2) Klyuchevskaya Sopka, Kamchatka

The Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far-east is as big as France, as mountainous as Switzerland and more volcanic than anywhere else on Earth. It’s also damned hard to get to, with just one international airport and one carrier, the less-than-lovely Aeroflot.

And the only way to access most of its peaks is by helicopter, with a couple of heliski companies operating to the south of the capital Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

It looks tempting – but be warned, it has erupted three times already this year.

However, if you head north up the spine of the peninsula along the Sredinny Range you’ll encounter a seemingly endless array of 3,000-metre plus peaks which are unnamed and un-ridden; even better, veer east towards the Pacific coast and you’ll encounter Klyuchevskaya Sopka (aka Ключевская сопка) an active stratovolcano that at 4,750-metres is the highest mountain on the peninsula and the highest active volcano in Eurasia.

Its steep, symmetrical cone offers loads of tempting lines – but be warned, it has erupted three times already this year.

4) The Shark’s Fin, Greenland

A couple of years ago my friend Elli Magnusson went ski mountaineering in SE Greenland on the Apusiaajik Glacier with a bunch of mates, where amongst other peaks they skied one they named the ‘Shark’s Fin’.

Here’s a brief description from Elli: “We watched Chris and Andreas…dropping in on the south facing side of the Shark, sending sprays of…pure powder snow up in the air on every turn…”.

This is just one mountain tucked away in the bottom corner (which is not the snowiest part) of the world’s largest island. Imagine how much more terrain must be waiting out there, possibly for ever, to hear the hiss of skis or board slicing through endless powder…

A quick gander on Google Earth shows a range of faces you could hit and be sure of not encountering anyone else’s tracks, although there are now operators offering ski touring trips to this region.

That may mean you have to share the terrain with a few mates and possibly the odd penguin, but lift lines seem pretty unlikely.

7) Gangkhar Peunsum, Bhutan

Here’s a potentially great opportunity for true adventurers – a chance to scale and ski the world’s highest unclimbed peak.

7,570-metre Gangkhar Puensum sits in the north of Bhutan close to the Chinese border, and has vertiginous slopes on all sides that will challenge the very best of ski mountaineers.

However, there’s one small fly in the ointment – since 2003 the Bhutanese government has forbidden mountaineering in the country, for cultural reasons (the high peaks are considered to be the homes of protective gods and spirits) as well as for the purely practical reason of lack of access to local high-altitude rescue facilities.

But, if you could persuade the powers that be to allow you access, and if you’re good enough, it’s there to be shredded.

10) Olympus Mons, Mars

With its summit at a staggering altitude of 21,230-metres Olympus Mons is the highest mountain on Mars – and since there are plans to land humans there in the near future, who’s to say it won’t one day be ridden or skied?

And where we once used to think of it as a dry planet water has recently been discovered on Mars, so who knows, there may be some snow up there on Olympus Mons (although to be honest satellite images don’t look especially snowy).

But if there was snow on its slopes, and if you could get to the summit, it would be the perfect beginner slope – with an average angle of just 5 degrees if you skied from the summit to the base of Olympus Mons you’d get a run of over 200km in length, so should be an expert by the time you arrived at the bottom station’s après-ski pub, which would, of course, be called the Mars Bar.