A mountain to myself

Sick of crowded Alpine resorts? Then head west for empty pistes with endless views across the icy sea. Jamie Doward reports
Humber Valley Resort
Humber Valley resort

It is a Friday morning and I'm sitting on a decked porch outside my chalet. The sun is beating down and the snow is being devoured before my eyes. The Newfoundland winter is being usurped by spring. It is a palpably vital day; everything is coming alive. Everything, that is, except me.

I try to piece together the events of the last 24 hours. I remember watching the dawn come up over Deer Lake while sitting in a hot-tub with an Irish turf accountant and his mistress, whom I'd met a few hours before. I remember the exhilarating skidoo rides earlier in the day; I recall drinking more B52 cocktails than I thought was biologically possible. And what about that man with the fish? Why did I kiss his fish? And why was he wearing galoshes?

Through the haze the one thing I'm sure of is that a winter holiday in Humber Valley is like nothing else I've experienced. Perhaps it's something to do with Newfoundland's Viking ancestry, something that has bequeathed the Canadian province an intoxicating legacy of hard partying and love of the outdoors.

I'd gone to Humber Valley, a luxurious resort of more than 100 chalets nestling in a forest, thinking I was signing up for a conventional skiing holiday, happily oblivious to the fact that Newfoundland is not exactly renowned for its mountains.

Many more experienced skiers reacted with astonishment when I told them where I was going. 'But it's flat, how can you ski?' seemed to be the general consensus. The consensus was partly right. The Newfoundland ski industry is never going to threaten Whistler: its ski resort, Marble Mountain, boasts only around 30 runs, most of which are blues, and many are short by European standards. You can ski them all in a couple of days and still have time for long lunches. This helps explain why a daily ski pass will cost only around £16. But that might also be because the snow conditions are capricious. As the mountain is only 500 metres above sea level, there is always a risk that snow conditions will not be to the satisfaction of serious powder addicts. Beginners take note: you will have only one nursery slope on which to learn. And there are only four lifts for the entire mountain, which might make for queues at peak times.

Not that I would know. Outside the school holidays, when I went, I seemed to have the entire mountain to myself on some mornings. I felt like one of those millionaires who hire out their own private runs in Aspen. There is nothing better than a black run to yourself at 10 in the morning when the sun has melted the ice and you can really open up on the slope, confident there's not going to be someone below you on the mountain.

Actually, there is something better: 'Cat skiing' in the Blomidon Mountains, a 40-minute drive from Humber Valley, at the end of which you feel like you are skiing on the moon. A day's Cat skiing, in which you are ferried up virgin mountains by a specially converted Caterpillar tractor, is the most decadent form of off-piste adventure I've been lucky enough to enjoy. And for only around £135 per day - with a meal and hot drinks thrown in - it's remarkably cheap, especially when you think heli-skiing will set you back around four times that amount.

From the top of the mountains, the Atlantic stretches out as far as the eye can see. I am the god of all I survey. It is an exhilarating experience to ski where no one else has been, where the mountains are free of all the usual clutter - the cafes blaring Europop, the ugly lifts, the annoying toddlers in helmets swishing past at 150kph. I follow my guide down into gullies and ravines, natural snow parks that are made for tricks and from which I wonder whether I will ever emerge. I come off the mountain buzzing, the arresting images of snow and sea hardwired into my brain.

There was a similar feeling earlier in the week when I tried kite-skiing across a frozen lake in the Gros Morne National Park, a beautiful, remote area that seems not to have changed since dinosaurs stalked the earth. My tutors, Jessy and Marty, whose company, My Newfoundland Adventures, organises outdoor activities from ice-climbing to river-rafting and caving, are as chilled as the moose that walk around the park.

Which is just as well, given the way my group keeps getting their kites tangled up. By the end of a three-hour stint we've just about managed to traverse the lake, although getting back proves more difficult. I watch my mate Jim get blown halfway across Newfoundland. His parting words before disappearing over the horizon: 'This is insane.'

We fare a little better on the skidoo safari. For three hours we tear up frozen tracks high above the resort at speeds of up to 60kph. Several of us have scrapes, inadvertently driving into ditches or banking too hard on corners. As we return to the resort, the sun is going down on Deer Lake. It feels like we've been away for days.

Property prices at Humber Valley have rocketed since it opened in December 2003. Back then, a three-bedroom chalet could have been yours for the price of a small flat in Croydon. Today it will set you back at least £350,000. The resort's owners are confident such prices can be sustained. They have plans to develop nearly 900 more properties, something that would turn Humber Valley into a small town. The majority of owners tend to be British, attracted by the idea of a resort only a 15-minute drive from the airport. With budget flights from Gatwick taking just five hours with Astraeus Airways, you can be in Humber Valley in less time than it can sometimes take to get to Val d'Isere. And with the strength of the pound against the Canadian dollar at the moment, eating out is inexpensive too. You really have to try a moose burger.

Oh, and you must also get 'Screeched'. This, apparently, is a Newfoundland tradition in which you drink some fiery local rum -Screech - and kiss a fish, an Arctic char, before being 'knighted' as an honorary 'Newfie' with an oar wielded by a man dressed as a fisherman.

Such bizarre activities may help explain why Newfies are often the butt of jokes from their brethren on the mainland. But then they don't really care. Anyone lucky enough to live on an island blessed with beautiful vistas and a big-hearted population hell-bent on enjoying itself will always have the last laugh.


A week at the Humber Valley Resort costs from £569 including direct flights from Gatwick to Deer Lake, 15 minutes from the resort. Book direct with Humber Valley on 0800 404 9251.