If you’re reading this then the chances are you’re a ski junkie. I had my first taste in Kitzbühel at the ripe old age of thirty-nine and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Artists sometimes suffer for their art. J M W Turner famously tied himself to a ship’s mast in a storm to capture the full force of nature.

Skiing hones the senses. Biting cold on exposed flesh; shadows thrown by late-afternoon winter sun; snowflakes swirling like shoals of silverfish; the profound silence after a fall of powder. The exquisite clarity of a newly-discovered vista.

Ischgl, at an altitude of 1377m, sits in the Paznaun Valley in the Tyrol and its ski area is the largest in the Alps.

“You’re not in Austria anymore!” chuckles Stefanie, my local Tourism guide, “This is Switzerland”.At my feet an invisible borderline runs atop the 2,760m Idjoch. Spread out below me like a scale-model in the crystal-clear air lie peaks and valleys as far as the eye can see. Behind me, Ischgl, my starting point in Austria.