Look at areas that have high-altitude riding. If the weather’s warmer and a storm rolls through, it could very well rain at lower elevations but if your resort has a few hundred metres of extra vertical on it, that rain should fall as snow – plus the colder temperatures will keep powder pockets fresher for longer.

Resorts with glaciers are great for this, but beware riding on glaciers – you’ll definitely want to know where you’re going (and there will be no trees to help you in low visibility) and you’ll definitely definitely not want to fall into a crevasse.

3. Become a weather nerd

If you have the opportunity to decide at the last minute where you want to go ride, nerding out over weather forecasts can pay dividends. As everyone knows, weather forecasting is an imprecise science, but the closer you get to the day of forecast, the greater the accuracy as the chaotic becomes more predictable.

Scouring sites like bergfex.com and snow-forecast.com has become something of an annoying, yet integral part of our lastminute.com trip destination selection process over the years, as has been checking resort webcams. Also bear in mind that storms can hit neighbouring valleys differently – last season we scored the goods in Alpbachtal while one valley over in Mayrhofen conditions were significantly less awesome – which makes for all the more reasons to get your geek on.

4. Avoid bigger resorts

5. Be quick

Regardless of whether you’re in Val d’Isere or some tiny Bavarian backwater resort, it’s a case of the early bird catching the worm – or worms. It goes without saying that the more time you’re on the mountain, the more powder you can ride – though you should always give the new snow time to settle before hitting anything remotely steep (check the avalanche danger before you do anything).

Being first to the lift means you’ll be guaranteed first tracks after a dump so make sure you peace out of the afterski early the night before, set your alarm for the crack of dawn, and get on it. Also, on the subject of being quick, literal speed on your snowboard is also important to have – you’ll have more runs that way, plus you’ll kick up bigger roosters and won’t get bogged down and spend valuable riding time shuffling yourself out of flatspots (worst thing ever on a powder day).

6. Hike

Knowing your line is important to maximise both the amount of powder you can score, and your lifespan. You should have a clear idea of what you’re about to ride so you know of any obstacles that could potentially hold you back from riding as much powder as possible and/or kill you. Note cliffs, rock bands, bergschrunds, thick forests, bushes and the like and make sure you know how navigate to avoid them. Making sure your exit point is as close to the lift – or bootpack or trail – as possible will also significantly boost the number of faceshots you snag in one day.

The risk of physical harm or plain death aside, there’s nothing worse than watching the rest of the mountain score pow laps like Lewis Hamilton on a cocktail of amphetamines while you’re busy spending two hours hiking out on a 45-degree face through tit deep snow because you took a wrong turn and got stuck on the only cliff in Les Houches. That’s experience talking.

8. Splitboard

Either use a resort as a starting point before heading into the wild or dispense with resorts entirely, find a trail that leads to an attractive-looking peak, and get your split on. Split boards certainly aren’t cheap, but for folk of a certain age or mentality it’s certainly a better use of your money than a paying for bunch of day passes to ride hardpack or watch children perfecting stunts in the park as you gamely remember ‘the good old days’ on the rookie line.

Even if it hasn’t snowed for a while, after a few hours of splitting you can still find yourself strapped in and ready to carve up a virgin powder field, and despite conditions weren’t exactly great we’ve still had some of the best crap powder days ever after a bit of splitting. Plus all that skinning up will keep you fit as a fiddle, get you out into nature and allow you to bore your friends with how zen you are.

9. BUFFALO GIRL

Your eyes might naturally be drawn to the big, peak-to-valley powder runs, but there’s something to be said for not forgetting about the little guys. Rather than battling it out with men with beards for the ‘best’ run of the day, fighting queues and hiking till your lungs bleed, you could try turning your attention to smaller, more innocuous faces that are served by a lift and require effectively zero effort.

Taking this approach, it’s possible bag yourself more faceshots per day than going all in on trying to hit a big line. We’ve had plenty of epic days eschewing sketchier runs and just lapping Mayrhofen’s Baby Tour cat track, popping off to slash the smaller powder fields between the switchbacks.

12. Embrace the whiteout

If the weather’s shithouse, make sure you still go up, use the Force to find the trees, and get busy. Even in the whitest of whiteouts, visibility in the trees will be more than adequate to let you rip pow for hours of socked in bliss. Just know where you’re going and try to find the contrast of the forest as soon as possible.

13. Get fit