WHO would have thought that the morning we were due to set off on our skiing holiday we would find ourselves trapped in our own drive… by snow.

The irony of leaving snow-bound rural Dorset to visit snow-bound Austria was not lost on us as our poor neighbour was hastily enlisted to help push the car out onto the icy lane to slip and slide its way to Bournemouth airport.

Thank goodness we were flying locally. Trawling to somewhere like Gatwick is always a miserable start to a holiday, snow or no. But luckily for us, Austrian airways flies from Bournemouth to Innsbruck in just under a couple of hours and then it was a short hop to our resort.

Even though our garden had been ankle deep in the white stuff for a week, we were still unprepared for the volume of snow that greeted us in Ellmau, a pretty village perched between the Kitzbüheler Alps and the majestic Wilder Kaiser mountains.

Talk about snowman central. What were the Austrians doing for hats, scarves and pipes, I wondered.

And it was that sticky sort that makes the most lethal, hard little snowballs…tee-hee…ouch! Not so good that were staying at a family hotel, then. The children, little blighters, had the ambush tactics of Andy McNab.

Still, it couldn’t snow enough as far as I was concerned. The last time we skiied in Europe, a year or two back, it had been a dreadful season. The lower slopes were brown mush, the higher ones pretty much sheet ice and it hadn’t snowed for weeks.

This time round it never stopped snowing. The groomed nursery slopes were perfection and higher up there was powder galore.

We couldn’t wait to get our skis on.

Our six-year-old was booked into six days of all-day ski school, with breaks for lunch, for which he had the option of eating with his class or meeting up with us. He chose the former, knowing full well that, armed with a lunch voucher and lacking any sort of parental control, he could opt for chips with everything.

But then that suited us, because by the time you’ve got your child plus kit to ski school and then got yourself up the mountain it’s almost time to come down again, the morning session only lasting two hours.

Like all those enrolled for lessons, apart from the complete beginners, the week began with an assessment. As our son is already a reasonably competent skier, he was put in an intermediate group and whisked away to find something a bit more challenging.

For most, including us, that meant a cable car trip up the Hautkaiser from where there are a good selection of blues and reds – and the odd black.

I say odd black because if you are looking for double diamonds and off-piste joyriding, you’re not going to find very much here. Ellmau itself is geared to families and beginners, and whilst there is a steep way down, the options are limited.

But the good news is that Ellmau is part of the wider SkiWelt, a network of small resorts which are all interlinked by lifts, allowing the adventurous to cover a vast area - 250km of pistes. Or, if time is a little tighter, you can cherry-pick specific areas and hop on one of the free shuttle buses that will take you straight there.

We were quite happy to stay close to home, or at least within skiing distance of a steaming mug of hot chocolate and whipped cream. And besides, when the weather really closed in, there was no better place to sit out a passing blizzard than in the mountain top restaurant with its panoramic view of the pistes.

Mind you, it can be alarming to sit in the warm and suddenly spot your child disappearing into that blizzard as his class go flying past. With snow so deep, there were one or two tales of children – and beginner adults, for that matter - ploughing off into drifts.

We certainly enjoyed exploring the slopes even if the going did get a bit deep and crisp and uneven by the end of the day. With so much snow falling it’s not surprising the terrain got rather bumpy. But then hopping around a few moguls adds to the fun and certainly burns the calories – well, you’ve got to justify those lunchtime carbs somehow.

At the end of a hard day’s skiing you can opt to take the Hautkaiser back down – steep, but slow, a bit like Alton Towers for geriatrics. With the carriages empty at least you get a chance to look at the spectacular mountain scenery this time, unlike the sardine-style squeeze going up in the morning, where you are more likely to get an eyeful of the pointy end of ski pole than of the view.

Most choose to ski down – and even beginners have no excuse to wimp out, as there is the option of steady blues all the way, and a couple of strategically placed watering holes en route should a dose of Dutch courage be required.

At the base, it was a quick trip on the shuttle to the hotel. We were lucky enough to have a bus stop right outside ours, but even then we made life easier for ourselves by stashing our kit in a locker at the foot of the Hautkaiser. At 2 euros a throw for all three of us it was worth every penny and made getting out in the mornings a piece of cake.

Ah, cake. The hours between the lifts closing and dinner arriving on the table can seem an eternity when you’ve been out in that Alpine air all day. Thank goodness, then, that our hotel, The Alpenhof, wheeled out hot drinks, juice for the children and vast quantities of cake. But adults had to think – and act – fast. The mini McNabs (nab being the operative word) would prepare for a strike as soon as the trolley started chinking its way out of the kitchen.

Adults soon formed a sort of Home Guard to protect precious tea time supplies for troops foolish enough to arrive back late.

This camaraderie was a hallmark of our stay. With just 12 rooms, The Alpenhof was more like a big houseparty than a hotel. Children and adults made friends quickly which is always a bonus.

In fact, for a family holiday it was nigh-on perfect. Comfortable, but not posh, a small but good menu with excellent children’s choices, close to the ski action and with thoughtful service.

As one of the hotels used by Crystal, it also came with in-house childcare (which included taking and collecting from ski school or simply daytime childminding for non-skiers) – and an extremely useful Pyjama Club which entertained children after dinner for a couple of hours.

As you would expect of any good family resort, Ellmau offers plenty of extra activities, swimming, ice skating, sleigh rides · curling and a snow park with tubing runs, where you go whizzing downhill on what looks like a large tyre inner tube. And if you want a day off to sight-see, where better than Saltzburg, just an hour and a half away.

We were sad to leave – and for a while gleefully thought perhaps we wouldn’t have to, so heavy was the snow. But while Dorset may grind to a standstill in a couple of inches, Austrians remain unfazed by such winter conditions.

Our final view, looking back through the coach window, was like peering into a snow globe that had just been shaken, as the twinkling lights of Ellmau disappeared into the blizzard.

FACTFILE

Prices in the Hotel Alpenhof in Ellmau, Austria, are from £519 per adult and from £272 per child (aged 2-11 years) including flights, transfers, half board and free wine or soft drinks with evening meals.

The hotel offers a Whizz Kids for children aged 3 -11 yrs that can take children to and from ski school, bridge the lunchtime gap, organise a range of indoor and outdoor activities on a half-day or full-day basis, and supervise children at the end of the day allowing parents to return from the slopes at your leisure.

More information from Crystal Ski (tel: 0871 231 2256; or book online at crystalski.co.uk for a six per cent discount.