People living in Switzerland don't have far to travel to one of the many resorts which also attract foreign tourists to the country in winter. But sport never stands still, and in recent years there has been an explosion in new sports and in new ways to practise traditional ones.

Even such a traditional winter sport as skiing has evolved thanks to the use of new technology. One popular development is carving, which makes use of new materials and a radical new design - short skis, narrow at the waist and wide at both ends - to enable skiers to imitate the tight turns made by snowboarders. A variant of carving is snowblading, where the skis are curved at each end.

More controversial is heliskiing or heliboarding, where visitors are flown to inaccessible high mountain regions from where they can ski down glaciers. But there are moves to ban the sport - already forbidden in several European countries - on the grounds that nature should be left undisturbed.

Although skiing is regarded as the prime winter sport, tobogganing and skating have an even longer history in Switzerland and are widely practised.

Snowshoes have become more and more popular in recent years, with many resorts laying on trekking and races. They offer an ideal opportunity to non-skiers to enjoy the winter landscape. Here too the designers have been busy, finding ways to make the shoes equally good for going uphill, downhill or on the flat.