FASCINATING stuff, snow. Hands up anyone who has never felt the urge to hurl a snowball or get the sledge out when the first flakes fall – unless you're wondering whether home will see you that night or you have to work outdoors in it.

Charlie English takes his fascination several stages further as his childhood love of snow and skiing morphs into a selfish urge – leaving wife and young family behind, feeling guilty but going anyway – to visit some of the world's snowiest parts "in search of the purest, deepest, snowfall".

Or, let's be honest, giving Charlie the chance to mess about with snow of many kinds, discover how to build an igloo, scoot about on a snow-machine and write about the history of skiing and the study of snowflake formation while introducing a plethora of Trivial Pursuits information on snowstorms and avalanches.

That includes useful advice on how to survive an avalanche. The best way, as we might have guessed, is not to get caught in one. But that's not as trite as you may think, especially for winter sports enthusiasts, because there are an estimated 100,000 avalanches in the US alone each year killing, on average, 19 people.

There are fewer avalanches, but a higher death rate, in France (30 deaths), Austria (26) and Switzerland (23) because many more skiers, snowboarders and climbers are on the scenic slopes and still too many sacrifice common sense rules for the sake of excitement.

Can they be blamed? Not necessarily by Charlie, who fell in love with snow and skiing on cheap and cheerful trips to the Cairngorms with his brother and mother as a boy.

The Cairngorms winter sports scene has changed since the 1970s heyday of Aviemore, as Charlie finds during a gloomy return. There is less snow than there used to be and cheap travel has taken trade to the more reliable Alps.

What would the Scottish winter tourist trade give for a small percentage of the snow that falls in the world's snowiest places visited by Charlie, such as Mount Baker in Washington State and Thompson Pass in Alaska, with several feet a night not unusual?

Along with recalling his first snowflake and his gentle nostalgia for the Cairngorms as he first knew them, Charlie remembers the effect of the first big mountain he saw as a 12-year-old "gawping at the towering black triangle that is the north face of the Eiger".

He writes: "Since that first overwhelming introduction to the Alps I have travelled back as often as possible, principally for the snow and skiing , but also for the scenery… Each time I have tried to push myself a little further."

Sadly, that pushing ends in tears.

In a moving passage he tries to confront his worsening vertigo and the potential danger of a mountain pass as part of a long-planned trip in the Alps with a friend, and Philippe, a professional mountaineer and guide.

This time Charlie fell at the first big hurdle: "The white strip of the col and its steep approach glared at me from afar, and the belief rose within me that this was a journey to self-destruction

… My eyes were wet as I said 'Stop!'"

Settling for easier routes, they spent several more days in the mountains, until after another uneasy withdrawal from a climb Philippe almost sneered: "You fear death? …You came here to challenge yourself, but I think you are dead while you are alive."

That night Charlie went out and got drunk. His lighthearted vision of jolly japes in search of perfect snow must have seemed distant in those lonely small hours.

He bounced back, but the book leaves the impression of a man who thought travelling to learn more about snow would be fun, but in the process learned a lot about himself and wrote a thoughtful book, concluding: "I no longer feel the desperate need to travel; I rather want to take a rest from it and be with my family."

Sensible chap.