Inching up the steep, hard-packed ridge, I search for purchase with the toes of my ski boots, hand gripping that of my new Slovakian friend Milan, ahead of me, for dear life. Milan’s brother Pavol and photographer Jon make up the rest of the chain. The sky above us is darkening, the lights of the Kamenná hut where we’re staying the night, at the top of Slovakia’s largest resort, Jasná, glitter comfortingly behind us.

The reason we’re out here, teetering at 2,000m at 6.15pm, drops away before us – the precipitous runs of one of Jasná’s 12 Freeride Zones, couloirs stuffed full of powder that have finally emerged from the fog so we can inspect their steepness before trying them tomorrow. The weather has at last cleared, and a mix of cold and trepidation makes me shiver.

A 16-seat cable car installed for the 2013/14 season speeds skiers to over 2,000m

Sandwiched between Austria, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, Slovakia is getting more attention as a ski destination, thanks to low prices, recent investment in resorts and big mountains – the Tatras. There are several small resorts, but it’s Jasná and its 49km of mostly intermediate pistes that’s the most attractive destination for international visitors, one of the best in Eastern Europe. We, however, are intent on investigating Slovakia’s off-piste excitements.

The most challenging Freeride Zones are on the more developed North Side of the resort’s Chopok mountain, with gentler descents on the quieter South Side. Tatry Motion freeride school specialises in off-piste lessons and guiding, and Jasná also produces a manual about the Zones for the more experienced. All are patrolled and avalanche controlled, though off-piste insurance is still needed to cover search and rescue (and can be bought with a lift pass if necessary).

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A few days earlier, traversing below the heavily corniced steeps of another of the North Side’s Zones, I can see only two or three tracks marking the pure white above us. I wait at the top of a knoll for the two snowboarders below to give the all-clear. Go! My skis drop into soft crystal fluffiness, my open, grinning mouth is filled with cold powder and I almost sneeze as I make the first smooth turn. The snow is freshly fallen and perfect, the sky blue, the slope empty. It’s a short pitch, and nothing like as steep as the extreme faces above, but as the quiet hiss of snow surrounds me I feel as thrilled as if I’d done them. Speeding across the flats towards the trees that lead back into the piste network, all three of us whoop as the powder whirls around us.

Many times during the week though, visibility is against us, the upper slopes cloaked in fog, the Freeride Zones tantalisingly out of bounds. But it gives us a chance to find other seams of white gold, in the trees that cover the lower half of the mountain.

As we whizz up a six-person chairlift from the resort’s Zåhradky base at 1,028m, to just above the mid-mountain tree line on the North Side, the appeal of following the pylons down is obvious, steeps and lips making it a fun rollercoaster ride. Just off to skier’s right are widely spaced trees that easily give up secret stashes of powder and we race through them before popping out into the lift line again.

The South Side is reached by a fast 16-seat gondola from Priehyba at 1,342m to the top of Chopok at 2,024m, with a double-cable system that means it runs even in high winds. Just riding it is incredible on a clear day, the couloirs of the Freeride Zones stretching away on both sides, the eerily hoar-frost covered former weather station, the Rotunda, which now houses a hotel, restaurants and – bizarrely enough – a rum bar, looming into view.

On the South Side, we find more Freeride Zones, more trees. At the top are big open slopes choked with light, fluffy snow, and we slash giant turns on them before meeting Milan, who’s a ski patroller here. Our luck is in – he’s off duty and guides us into the trees. They start off widely spaced, then become tighter, the slopes getting steeper, and as we charge around the tall green firs, clouds of snow and the scent of pine erupt around us. The white stuff is deep and forgiving, the gully an oasis of perfect visibility.

Back at the Rotunda after a ride on another updated gondola, we try Slovakian tea – a secret recipe that has a hint of Ribena about it – and a parená. It’s like the Austrian germknödel, a soft not too sweet dumpling with a hidden heart of plum jam, doused in butter, poppy seeds and sugar. Delicious, as is all the hearty local food we try. Rich deer goulash in a bread bowl, cabbage soup with slivers of tasty meat, pirohy (small meat pasties), pork cooked in thyme with beans, fried cheese. And it’s all at reasonable prices, from around €4.50 to €10.

The rum bar in Jasná's on-mountain Rotunda hotel and restaurant

The tiny resort of Tatranská Lomnica, an hour’s drive from Jasná with quiet slopes ideal for families, is one of several nearby resorts under the same Tatry Mountains ownership as Jasná, and covered by the Jasná lift pass. And the limited area also hides jewels – masses of easily accessed untracked powder that has us shouting for joy and sessioning the top lifts over and over, a black run at the top that’s the steepest in Slovakia and, best of all, the view from the highest peak, Lomnicky Stit at 2,634m. There are no runs down, and it’s so steep rumour has it only two people have ever skied it. At the startlingly modern bar inside the sun observatory here, a shot is in order to celebrate the place’s very existence. Tatransky caj (pronounced chai), which has nothing to do with tea, is a sweet, herby concoction that invigorates us for the cable car ride down.

A shot to celebrate is a Slovakian tradition we’ve already embraced in Jasná – apple schnapps from Pavol’s hip flask after descending the gully on the South Side, something from the selection at the Rotunda restaurant – just because at €2.40 it’d be rude not to. And as we sit back in the safety of the Kamenná hut after our view of the Freeride Zone abyss with Milan and Pavol, supping beers, waiting for our goulash, Jon playing chess with a fellow hut inhabitant, it’s a shot of a mysterious home-made herby brew called horec. Milan tells us it’s a Slovakian saying that beer without shots is like money in the wind. We’ll drink to that. And to the sky staying clear for tomorrow’s couloirs.

Need to know

Mountain Paradise (mountainparadise.co.uk) offers a week’s half-board staying four nights’ at the Grand Jasnà Hotel in Jasna and three nights’ at the Grand Hotel Praha near Tatranská Lomnica from £1,049 per person, including flights to Poprad-Tatry from London Luton with Wizz Air, private transfers, lift passes and equipment rental.

Fast facts

Jasná

Resort 1,028m to 1,213m

Slopes 943m to 2,024m

Lifts 30 Pistes 49km

Our rating Beginner 4/5, Intermediate 3/5, Expert 4/5

Six-day lift pass €199

More info jasna.sk

Tatranská Lomnica

Resort 850m

Slopes 850m to 2,190m

Lifts 9 Pistes 12km,

Our rating Beginner 3/5, Intermediate 3/5, Expert 3/5

Six-day lift pass €174

More info vt.sk