Varsity Trip

Varsity Trip is the official annual ski and snowboard trip organised by, and for, students of Oxford and Cambridge universities. First held in Wengen, Switzerland in 1922, it is oldest student snowsports event and two years older than the Winter Olympic Games, and with 3,200 participants in 2011 it is also billed as the world's largest.

Varsity Trip was founded as the facilitator of the Blues Ski Races between the University of Oxford and Cambridge University in 1922; at this time skiing was an expensive sport and it was almost exclusively attended by the racers and their families. In more recent times the trip has grown to include skiers of all levels – up to a third of participants are now complete beginners – and has grown massively in size and scale. The trip now usually visits one of the larger resorts in the French Alps in the first week of December, the first week of the season for most resorts. Recent destinations have included Val Thorens, Tignes, and Val d'Isere; the destination for the 2010 and 2011 trips was Val Thorens.