‘I am like a mountain goat!’ 24-year old Ali Shah Farhang tells me smiling broadly. ‘When I was very young, I would walk for five hours every day across the peaks to school and back home in all kinds of weather: minus 20 degrees, through deep snow, all on my own. These mountains are in my blood.’

The vibrant young Afghani is sharing the story of his rapid rise to sporting glory as we sit in bright, spring sunshine, drinking green chai from a battered thermos. We’re high up on a hillside by the crumbling shell of a hotel, looking out across the valley towards the towering Buddha Niches of Bamiyan.

Pointing at the cliffs where the 6th Century statues were dynamited and destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, he explains, ‘When you live in a country like Afghanistan, you have a different way of thinking about danger. I think this is another one of the reasons why I am a good skier. I am a fearless person – I love the excitement of it all. I am a speed freak.’

Growing up in the tiny hamlet of Kushkak in the mountains nearby, Ali Shah was accustomed to spending the winter months working as a shepherd and tending to his family’s flock. That was until he picked up a pair of skis for the very first time. ‘An Italian came to the Bamiyan Ski Club (a project funded by a charitable organisation to help develop tourism in the area) and I got the chance to go ski training which was very serious, very tough. But I loved it. It came very naturally to me.’

Just four years later and he now boasts the title of Afghanistan’s Number 1 Skier and reigning champion of the annual Afghan Ski Challenge, the only competition of its kind in the country. ‘I feel freedom when I’m skiing – freedom from the restrictions and repressions of my country.’

Alongside a small group of equally enthusiastic and talented countrymen, Ali Shah is now utilising his knowledge of the mountains and his skills on the snow working as a ski guide, serving the increasing number of foreigners who come to Bamiyan looking for an adrenaline fix with a difference.

‘I think Bamiyan is maybe the fastest growing ski destination in the world!’ he jokes. ‘Before, no one came here, now every year in February and March we are welcoming more and more adventurous visitors from Australia, New Zealand, the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland and even the USA, sometimes as many as 30 people in one month. They love the dry snow, the fast runs, the jumping from rocks when they go off-piste – Afghanistan is a real challenge even for experienced skiers.’