Other novice-skier giveaways are cashmere mittens - not practical in slushy snow, or indeed any snow - and wearing sunglasses in a white-out (not a pleasant experience).

A three-hour ride at the beginning of the year, in the freezing, slushy snow suggested not.

It took the expedition four months of slogging through dense brush and windthrows, swamps, steep canyons and deep, wet, slushy snow just to reach the inner mountains.