“I’ve tried swapping the sharp elbows of Verbier or Chamonix, say, with off-piste havens of quieter renown: Andermatt, Alta, La Grave. But success there, too, has been fleeting. It was easy to imagine I was cursed until, last month, I visited a place where the snow was so abundant, the cobbled streets and chalets so beautiful, and the competition so thin that fellow skiers begged me not to repeat its name”
The Independent February 2013