Skiing in Southern Africa

Africa is usually not the continent you would associate with snow skiing or snowboarding, and getting out of Africa in order to participate in this great sport is extremely expensive if you're African. I'm sure this is the case for most countries where the exchange rate is NOT favorable for the top skiing locations (France/Austria/Switzerland/USA).

Unfortunately, the options for someone with a limited budget are not many, and even though I am going to give you pricing and suggestions here, understand that you're not going to have the opportunity to ski on KM's of beautiful mountain slopes with a range of difficulties and routes to choose from....unfortunately, this is the skiing with a budget post!!

So over the last couple of years I have gone to the only resorts available to South Africans without having to travel overseas. These are Tiffendel and Afriski resorts in Lesotho. I stay in South Africa.
Tiffendel used to be the resort of choice, but was very expensive and took around 9 hours to get there from JHB. After a few years of going to Tiffendel and not being happy with how they prepared the slopes (2 years I had zero skiing there), I decided to try out Afriski.
What a pleasant surprise, it was a wonderful experience and half the cost.

Wife and I chilling a bit

Daughter and I

The cost per person came to around R4000 for a week (Thursday to Sunday or Sunday to Thursday). This included ski hire, ski pass (to get on the slope), accommodation and even some of the travel and food costs. It would cost quite a bit more if you rely on the restaurants etc for food.
That is considerably less however, than the R35000 per person to a resort in Austria for example.

Inside the unit we usually rented

Some additional information.

1. No need for a 4x4 to get there
2. About 5 hours out of JHB
3. Need a passport to get through customs
4. Are lots of instructors and staff to help you
5. Entertainment at night for those that aren't smashed by the physical exertion on the slopes
6. Kids are welcome, and there are bunny slopes for them too (and they double as good learning areas)

We as a group of friends hired out 2 floors of the Aspen building. These were self catering units with 3 or 4 rooms per building. They have a kitchen and couches/TV etc for those that want to 'chill' indoors. All the units are heated so you are warm and toasty while inside.
We would plan and cook in the rooms each day, and visit and play all night (which is till 11pm for us older folks)!

The slope is a KM long. It is well groomed and broad enough to play. There are some decent steepish descents, but nothing to technical at all.
They do often open the park as well, which is a series of jumps and tricks that you can try your hand on. However, you can get quite hurt if you're not careful...these jumps can be a few stories high, and coming down on solid ice is not pleasant. In fact one year I wasn't careful and hit one of the jumps way too fast, got nervous, and landed wrong....biting the edge of the board into the ice....I left with a dislocated shoulder, face that Tyson went to town on and an operation 6 months later to sort out the mess. All part of the fun though isn't it?

So for any African's wanting an affordable place to go on holiday skiing, do yourself a favour and try out Afriski...it's really a great holiday for a great price.

Just make sure you start booking a year in advance, because the space fills up quickly

I am in no way affilliated with Afriski or Tiffendel, but for anyone serious about taking a look, check out the below website for info and contact details(a very cool virtual walk-through as well):

www.afriski.net

Cheers

Some pics of the fun there:
Brother (cool dude) and I (doing a bunny hop)

Big jump

The Slope, happened to have some pros practicing on the day