The snow’s not over till the fat lady sings

~

You might think the European ski season is drawing to an end, but in the Austrian resort of Ischgl the slopes will remain open for another six weeks and the best day of what has already been an incredible season is yet to come.

The Tirolean resort has confirmed that pop diva Mariah Carey will sing at its annual Top of the Mountain concert on April 30, adding to a long list of rock legends who have stared in the annual gig, which always takes place on the penultimate day of the season.

If you’re wondering if the snow will hold up long enough not to disappoint the 20,000 skiers who will crowd on to the slopes to hear the world’s top selling female artist belt out her classics, the answer is yes. I was skiing there this week and the conditions were fabulous; glorious sunshine and clear blue skies but still plenty of snow. And if it starts to melt, well Ischgl will make some more, just as it did at the start of the season.

Ischgl was the first non-glacial European ski resort to open, on November 25, thanks to the 1,100 snow canons that churned out enough snow to cover 80kms of its 238kms of pistes. Down the road, St Anton was forced to delay its opening by a week, until enough of the real stuff fell from the sky.

It cost the resort €1m to open on time – roughly the same as it cost to lure Mariah Carey to the mountain top to deliver her only European gig this year – but it has to maintain its reputation as having one of the longest ski seasons in Europe, from the end of November to the beginning of May. Anyway, it made the money back on the opening weekend.

Ischgl is not particularly well-known in the UK – just 6% of its skiers are Brits and we’re almost outnumbered on the slopes by Russians – but it’s a great intermediates’ resort, offering heaps of confidence-building blue and red runs and the odd challenging black.

The ski area spans out from a sunny bowl at Idalp – where Mariah Carey will sing next month – and extends as far as Switzerland. We skied a lovely long, sunny run down to the Swiss duty-free resort of Samnaun, where we stopped for a rum and hot chocolate before taking a double-decker gondola back to Ischgl.

From the town, there’s an ultra-modern lift system with three gondolas from the village that whiz you up to the main ski area, so even when it’s busy you shouldn’t have to queue for more than 15 minutes.

For this reason it would be a great option for an Easter break, although a lack of self-catering and chalet accommodation makes this a less appealing option for young families who might balk at the cost of its mainly four-star hotels.

Ski Total does have a couple of chalets in Ischgl, but the other UK operators that feature the resort – Crystal, Thomson, Inghams and Ski Independence – offer mainly half-board and B&B.

Due to the quality of the accommodation, this is a resort firmly targetted at grown-up skiers, rather than youngsters on a budget. Which makes it all the more surprising that the apres-ski in Ischgl is mental. From mid-afternoon the bars at the foot of the slopes are heaving with middle-aged skiers dancing in their boots to Europop and what I imagine is the Austrian equivalent of The Birdie Song.

We tried to get a drink in the Trofana Alm, where skiers hung from the beams and leaned precariously over a balcony, swaying to "I am sailing" in German; we looked in the Eisbar at the Hotel Elisabeth where girls were dancing on the bar in bikiin tops; in Freeride, Austrian men were competing to knock nails into a block of wood with an axe (fun, if a little scary); finally we got a drink in Niki’s where the main attraction appeared to be singing marmots that descended occasionally from the ceiling into the throng of dancers below.

A few of the other bars in town, including Fire & Ice and the nightclub Pasha, attract a younger crowd I’m told, but this is a resort where people aged 30-plus can come to party after a day on the slopes – before heading back to their smart hotels for a gourmet dinner and a comfortable bed.

If you’ve got a couple or a group of intermediate skiers who want an extensive ski area, a smart hotel and some lively apres ski, Ischgl could fit the bill. After all, what’s not to love about dancing in your ski boots? And a bikini? On a table?

Linsey McNeill flew to Innsbruck on easyJet from Gatwick and stayed in Ischgl at the four-star Hotel Piz Buin www.pizbuin-ischgl.at