Patrick Thorne, Author at InTheSnow

Mates not going skiing this year? Don’t worry: ski holidays for solos are making it easy for people to join up with other snow lovers in the Alps. I’m standing in front the door of a wooden ski chalet in a pretty Alpine village. Inside the chalet are the people I’m about to spend a week with. But I have no idea who they are. The group I’m joining has been brought together by a company called The Ski Gathering. The idea is simple. The Ski Gathering rent catered chalets or hotels for certain weeks of the season. Skiers and snowboarders can book a shared or a private room. It’s an oven-ready ski holiday ¬– albeit with random human ingredients. Shared catered chalets, bookable by the room, have always been popular with British skiers. Having breakfast, tea and dinner sorted is a fantastic ski holiday experience – in something that feels like home-from-home for a week. But by enabling individuals to share a room in a chalet with someone they don’t know, the Ski Gathering takes this to a new level. When you look at the stats, there’s a need for this. According to Ski Club of Great Britain’s 2025 Consumer Research, 11% of skiers say that they didn’t go skiing last time because they didn’t have friends to go with. That’s a lot of ski holidays that never happened – simply due to lack of company. Enabling those people to join up with others on holiday is a valuable service. * So far, the Ski Gathering offers holidays in the French resorts of La Plagne, Morzine, Les Gets and Chamonix, Corvara in Italy and Zell am See in Austria. For winter 2025-26 they offer 48 different holidays between December and March. Some are general and open to all, some are specialised. These include a women-only beginners, 30-40 age group, over-50s, intermediates and a package that includes off-piste skiing with a guide. Our chalet is in Montchavin la Plagne, in France – a particularly good resort for groups of varying level. The resort is part of the 425km Paradiski ski area, shared with neighbouring Peisey-Vallandry and Les Arcs. You can ski all week here and still feel you’ve barely scratched the surface, such is the extent and variety of the terrain. I’ve travelled independently by train, trying out the Eurostar Snow service from London. On board it’s comfortable and social, a far cry from airport queues and long transfers. The journey is easy: a 9am Eurostar to Lille where on the adjacent platform we switch to another a Eurostar (continental) train to Aime-la-Plagne station. Arriving at 5.30pm, a Ski Gathering transfer is there to whisk me up to the chalet, a 20-minute drive away. Although I’m pretty confident socially, I find that entering the chalet lounge to meet a bunch of people you are going to spend the next week still brings some nerves. Over canapes and dinner in the chalet the first evening, the conversation around the table is naturally about skiing. This is clearly the ‘safe’ topic as people start to get to know each other. There are only seven of us in the chalet this week, as it’s not sold out: three single guys, two male friends who came together and one couple. It’s not until the next morning that I realise how modest people were being when they described their ski levels at dinner the night before. As four of us set out together to explore La Plagne’s extensive terrain, I discover that my new skiing companions are far faster and skilful than they let on. I’m an experienced snowboarder, but if anyone is going to be the weakest link, it feels like it’s me. As I’ve witnessed many times over the years, there’s nothing like slope-time to bring people together. By the time we’re having après-ski drinks at the local bar in Montchavin, called Base Camp, it feels like we’ve known each other far longer than 24 hours. La Plagne – as well as the Paradiski more widely - is a belter of a resort for groups. The slopes layout is interesting, with different gradients lying at different angles and plenty of treelined runs. Scenery wise, it’s stunning. Powdery peaks fan out into the distance, with snow-laden ranges that resemble the sides of an ice-cream gateaux. The resort has plenty of superb on-slope dining. La Bergerie is a firm favourite, along with the Borselier and La Bozelet. In Champagny the cute L’Alpina restaurant is a lovely pit stop, too. During the week I tested Aérolive, an innovative new experience where some of the ski-lift gondolas have had their windows removed. It’s a suspended journey hundreds of feet above the snowy ground, through the air between Roche de Mio and Live 3000. A harness keeps you safe and allows you to venture to the edge of the cabin and lean out – creating a heady mixture of vertigo and exhilaration. As the week progresses, bonds with my new ski mates get stronger. I probe them for the reasons they came on the trip. “I’ve usually skied with my own crew or my parents,” London-based Matt tells me, adding, "But it’s really great to be able to come away and just meet nice people to ski with and be on holiday with. My wife doesn’t ski at all, so we don’t go as a couple.” The Ski Gathering's chalets in La Plagne Matt is a Speedy Gonzales on the slopes, and yet admits he doubted his ability. “My trepidation about coming on the trip was not about getting on with people; it was that I might not be a good enough skier and might end up slowing people down. But we’ve all been skiing at a similar speed and level, which has been great.” Sam and Michael had come because as two mates. Sam’s a very good snowboarder, while it’s Michael’s first time. So, joining others on a holiday made sense. “I think it’s important to have a bit of an eclectic mix of individuals so that you get a mix of skill levels,” Sam tells me. “That way you can split off from the person that you originally came with – if they are different level from you. They can do their own thing, and go to lessons. And you can find individuals who are at your level and have fun with them and meet new people that way.” The social aspect has been a big part of their trip. “I’ve done quite a bit of travelling and interrailing, and this kind of ski holiday worked well in terms of meeting new people,” Sam says. “Before we booked this, Mike said to me: ‘Shall we just book a hotel, you’re a social person, you’ll make friends in resort.’ But I don’t necessarily think it works that way. One of the most important things about meeting new people is sharing dinner. You talk about your day and share stories and you rarely have a commitment in the evening. Some of the best social experiences I’ve had have been in hostels that offered dinner, and I think that’s why this Ski Gathering chalet trip has worked out so well.” I meet and quiz Rich and Jessie, who run Club Alpine, the chalet where our Ski Gathering holiday is based, as to how it’s working out. “Across our chalets we have 13 weeks open to the Ski Gathering, most of which have sold out,” Jessie tells me. “Next season I think we’ll expand the off piste because it’s proved really popular.” How is the room selection done, I wonder. Does Jessie try to gauge who would best fit with who? “The vast majority of people are booking solos. I don’t really select based on personality or ski ability. Most of the people coming are going to have something in common anyway because they are booking the same type of holiday to ski together. They are coming on a social holiday and I don’t think it’s my job to choose and pair up, so I fill the rooms as people come in. I think it would be complicated if you tried to engineer it, and would be a lot of effort for not much gain. And sometimes opposites attract.” The vast majority of skiers are from the UK, Jessie tells me. Where chalets don’t sell out, people who had booked to share are given a solo room, which is what happened in our case, where there are seven of us in a 12-person chalet. “People are always keen to find out how many people are booked into a particular week, what the ages are and what the ski ability is. Cos they are coming out here to find ski buddies.” Does Jessie see this kind of holiday growing? “I think people are surprised that this kind of holiday exists. People are sometimes surprised that people would come and share a room with somebody else. But lots of people do it and have a really nice time and it obviously makes the holiday a lot more affordable. People are very respectful of other people’s space it works really well. But skeirs just don’t know that it’s an option.” As I head off to the lift to join my new ski buddies for a final day of exploring La Plagne, I’m glad that I’m in the know, and in the snow. Fact box La Plagne ski resort info: https://en.la-plagne.com/ The Ski Gathering: https://www.theskigathering.com/ Eurostar Snow: https://www.eurostar.com/uk-en/train/ski-train Images credit: Daniel Elkan

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