Like Kitzbühel, but in France: the old village feel, without the nights

Les Gets is where we would send a Kitzbühel regular first. Our read on it is warm and traditional, a pretty village with families and tree skiing at the top of its list, and a skier used to Kitzbühel's long tree lined runs back to town will feel at home in the woods. The village is at 1,172 metres, 372 above Kitzbühel's.

It also opens on to something bigger than home. Les Gets is a gateway to the Portes du Soleil, twelve villages across two countries on one genuinely linked circuit. The official figure is 600 kilometres; measured, it comes to 580, and an independent measurement cited by Wikipedia puts it nearer 426. Even the home sector, Les Gets and Morzine, is 117 kilometres. Around the village itself we measure 99 kilometres of piste, 55 of them green and blue, so the cruising you go to Kitzbühel for is there.

The snow is the same bargain as at home. The skiing tops out at 1,965 metres by our measure, level with Kitzbühel's, and only 1 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, the second smallest share of the 55 resorts we cover. Treat it as you treat Kitzbühel: a midwinter week, not an Easter one.

What you give up is the town and the black. Les Gets has 9.6 kilometres of black against Kitzbühel's 34, and 23 percent of its piste is steeper than one in four, against 29. The blacks it has are steeper on average, 33.2 percent against 25.9, so there are fewer of them and they bite harder. And the evenings are a village's evenings, warm rather than loud.

Our matching puts Le Grand-Bornand nearest to Kitzbühel of all the French resorts we cover. On the surface it is the least like it: a rural, friendly farming village at 1,000 metres, quiet and family minded by our read, with authenticity rather than nightlife on its list. It shares a lift pass with La Clusaz next door, though the Aravis area is not classified in our data, so we quote no total for it.

The measurements tell a different story. Thirty-seven percent of the piste is steeper than one in four, against Kitzbühel's 29, the fourth highest share of the 17 French resorts we cover. The reds average 28.1 percent, the third steepest of the 55 resorts we cover, and the blacks 34.3 percent against Kitzbühel's 25.9. If what you love at Kitzbühel is the Streif side of it, this quiet village has more bite per kilometre than home. It also reaches higher: the skiing tops out at 2,458 metres by our measure, 490 above Kitzbühel's, though only 15 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres.

The trade is quantity and evenings. We measure 85 kilometres of piste around the village, with 11 kilometres of black against 34, and 52 kilometres of green and blue against Kitzbühel's 63 of blue and easier. For a Kitzbühel skier who cruises on reds, the reds here are a different animal.

Châtel is a farm village on the Swiss border, rustic and friendly by our read, with families and tradition on its list, and like Les Gets it sits on the Portes du Soleil. Of the three, its mix is the nearest to Kitzbühel's on steepness: 26 percent of the piste is steeper than one in four, against 29. It also has the most high piste of the three: 23 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, double Kitzbühel's share, and the skiing tops out at 2,084 metres, 116 above Kitzbühel's.

What you give up is the hard end almost entirely. Châtel has 5.4 kilometres of black, the least of the 17 French resorts we cover, and we measure 82 kilometres of piste around the village, 45 of them green and blue. It is the pick for a Kitzbühel family that skis blue and red and wants the linked area on the doorstep, not for the one who goes for the race course.