Cactus Personal Finance

Hello everyone! Today I’m going to talk about holiday trips and how much it would cost you if you think about dipping your toes into freeskiing.

This is a beginner guide to someone completely new to ski mountains, but also has some experiences in skiing in general.

I’m going to try to share my own experience, about I’ve seen when it comes to freeride in the Alps.

The aim of this post is to share an overview on how much everything costs.

Step 1 : Take freeride courses.

It costs about 200 euros per day to take a course with an authorised mountain guide. In my own experience, we were a group of 3 people who already enjoyed skiing the slopes in general and, we wanted to see if freeriding was something worth exploring.

• The mountain will teach you the basics. Knowingly, how to turn safely, see your trajectory, how to understand the current state of snow and how to use an equipment.
• Each person is different and depending on how comfortable you are, you may need to take a couple of courses for a few days.

• After the course you may decide to go together on an adventure. It’s always recommended to freeride with another person, it’s safer and you can help each other.

Step 2 : Equipment costs

In this part I’m going to give you a detailed breakdown of how much it would cost when it comes to equipment. Here’s my suggestion :

• Helmet : 60 euros
• Masque : 70 euros
• Neck or face cover : 30 euros
• Warm first layer : 25 euros
• Warm second layer : 40 euros
• Ski jacket : 200 euros
• Warm and waterproof trouser : 200 euros
• Warm socks : 30 euros
• Skis, boots and poles : 1’000 euros
• Safety box : 400 euros
• Mountain bag 30 L : 60 euros
• Gloves : 50 euros

One thing worth remembering is to carry a cellphone with you and save the emergency number. Normally you can find this number written somewhere on the ski pass insurance.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that freeriding involves carrying a skipass (60 euros), because you may need to use the lifts to reach your destination.

Another point worth considering, if you’re lucky enough to find a refuge or restaurant in the mountains, well, they would probably serve some nice food. I would say that a hot meal would cost about 25 euros.

I know it sounds like a lot of money to spend. However, if you decide to purchase some of them, you can see it as a long term investment. They’re high quality and approved equipment, they can be used for many years in all weather conditions.

I hope you enjoy reading this post. I’ve shared my own experience and if you think I missed something or would like to add a comment, the comment section is yours 🙂