Zermatt

Think Zermatt and you’ll probably think money, and you’d be right. However there are some serious mountains here and plenty to keep a freerider occupied for a number of weeks.

The village sits in the shadow of the mighty Matterhorn with every chalet craning to get a view. It’s a compact, attractive place, car free but with souped-up electric golf buggies hooning it around.

Zermatt links with Cervinia forming the Matterhorn Ski Paradise and 313km of pistes. Lift pass prices are about as high as you get, but if you are not heading over to Cervinia then don’t pay the extra for the pass and play in Zermatt’s 183km of slopes.

Zermatt is one of the few places remaining in the World where you can snowboard 365 days a year. In the summer the Matterhorn glacier has 22km of pistes and a good park & pipe. In the winter it provides the starting point for a huge 2263m vertical descent back into the village.

There are lots of narrow cat tracks linking up areas and the runs down to the village are especially guilty. However it’s not the pistes that are going to be attracting the snowboarders, it is the stack of quality off-piste and freeride routes this place offers.

Nightlife is lively for Switzerland with quite a few mountain bars and clubs open till gone 3am