Like Hintertux, but in France: the snow travels, the year round glacier does not

Tignes is the French resort our matching puts closest to Hintertux, and the only one of the three that keeps its modern trait. Our read is practical and high, our one line high, snow sure and built for skiing, and snow sure skiing, a long season and value against its neighbour are on its list. It is the same idea as Hintertux, set higher. Our guide adds a glacier of its own, the Grande Motte, reached by funicular from Val Claret.

The snow carries over. The village is at 2,100 metres, the second highest of the 55 resorts we cover and 600 above yours. The skiing reaches 3,449 metres by our measure, the highest of the 17 French resorts we cover and 210 above your top, and 97 percent of the piste is at or above 1,800 metres, against your 96.

It gives you more of a mountain. Espace Killy, shared with Val d'Isère, is 300 kilometres. Around Tignes we measure 130 kilometres, 20 more than around Hintertux, with 76 of green and blue, 20.5 of black against your 2.9, and 14.2 of marked itinerary where Hintertux has none in our data. The blues keep some of the bite you know: they average 17.6 percent, the second steepest of the 17 French resorts we cover, against your 19.3, while only 25 percent of the piste is steeper than one in four, against your 32. Those are averages per run segment, and a run's grade is set by its steepest pitch; French and Austrian grades are set differently, so read the gradients rather than the colours.

The trade is the calendar and the journey. Tignes runs from late November to early May, which is long, but it is not every day of the year. And you fly to Geneva, not Innsbruck.

Serre Chevalier's village is at 1,350 metres, 150 below yours, and the village height is what our matching says carries over. It is snow sure on our measure, if with less of it high: 72 percent of the piste is at or above 1,800 metres, and the skiing reaches 2,751, 488 below your top.

What it adds is size and spread. We measure 153 kilometres of piste around it against your 110, the most of these three, with 91 kilometres of green and blue and 16.7 of black. The reds are the steep part, averaging 24.9 percent against your 22.1, so a Hintertux red skier has plenty to do, while the blues are kinder, at 16.8 against 19.3.

The trade is the mood and the top. Our read is relaxed and sunny, our one line sun, trees and a string of old villages, with tree skiing, sunshine and value on its list, and we class it as quiet, not modern. Its area is not classified in our data, so we quote no total for it. You fly to Turin or Grenoble.

Saint-Martin-de-Belleville's village is at 1,450 metres, 50 below yours, the nearest of the three. Our read is traditional and quiet, our one line an old Savoyard village inside the Three Valleys, with authenticity, food and Three Valleys access on its list. Like Hintertux, it has no marked itinerary in our data.

It is snow sure on our measure: 75 percent of the piste is at or above 1,800 metres, up to 2,691 metres by our measure, 548 below your top. Beyond it is the Three Valleys, a genuinely linked area quoted at 600 kilometres, a figure we have not measured. Around the village itself we measure 75 kilometres of piste, 35 fewer than around Hintertux.

The mountain is the other way round from yours. Hintertux is mostly red; here 67 percent of the piste we measure is green and blue, 50 kilometres of it, with 19.0 of red and 6.0 of black. Each has the least even split between easy, red and black of the resorts we cover in its country. Only 20 percent of the piste is steeper than one in four, against your 32, so for a red skier the week is in the Three Valleys beyond the village. And the feel is traditional and quiet, not modern.