The Xinjiang snow tour

The Altay is the earliest known skiing region — rock art there puts people on skis more than 10,000 years ago, and horsehair skis are still made the way they always were.

Because skiing in the Alps is brilliant but everyone has done it. Because there's no après-ski bar playing the same playlist that has been a legal requirement in Europe since 1998. Instead of tartiflette, we have noodles, chopsticks, karaoke, neon cities, desert roads, a Kazakh barbecue, wooden ski villages, Google Translate doing its absolute best, and some of the weirdest, most interesting ski days you are likely to have anywhere on Earth. We will night ski above city lights. We will drive across the Gurbantünggüt Desert, in the basin that holds the Eurasian pole of inaccessibility — the point on land furthest from any ocean, around 2,600km from the sea. We will sleep in a Chinese wooden barn in a remote snowy village near the Kazakh border. We will visit one of the last traditional ski makers in China.

We start in Ürümqi, the capital of Xinjiang. It is huge, neon-lit, busy, culturally mixed and very obviously not a European ski town. We spend two nights here, with time to explore local markets, try regional food and recover from the journey before heading to the snow.

Just outside the city sits Silk Road Ski Resort, one of the original ski areas in this part of China. The gondola reaches 2,440 metres, the upper runs are short and steep, the lower chairlift terrain is longer and flatter, and the food court serves Kazakh, Uyghur and Mongolian barbecue for all your weird food needs. Way better than a €19 bowl of beige pasta.

Then, because apparently starting a ski trip in a desert city was not unusual enough, we drive for five to six hours across the Gurbantünggüt Desert towards Altay City. At first, it does not feel like you are heading to a ski resort. Because you are in a desert, the furthest distance from water on the planet. Then Altay City appears over the horizon. And somehow, there are ski slopes...

We begin with city chaos: markets, noodles, People's Park, Tai Chi and table tennis. A walk up Hongshan Mountain, where there is a temple at the top and a view over the whole city. And then we ski.

Silk Road Ski Resort gives us our first taste of Chinese skiing. The terrain is different, the food is different, the atmosphere is different, and by the evening there is karaoke, it's all the rage here.

After Ürümqi, we head north. The road crosses the Gurbantünggüt Desert again, which is vast, flat and occasionally dotted with camels. Not metaphorical camels. Actual camels, on a ski trip. After five or six hours, Altay City finally appears.

Altay City is heavily influenced by Kazakh culture. Kazakh nomads were long the only inhabitants of this remote region before new roads made the city more accessible. The city now has around 200,000 people and its own modern ski resort, General's Mountain.

Made by hand

Away from the resort, horsehair skis are still made here by hand.

And because daylight skiing is not enough, we start with night skiing. Half the resort is illuminated. The city glows underneath us. We ski down with lights below, mountains around us, and the strong feeling that nobody at home will believe it.

The next day, we ski General's Mountain properly. The resort offers more than 20 pistes from the gondola summit at around 1,300 metres, with groomed slopes, views across the city and the steppe beyond, plus time for food and drinks on the mountain.

For experienced freeriders, there may also be the option to add Uzirik Snow Park if there is some fresh snow. If conditions line up, we can also smash 5 to 7 deep powder runs with a private off-piste expert, accessed by mountain transport directly from the Snow Park team.

Eventually, we return to Ürümqi. This means crossing the Gurbantünggüt Desert again, with a good chance of spotting camels along the road.

By now, Ürümqi feels different. At the start, it was overwhelming. Now it feels like civilisation returning at full volume.

This is a hosted ski adventure with local transfers, an English-speaking guide and structured resort days. Optional freeride activity at Uzirik Snow Park is condition-dependent and may be cancelled if conditions are not suitable, including if there is no fresh snow.

That said, this is western China, not Courchevel. There will be travel days. There will be language barriers. There will be mystery food. There will be moments where the plan is mostly "follow the person who knows what is happening." Flexibility is part of the experience. Good judgement always comes first.