Forget the Alps. From this November, AE Expeditions is letting advanced skiers and snowboarders earn their turns on Antarctic mountainsides, during shore landings on its expedition cruises.
The programme works like this: conditions permitting, ski passengers can head ashore up to twice a day, with six or more ski outings possible across a voyage. Qualified mountain guides lead every group, and they also teach the touring skills most resort skiers have never needed — ice axe and rope work, moving through avalanche terrain, and how to travel on skins across glaciated ground. Participants must already be advanced skiers or boarders with off-piste experience and a solid fitness base.
The terrain is nothing like a pisted resort. Past trips have included a 700m descent from Mount Tennant on Ronge Island and an 800m run from Mount Hoegh down to Andvord Bay — long open slopes and alpine bowls with no lifts, no queues and nobody else around. Between ski days, the ships anchor in iceberg-studded bays with penguin rookeries nearby and a decent chance of whale sightings.
The logistics are equally specific. Sailings run between November and February from Ushuaia, Argentina, aboard the purpose-built expedition ships Sylvia Earle and Greg Mortimer. The featured itinerary is a 12-night 'Across the Antarctic Circle' voyage with a pre-cruise hotel night, starting from £14,898 per person. The ski and snowboard touring add-on costs a further £1,022. Fares include house wine and beer at dinner and all shore excursions, but you bring your own ski or snowboard kit.
AE Expeditions itself bills the experience as an adventurous alternative to the usual Alpine circuit — about as far from Lech and Courchevel as it's possible to get. That's the appeal: no crowds, no lift infrastructure, and descents that finish at the water's edge within sight of icebergs.
Why it matters: this isn't a holiday for a first-time skier. But if you're already confident off-piste, reasonably fit and have been eyeing a polar expedition cruise anyway, it adds a genuinely different activity to what is otherwise a wildlife-and-landings trip. The extra £1,022 is a modest uplift on an already expensive fare, and the guiding and skills instruction are part of the deal — you're not expected to arrive knowing how to travel roped on a glacier. Book well ahead, though: expedition berths this far south sell out seasons in advance, and the November-to-February window is the only one there is.
For everyone else, the same sailings still offer Zodiac excursions, penguin colonies and crossing the Antarctic Circle — just without the descents.