Used to Austria? The Swiss ski resorts that will feel like home

Our read of Verbier is cosmopolitan and lively, and it is the only Swiss resort we cover with St Anton's two tags, lively and expert. Our guide is clear about the evenings: the après starts on the mountain in the afternoon, rolls into the village without a pause and ends in clubs that stay open into the small hours. That is an Austrian day, moved to the Valais, on a Geneva flight rather than an Innsbruck one.

The off piste carries over too. Verbier has 25.9 kilometres of marked off piste itinerary, the second most of the 15 Swiss resorts we cover, and our guide puts much of its freeride within reach of the lifts; the Freeride World Tour finishes each season on the Bec des Rosses, above the resort. Against St Anton's 70 kilometres, the most of the 55 resorts we cover, it is a second best, but a serious one.

It is higher than anything you are leaving. The village is at 1,500 metres, 123 above Ischgl's, and the skiing reaches 3,283 metres by our measure, the sixth highest of the 55 resorts we cover. It is snow sure on our measure: 84 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, up to 3,283 metres.

The trade is the piste itself. Our matching puts Verbier close to no Austrian resort we cover, mostly because its runs are so gentle. Only 19 percent of its piste is steeper than one in four, against 43 at St Anton, and 48 percent is gentler than 15 percent, the joint highest share of the 55 resorts we cover. Its blues average 11.5 percent, the gentlest of the 55 resorts we cover. The reputation lives off the piste. And the Four Valleys is quoted at 410 kilometres, but that is the pass: Verbier's own domain measures about 97, less than any Austrian resort on the table.

If what you love about Austria is the village, our matching has a clear answer. Of the 13 Austrian resorts we cover, it makes Adelboden the closest Swiss match for six, Kitzbühel and Saalbach-Hinterglemm among them; no other Swiss resort is first for more than two. On character it earns that. Adelboden is a classic chalet village, traditional and warm by our read, linked by lift to Lenk, with the World Cup on its list. A Kitzbühel regular, whose town lists racing among its own strengths, will know the type.

It sits higher. The village is at 1,350 metres, 550 above Kitzbühel's, and 55 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, against 11 at Kitzbühel and 19 at Saalbach. The skiing tops out at 2,356 metres by our measure, 388 above Kitzbühel's top, though short of the height we look for before calling a resort snow sure.

The headline figure overstates the ski area. The pass covers 188 kilometres across five sectors that are not all joined, and from Adelboden you can ski 85 of them without transport, Lenk included. Around the village we measure 115 kilometres of piste.

The runs will feel familiar. Adelboden's reds average 21.3 percent, a touch steeper than Kitzbühel's 20.3, and its blacks 26.1 against 25.9, though there is far less black: 12.9 kilometres against Kitzbühel's 34, the most of the 55 resorts we cover. What you give up is the town and its nights. Adelboden is a warm village, not a loud one.

Our matching puts Davos closer to Ischgl than any resort we cover outside Austria, and the measurements agree. We measure 145 kilometres of piste around the town, against Ischgl's 152. The reds average 20.7 percent, exactly Ischgl's figure, and there are 20.7 kilometres of black, the most of the 15 Swiss resorts we cover. It is snow sure on our measure: 78 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, up to 2,808 metres, 60 below Ischgl's top, from a town at 1,560 metres, 183 above Ischgl's village.

Davos shares a pass with Klosters across separate mountains, and only the Parsenn, 95.5 kilometres, is genuinely shared by the two; the rest need a train, a bus or the car. The official 300 kilometres sits 34 percent above the 224 we measure across the same ten lift areas. It is gentler too: 23 percent of the piste is steeper than one in four, against Ischgl's 34.

The evenings belong to a town. Our read of Davos is busy and practical, not lively, but our guide puts a younger, freestyle crowd in the bars at the foot of the Jakobshorn once the lifts close, and a working town does not go dark when the skiing stops. Nobody will mistake it for Ischgl at midnight. Nobody will send you to bed at nine, either.

If your Austrian week is Saalbach with the children, what you love is the circuit: a big mountain from the door, with plenty of it easy. Arosa keeps that best. Arosa and Lenzerheide make one ski area of 225 kilometres, the two valleys joined by a single cable car, and three sources agree on the figure. Around Arosa we measure 183 kilometres of piste, the most of the 15 Swiss resorts we cover and about 9 short of Saalbach's 192, with 96.6 kilometres of blue and easier, also the most of the Swiss resorts we cover.

And it is high. The village is at 1,800 metres, the second highest of the 15 Swiss resorts we cover and 797 above Saalbach's. It is snow sure on our measure: 65 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, up to 2,848 metres, against 19 percent at Saalbach.

The trade is the rest of Saalbach. Arosa is gentle and sunny by our read, a family mountain, and nothing in our data says party. Its piste is kinder: 24 percent is steeper than one in four, against Saalbach's 42, and its reds average 21.8 percent against 27.8. The blacks are the steepest of the 15 Swiss resorts we cover, at 32.4 percent, but there are only 14.5 kilometres of them.