his 360.

For many families, the dream of a catered chalet – and its ready-lit fires, homemade strudels and chauffeured lift shuttles – remains just that. Apartments offer access to the slopes at less vertigo-inducing prices, but they tend to come with a minimum seven-night stay. If you only have a few days to spare, or a budget that won’t stretch to a full week’s lift pass, hotels fill the gap, but then you’re back navigating the moguls of cost.

Instead, Osian and I were youth hostelling. I booked the last room available in the February school holidays at St Josefsheim, in the small western Austrian town of Schruns, and started scrolling Vinted for salopettes. Opened in December 2021 within a stately, blue-shuttered villa built in the early 1900s as a hospital and maternity facility, this is the first – and, so far, only – hostel in the Montafon ski area. Five minutes’ walk from the town’s railway station, and across the road from a bus stop, it is also, crucially, just two minutes’ ski-booted shuffle from a gondola station.

Above the ground-floor restaurant and bar are 13 bedrooms and bunkrooms, some doubles, the others sleeping up to eight people in cosy wooden sleeping pods. Although there is not, yet, any kind of communal games room or lounge, there is a shared kitchen and, in a playful homage to the building’s former function as a baby unit, a run of bathrooms tiled in pinks and blues.

The hostel operates a contactless self check-in system and early check-ins aren’t possible, so when we arrived on a lunchtime train from Zurich, we found ourselves unable even to leave our luggage until our allotted 3pm arrival time. Luckily, the restaurant manager, Christian, spotted us lurking on the steps and offered to watch our suitcases while we went off to explore the town and sort out ski hire.

Lower-key than many Austrian resorts, the five ski areas strung out along the Montafon valley, in Vorarlberg’s southern corner, are known for their snowsure pistes, all covered by the WildPass lift pass. This also gives access to the valley’s buses and trains, meaning it’s easy to hop between them to pick and mix your own slopeside schedule; Golm, in Vandans, is brilliant for younger children, with a new kindergarten and Golmi Land fun park, while Silvretta Montafon, directly above Schruns, is the largest ski area in the valley with 140km of marked runs. Access to all those pistes, and having almost everything you need within five minutes’ walk, makes Schruns a popular base for families – as does its restrained après-ski scene.

Wandering back to St Josefsheim in the late afternoon, kitted out with skis, boots and helmets, we came across flotillas of sea-shantying sailors and choreographed human sunbeams dancing away the sky’s snow-clouded gloom in the town’s annual carnival celebrations.

Inside our twin room, however, it was less carnival and more cocoon. Roomy and bright, from door handle to flooring, nothing creaked or rattled. A cord strung between hooks either side of the main window, made a handy line for hanging damp clothes, and shoe racks in the corridors helped us maintain the wholesome spotlessness. Making up our beds with the cheery gingham bed linen provided, we unpacked our ski clothes into the room’s pristine pink lockers, then padded down to the communal kitchen for an early dinner.

With only two cooking stations, the kitchen can fill up quickly if everyone goes at the same time and, because it was carnival and most of the town’s restaurants were closed, everybody did. Osian and I squeezed on to a table with a German family, who told us this was their first time skiing from a youth hostel. “We like Schruns and usually book an apartment, but finding something for only a few days, which we wanted this time, is not so easy. This was an affordable alternative.”

Early next morning, we found the kitchen was already packed with families spooning muesli into bowls, slicing through local cheeses and sipping steaming coffees. Not us, though. Collecting our gear from the cellar’s ski room, we clomped across to the bus stop and took the five-minute journey to the Zamang lift to meet Natascha Zandveld, from the Silvretta Montafon ski company, heading up the slopes for breakfast at the newly renovated Kapellrestaurant. There, we filled up on scrambled eggs and bacon while soaking up the panorama of peaks and pistes beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows.

In summer, cows graze the mountainsides and Osian insisted he caught a whiff of hay on the lift up. “It’s a working farming community here rather than a resort,” Natascha told us. “Tourism in Montafon began with locals renting rooms in their homes to visitors prescribed alpine air by their doctors, and most hotels are still family-run.”

Snow clouds began to billow on the horizon, so we clipped in and set off while there was still a seam of sunlight above us. Our first run was a long, glorious blue, threading through towering pines. Sunlight spilt on to the snow between their trunks and when we stopped for hot chocolate, at Gasthaus Kropfen mountain hut, it was so warm on the terrace we peeled off our jackets.

The next day, we took the bus in the other direction, to Golm. The sky was awash with inkblot clouds, but the snow beneath our skis was as soft as whipped cream. Higher up it was hard to tell where the piste ended and the sky began, but on the lower slopes we snaked between fir trees slouched under the weight of snow, the forested tracks blissfully quiet early in the day. We refueled at Haus Matschwitz, a steam-fogged mountain chalet doing a fast trade in fluffy kaiserschmarrn (sweet pancakes cut into bitesized pieces) and jam roly poly-like germknödel.

“Burn calories, not electricity,” a local sustainability initiative urged and we greedily obliged, carving squeaky powder all afternoon to make space for dinner back at St Josefsheim. Inside its bar, local people mingled with guests beneath a suspended vintage gondola cabin and there was a buzz in the restaurant, too, as we ordered plates of schweinsbraten (roast pork with caraway-laced bread dumplings) and pillowy keesknöpfli (Austrian mac’n’cheese).

On our final evening, we took another bus, to Garfrescha, to go night tobogganing. Snow fell thick and fast as a retro chairlift hauled us nearly 1,400m up the mountain before our sledges propelled us back downhill in a rush of giddy abandon. “This is amaaaazing!” whooped Osian, vanishing into the dark ahead of me, both of us convulsed with laughter.

Waiting for the bus at the bottom of the mountain, we looked up at the cluster of exclusive chalets above us, steam rising from their hot tubs and the sound of clinking glasses within. In taking local buses, joining the carnival crowds and talking to other travellers at St Josefsheim, we had felt more connected to this valley – and each other. That, it turned out, was the real luxury.

Beds in shared dorms at St Josefsheim start from €30pppn, private rooms from €135 for four. The accommodation was provided by Austria Tourism and Montafon. Flight-free travel was provided by Eurostar, Twiliner and FlixBus

SIR David Beckham was just miles from his estranged son Brooklyn in LA on Monday — but the pair failed to meet.

Insiders said Becks, 50, was in the US city for work following a ski break in Canada with son Romeo.

Brooklyn, 27, and his wife Nicola, 31, live in Los Angeles and were at Sir Elton John’s Aids Foundation Oscars viewing party on Sunday.

A source said: “David was in Los Angeles for a new ad campaign, but given Brooklyn’s decision to cut off his family, there was no meeting between them.

“David had just come back from a ski trip with Romeo and friends in Canada when he flew to Los Angeles for work.

“Brooklyn would have just been miles away from him in the house he shares with Nicola.”

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The Sun first revealed how Brooklyn had cut off his family last year in a multi-pronged row.

In October insiders confirmed Brooklyn had no interest in making amends with his family.

By January he was communicating with them through lawyers.

Days later, Brooklyn released a bombshell statement confirming the story.

He went on to make allegations against his family, including claiming fashion designer Victoria had “hijacked” his first dance with Nicola at their wedding in 2022.

As well as cutting off his famous parents, Brooklyn is no longer in contact with his brothers Romeo, 23, and Cruz, 21, and sister Harper, 14, after blocking them on social media.

Yesterday, musician Cruz revealed the lyrics to a new song, Loneliest Boy, which appears to allude to Brooklyn.

On the track, Cruz sings: “Loneliest boy, mama don’t talk too much. It’s breaking her heart.

“It shows in the small things that you don’t do.

“I guess in the end that it’s you, yourself, and you.

“Tell me how do you live, when you’ve got nobody to lose?”

Brooklyn and wife Nicola were all smiles when they were invited by his godfather Sir Elton to be guests at his Oscars bash in Los Angeles on Sunday night.

Yesterday, Nicola shared a series of pictures of the night on her Instagram, including a black and white photo of her and Brooklyn.

She wrote: “What a beautiful evening for such an important cause. Thank you for having us Elton John and David Furnish, we love you both so much.”

On Sunday, Brooklyn’s social media followers rounded on him after he shared photos of mother-in-law, Claudia Peltz, who had celebrated her 71st birthday a few days earlier.

His post coincided with Mother’s Day. Mum Victoria shared tributes from Romeo, Cruz and Harper on Instagram, but fans noted there was no message from Brooklyn.

Those close to Brooklyn and Nicola said there was no going back in the feud with his parents.

A source said: “Brooklyn has said his piece. He is done. Moving on with his life with Nicola is his priority now.”