DIGITAL FORMAT

As high season approaches in the high mountains, Bargrooves takes to the slopes to sample the pleasures of bar culture Après Ski-style for its first instalment of 2012. Anyone who’s enjoyed a snow sports holiday well knows the quality of Après Ski or activities off the piste are as important as the quality of snow on it. For the more socially adventurous, bar culture in the Alps of Europe or the Rocky Mountains of North America is as established a part of the overall snow sports experience as hurtling down an icy black run or twisting red, but within the last 10 years the emergence of genuine nightclubs and dance music festivals has brought quality clubbing to higher altitudes. Towns like Verbier in Switzerland with its Farm Club or Casbah, Mayrhofen in Austria, Meribel and Val d’Isere in France and Whistler in Canada have become as synonymous with partying as they are with world-class skiing conditions or snowboarding terrain. It seems every year clubbers become ever more discerning not only with the music but who is playing it to them; as such they attract A-list international DJs who appear regularly behind the decks of some truly epic mountain-top clubbing destinations.