Nevertheless, my trip back to the Alps, regardless of the ever-variegated restrictions, was deeply satisfying. A few harum-scarum runs up and down the OK and Orange Haut pistes from the top of Bellevarde to the Marmottes chair, through 20cm of fresh snowfall, had a sense of scale I’d missed. And, like a slow train catching speed, I was soon thundering alongside my guide. 

Val d’Isère, a best-loved British favourite since the 1970s, managed to open a dozen slopes and 18 lifts last weekend, and unlike Val Thorens, which was besieged by 17,000 visitors the week before, it didn’t have to rely on synthetic snow. The superb early-season conditions also meant I could ski its three interconnected mountains and ride the Olympique gondola above La Face, a slope made famous by Alberto Tomba at the 1992 Winter Olympics giant slalom. Looking out, beside pylons lancing the snow-aired sky, it was a panorama to make any skier ecstatic.

Increasingly, everything about booking this kind of European ski trip is a somewhat challenging adventure. Austria (thanks to a last-ditch 20-day lockdown) and now Switzerland (thanks to the reintroduction of the 10-day quarantine rule for Britons) are already off-limits for most travellers until, well, who knows when. But with ski resorts in France now open, and locals ebullient about the prospects for the season ahead, there was a sense here that La République can go the distance. 

“We’ve waited too long for this moment and we’ve learnt to become medical specialists, so we’re prepared for anything,” said Christophe Lavaut, CEO of Val d’Isère Tourism. “People who live in the mountains know how to adapt – it’s in our DNA.”