Love Chamonix? Where to go next, depending on what you love about it

St Anton is the closest match to Chamonix in our data, and the only resort we cover that beats it on both of its own terms. It has 70 kilometres of marked itinerary against Chamonix's 44, and 43 percent of its piste is steeper than one in four, against 39. We class both as expert. Steepness here is measured the same way on both sides of the border, as average gradient, so it compares fairly where grade labels do not. A run's grade is still set by its steepest pitch, so treat it as a guide to the mountain rather than to any one run.

It is higher too, with a village at 1,304 metres against Chamonix's 1,035.

The trade is the town. Chamonix is a real town with a life of its own. St Anton is a ski village with a famous party, which some Chamonix regulars will love and some will not. You also give up Mont Blanc, and the season is shorter, December to April rather than December to May.

Engelberg is the closest thing in Switzerland to Chamonix's shape. The village sits at 1,000 metres, almost exactly Chamonix's height, under lifts that reach 3,028 metres on the Titlis, and the season runs from December to May, just as Chamonix's does. We class it as expert, and its real draw is freeride: the Laub and the other big descents, which appear in none of the piste figures.

Which is the trade. On piste, Engelberg is small: 70 kilometres on the Titlis, with Brunni across the valley, reached by a free ski bus rather than a lift. Judge it on that figure alone and you will undersell it badly. But go knowing there is much less groomed skiing than you have at home, and that 31 percent of it is steeper than one in four, against Chamonix's 39.

If what you love about Chamonix is being somewhere real, a town with a history of its own rather than a resort built for skiing, Bad Gastein is the answer we would give. It is a grand old spa town of faded belle époque hotels, and its skiing is closer to Chamonix's than you might expect: a village at 1,000 metres against 1,035, and 37 percent of its piste steeper than one in four, against 39. Its lifts reach 2,686 metres.

The trade is the off piste. Bad Gastein has 1.5 kilometres of marked itinerary against Chamonix's 44, and we do not class it as expert. Its own ski area is 83 kilometres, one of four separate areas down the valley. Choose it for the town, the spa and properly steep piste skiing, not for big days off the map.