The same thing happens every day at 5pm in ski resorts across the world. As we holidaymakers order our first beer of the evening after a "hard day on the slopes", teams of workers begin a night's graft turning the messy, bumpy runs into smooth pistes, ready for the following day.
Like many skiers, I've always been fascinated (and slightly terrified) by piste-bashers, the caterpillar-tracked monsters with a snowplough blade on the front and a tiller on the back. I have a model of one on my bookshelf (I bought one for my nephew and "accidentally" got two). But I never thought I'd get to drive one – until Serre Chevalier opened its grooming school to the public.
After breakfast I strolled to the chairlift through the pretty village of Monêtiers, then spent a morning carving turns on some of the 250km of immaculate pistes – voted the second best in France in a recent "grooming satisfaction" survey. At midday I arrived for my half-hour lesson at the piste-bashing course, laid out on a plateau in the middle of the ski area, with busy pistes all around.
My instructor, 28-year-old Rémy Valdenaire, who has been driving these machines for a decade, took me through the Top Gear bit: the PistenBully 300W Polar has two things in common with a Ferrari: the colour (bright red) and the price tag (€220,000). It has four times the horsepower of a Land Rover – but not for speed: it tops out at a very un-Clarkson-like 22kph. However, that didn't stop former formula one world champion Alain Prost and Olympic downhill ski champion turned rally driver Luc Alphand racing them last season.
It was quite some driving lesson: after 10 minutes, I was attempting a hill start on a 45-degree slope covered in snow. I was in the extremely sprung driving seat of a nine-ton piste-basher, easing it over the brow of an enormous hump in the snow, before it teetered over and crashed down the other side. As we sped off, there was a satisfying swirl of snow round the cabin and a feeling of exhilaration, as if I were driving a rollercoaster. The oddest thing I found was how tiny the controls of this beast are: little switches to change gear and very sensitive steering. Rémy became a little agitated as I suddenly veered towards his wooden hut.
Among resort workers, the piste-groomers have a reputation for being obsessive loners, working in isolation at their Sisyphean task through the night. Their relationship with skiers is odd. In one sense we ruin all their work, sweeping snow off the edges of the pistes and crafting bumps by all turning in the same spots.
That corduroy is created by the tiller, which I had to steer independently, using a thumb-switch on top of the steering wheel. And immediately I saw how the drivers must become obsessive – like a groundsman preparing the Wembley turf for the Cup Final, I was desperate to create straight lines, the slightest mistake creating an ugly kink in my wake.
I realised this isn't a menial job for testosterone-fuelled petrol-heads, but rather a craft. And after I tried to reverse to fix the mess, I vowed never to ski anywhere near a piste-basher again – despite an array of mirrors, you can barely see a thing out of the back.
Soon I was getting the hang of it, pushing to top speed and whooping as I rode the bumps and steeply banked turns. Rémy nodded encouragingly.
At the end of the afternoon I skied back to Monêtiers. A driver was firing up his piste-basher, ready for the night's work. I raised a hand in salute to my "colleague". He ignored me, but that's OK. I knew he had his hands full adjusting the potentiometer and trimming the tiller.
• A half-hour session at Serre Chevalier's Piste-Grooming School costs €50. A week for four people sharing a studio at the self-catering Residence l'Alpaga in Serre Chevalier costs from £517 with Erna Low, including Eurotunnel crossings.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2009
