IDEAL MONTH
March is an ideal month to ski in Lapland. There are no crowds. Temperatures are not too low. Days are long and sunny. There's plenty of snow.
LIFTS
There aren't many chairlifts at Lapland resorts. You will spend a lot of time on long button and T-bar lifts. It's great for leg strength but can be very tiring when those lifts are nearly a mile long up steep mountains.
OFFPISTE
Even moderately difficult offpiste can be too challenging if you have never done it before. Offpiste conditions are less forgiving of lazy skiing and bad technique. Snow conditions can vary greatly on the same run, from ice to deep, heavy snow.
BAG LUNCH
For a small fee, hotels will allow you to make a packed lunch from the breakfast buffet. We paid 25 kr (£2.27, $3.40) to make big ham and cheese sandwiches accompanied by a flask of coffee.
WHERE TO EAT
On-slope eating: Cafes and restaurants will not like you eating your packed lunch around guests who are paying for meals. Each cafe has a warming hut attached to it where you are welcome to eat food you bring with you.
BASIC FARE
Eating out: Food at the slopeside cafes is basic. Burgers and fries; pizza; ham and cheese sandwiches are standard fare. Few of the venues we tried offered high quality cuisine. But it's odd how a hard day's skiing can make you long for a burger and fries.
AFTER SKI
Apres ski: Do not come to Lapland if top-notch apres ski is vital to you. It usually comprises drinking in an (expensive) bar and, if you're lucky, a guy with guitar singing cover versions. Once in a while, a band might visit to liven things up.
Skiing at its primal best
The Arctic Ski Pass gives you seven days of big mountain skiing in Lapland, Europe's last wilderness for 1795 Swedish Kronor (US$248; GBP163).
Four resorts
You get access to four resorts Abisko, Björkliden, Riksgränsen, and Narvik.
The first three are in Sweden, while Narvik is in Norway. There are 18 lifts and 75 groomed slopes, plus unlimited offpiste and a heliski area the size of Austria.
Riksgränsen, Swedish offpiste jewel
Of the Swedish resorts, or mountains, included on the Arctic Ski Pass, Riksgränsen is the easiest to fall in love with.
First off, the hotel, and accompanying self-catering accommodation, cafes, shop and a lodge or two, are right there on the slope. OK, there's a 300 meter uphill trudge to the chairlift from the hotel (and no shuttle bus), but otherwise everything works smoothly.
Access is easy, with the hotel squeezed between the E10 highway and the railroad, both serving Kiruna to Narvik. Parking can be a problem on crowded days. You either have to park your car at the bottom of a long hill leading up to the hotel, or you can be cheeky and squeeze your vehicle in wherever you find space and hope you don't anger the extremely hardworking snowplow guy.
The hotel is big enough for you not to go shacky wacky, and yet it's not so big you just feel like a cog in a machine. The buffet breakfast, included as part of your overnight stays, is excellent, as good a breakfast as you'll get at any resort anywhere. The rooms, which include tv (this might shock Americans, but not all Scandinavian hostel-type accommodation includes television) are small but comfortable, like cabins on a boat or sleeping compartments on a train.
K2s on the lower chairlift nearest the hotel
Riksgränsen. The offpiste peaks known as Klumpen
Gates to the Branten offpiste wall. Resort below to the left
Skimaster black run, with Branten offpiste in background
There's a bar, coffee shop, equipment store, restaurant, and even a small spa with jacuzzi, all in the same building. The so-called library is nothing but a large empty room with a small case of boring, old books.
Riksgränsen's staff are friendly and helpful. They'll answer your questions swiftly, and will help immediately with such irksome matters as car stuck in a snowdrift or car that won't start after 30 hours at minus 30°C (-22°F).
Riksgränsen is low-key with no fuss, typically Swedish perhaps. There's a youthful feel to the place. For a comparable U.S. vibe, think Alta or Snowbird in Utah, or Big Sky, Montana.
We hardly saw a staff member over 25. Presumably many young people are keen to work at Riksgränsen for the privilege of excellent skiing on the doorstep.
Everyday, there are guided trips posted on a chalk board at the entrance: Two hours of offpiste: we show you the hidden pearls
; Learn about avalanches
; Three peaks in three hours
, that sort of thing, and the prices aren't high.
The mountains are not big; there are no jagged alpine peaks, but the surroundings are wild, craggy, and impressively beautiful. At the top of the first chairlift with views over the valley below and mountains all around, the resort resembles a tiny oasis surrounded by wilderness.
The skiing at Riksgränsen is fun and varied, with plenty of challenges for advanced skiers. It's not of one of those resorts with huge, groomed cruisers that make you feel like you're skiing down a freeway. Riksgränsen's groomed runs bend and dip, with long steeps, and a few compression bumps. But you would not be doing the place justice if you stuck to the groomers.
In fact, none of the Lapland resorts looks impressive if your only criteria for judging a place is the number of chairlifts and groomed slopes. These are not huge family resorts catering for thousands of people wanting to ski within an undemanding comfort zone. Riksgränsen's trail maps tell you only a tiny part of the story.
Riksgränsen, and all Lapland resorts, are about offpiste, and that's where the real fun starts. Much of Riksgränsen's offpiste is as entertaining as ski cross, able to restore a childlike pleasure in your skiing.
Fact File
Riksgränsen: Center of Swedish offpiste skiing.
Trail map: Riksgränsen
Riksgränsen Hotel
Midnight sun: Open until 27 June. Ski under the midnight sun.
Night skiing Ski from 10 p.m. to 12.30 a.m from 18 to 28 May.
Website: Riksgränsen
You pick your own line, constantly rising and dipping, turning, stopping to survey the ground, then off again darting in and out of little gulleys, around big rocks, safely traversing vertical drops, then onto steep powder fields, into small bowls, and down into compression dips and narrow lines along stream beds back to the lift. I found myself laughing aloud at the end of some runs, especially when my skiing buddy would come a cropper, flying off into deep snow after misjudging a jump.
If you fancy taking a train back to the resort after completing an offpiste run, you can begin your journey in Sweden and ski across the border into Norway, where the mountain is called Björnfjell. There are a number of black offpiste runs down the north-facing slopes to Björnfjell Station. From there, climb about the westbound train (direction, Kiruna and Luleä), getting off at Riksgränsen, which is the next stop.
The black offpiste runs on Björnfjell are called Tullhussvängen, Hamres, and Björnfjellsbranten. There's also a gentler red offpiste run called Skidskolesvängen, all ending near Björnfjell Station.
Jumping the bumps
Riksgränsen has to be one of the best places to teach yourself offpiste skiing. There's enough moderately difficult ungroomed snow, for example the red offpiste area called Jokken, for you to safely pick up the basics wthout feeling your skis are going to run away with you.
When you are confident on the red offpiste, you can progress to the steeper, more varied and demanding black offpiste, which includes such runs as Uffes's Vägg (Uffe's Wall) and Branten (The Steep). They are steep but not impossibly so, but if you're a beginner or anxious skier, it's probably best to stay away.
There's enough skiing at Riksgränsen to keep you busy for three or four solid days, after which you'll probably want a break and a change. Björkliden is only 15 minutes to the east by car, Abisko's Nuolja offpiste is 30 minutes way, and Narvik is 47 km away in Norway, which takes about 45 minutes on windy and icy fjord roads.
By David Hay Jones and Athina Simonidou