How To Be Cool in Après Ski

It does not matter how fast you ski or how many rides you did during the sunny winter afternoon. Après Ski (essentially French translation of “after skiing”) is a different world. It is a world of fun, drinks, and unbound entertainment. You will definitely hear more stories about Après Ski events than about the real skiing from colleagues returning from skiing holiday. If you want to be cool too, just follow our simple advisory tool for everything related to Après Ski.

What is Aprés Ski

As we already mentioned Après Ski means “after skiing” in French. However, in ski resorts, Après Ski is a symbol of posh bars and places where you can drink (and sometimes also eat) after you finish your skiing session. It is usually located close to the slopes, in a nearby village or at the bottom of the slopes. Sometimes it can be located also on the slope, but we will write more about such unfortunate locations in “return home” section of this article.

There are more types of Après Ski. Most common are typical winter hut, iglu bar or modern architecture building. See the gallery below and guess which is what kind of bar.

Fortunately, it does not matter how Après Ski looks. It is more important what they serve inside. Let’s move to the basics of how to behave inside, what to drink, what to wear and other important things you need to know before entering.

Skis

People usually visit Après Ski after skiing. It is an unwritten rule, that you should visit the bar for a coffee or drink after at least one ride. Therefore you will have your skis with you. Fortunately, you will park your skis outside of a bar, so it does not really matter what skis you have. Snow usually covers the signs of brands which gives you an advantage if your skis are not the top model of the season.

Skis outside of Apres Ski Bar

Clothing

Clothing is unfortunately important in Après Ski. People, usually ladies, thoroughly rate your ski jackets, thermal shirt, and pants you wear. Your clothes give signal how many drinks you will be able to buy for friends or other people around you. Bogner jacket will not do any wrong to you.


A good thing about Après Ski is that you do not need to use deodorant. It is normal, that skiers smell a little bit, so there is no need to change the clothes before entering the bar.

Behavior in Après Ski

Behavior is a key to your success in any bar. Après Ski is not an exception. Skiers are usually people on holiday who would like to have fun and good active rest. So you should be unformal, smiling, genial, in good mood. You should have some jokes in a pocket. Your basic facial expression should be free and easy. See the examples of a skier in and outside of Après Ski below as model role of airy expression and behavior.

What to drink

Picking a drink in Après Ski is a must. Of course, it depends on your taste. We just tell you what is cool and what is not cool.

Everything with alcohol in it is cool. Local specialty drink like Bombardino (special alcoholic liquor served with cream) is “uber cool”. Drinking coffee is o.k. in case you will drink also something with alcohol. Beer is usually o.k. to rehydrate yourself if you were really skiing before.

Drinking tea is really embarrassing. Drinking soft drinks is “uber embarrassing”.

Music

The music playing in Après Ski can vary from actual pop via hip hop to some local folklore music. It is set by the bar staff or by the owner and style of the bar. If you do not like the music, you can pick it as a good conversation topic. And more you will drink the better you will understand even the music you normally hate.

Return home

Leaving the Après Ski is usually hard and it takes a lot of strength. Returning home can be a tricky thing if you were in a bar on the slope. Skiing down with a few shots of alcohol can change the slope from intermediate to black one. Therefore, we strongly recommend picking bars at the bottom of the slopes.

And that is all about our visits to Après Ski. Hope our advisory tool will help you enjoy also this part of your skiing holiday.



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Ski Pro Guru

Simon is the leading editor of SkiProGuru.com for almost 3 years. He started skiing in his teens and now he switches from Alpine to Cross-Country Skiing regularly. He tried also snowboard for a few years, but then returned to conventional skiing :) In his free time he follows soccer, tennis and reads a lot of contemporary proses and novels.

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