Andorra: Ditching the piste is snow much fun

Though snowfall across Europe has been unusually light this year, the Pyrenees had just had a substantial dump of the stuff, and so rooftops and mountaintops alike were glistening and expected to remain so through to May. Soldeu is just beneath the Grandvalira ski area, the largest in southern Europe, all of which is accessible on a single lift pass. There are some serious pistes here, including a run for the women's World Cup, and the British-run ski school is staffed almost entirely by native English speakers. But I wasn't here to ski.

Getting there

Stay: Hotel Piolets Soldeu from €108 (£85) per room
Fly: Easyjet.com offer flights from London Stansted to Barcelona from £110 return, and the bus transfer from Barcelona to Soldeu takes 3.5 hours. Transfers can be booked through Andorra Travel Services. Tel: 07922 643896

Man's earliest way of travelling through snow was on a sled. In the Arctic Circle, you can still see the Inuit and other indigenous peoples mushing - that is using sleds pulled by packs of dogs.

In Andorra, the huskey-like dog teams are pets as much as they are working dogs: as I approached for my dog-sledding lesson, there was a great deal of excitable barking and wagging of tails. You can opt to ride on the sled, almost horizontal, or to stand at the back, reins in hand, driving your dog team on.

Having mastered the basic commands, and how to keep your balance in a turn, you can then race along the snow-coated tracks of El Tatar village, as though in a scene from Jack London's Call of the Wild.

Mountain transport has moved on from dog sledding, and you can experience a greater turn at speed when participating in snow moiling.

These motorised vehicles have skis instead of wheels at the front and a single caterpillar track at the rear. Two people can ride at once, and it's a case of holding on tight as you roar off across the snow, spraying powder in your wake.

My personal favourite was ski biking, however, where it is your own energy and gravity which propels the bike. The bikes have a shorter, stockier frame than a conventional road bike, and each wheel is replaced with a short ski. Another set of skis were clipped over each of my boots, and with four points of contact with the ground, and a very low centre of gravity, I found I was unexpectedly steady.

I took off, nervously at first, as my instructor sped on ahead. The handlebars responded to my slightest movement, and I quickly learned to make long, gentle turns, because if I jerked too hard, I ended up on my side, laughing, in the snow. There's a certain knack to getting a ski bike onto a chair lift (and off again at the top), but that is probably the hardest thing to master. Within half an hour all members of my group were biking confidently down red runs, something which would have been impossible on conventional skis.

Lifts and gondolas close around 5pm to ensure everyone is safely off the slopes before nightfall, and so there's plenty of time each evening to relax, or to party.

One evening, I took a 30-minute bus ride down to Andorra La Vella, Andorra's capital, to the Caldea Spa, which is the largest complex of natural thermal springs in Europe. You can spot the building from quite some distance away as it is capped with a glass tower akin to the Shard, and is by far the tallest man-made structure around.

Inside the spa, the water is cooled to comfortable temperatures from the 70°C at which it leaves the ground. Multi-tiered jacuzzis overlook a large central pool, a section of which is outside, enabling swimmers to lie back in the warm waters while looking up at the stars or snow-clad peaks.

The grapefruit pool has, as the name suggests, large citrus fruits bobbing up and down in the water, the natural oils in their skins creating a fabulous aroma, and other themed pools are bedecked with details of Indian or Aztec architecture.

If you've spent too long in a sauna, and want to refresh, you can dunk your body in an ice-filled bath, then challenge a friend to do the same.