La Plagne, Mâcot-la-Plagne, France

In the heart of the French Alps, La Plagne is one of the more low-key and low-rise places to stay in the vast Paradiski area, which boasts 425km of pistes. If you can avoid the French school holidays, there should be plenty of room to spread out on the extensive slopes despite a few bottlenecks at popular lifts, such as those at nearby Plagne Bellecote. Moreover, there is plenty of variety both on-piste and off-piste - one route takes you through a tunnel with flashing lights and dance music, while another takes you along a kind of half-tube and a third takes you down a race track with a series of lively chicanes. Most of the black runs are skiable by intermediates, while even the blues can be steep enough to be fun. Once you are away from the blocky hotels, the scenery is also pretty special, particularly if you head over into the wooded slopes leading down to the peaceful valley that houses Champagny en Vanoise. Your lift pass entitles you to one day in Les Arcs, which is easily accessible via a short cable car visit and is well worth the trip. The Paradiski lunch options tend to be fairly mundane, but there are a few comfortable places to refuel and soak up the sun. Although it has a couple of lively bars, the village of La Plagne seems to be favoured by families and large gangs of young teenagers that throng around the supermarket. Still, there are some pleasant and peaceful walking trails above the village, from where you can soak up majestic mountain views.  8/10 

Easter skiing in the Monterosa region, Italy

Branded Italy's Three Valleys, the Monterosa region offers some decent high altitude skiing between the resorts of Champoluc, Gressoney and Alagna. The area is dominated by long, pacey and varied red runs, ideal for intermediates, rather than beginners and experts. In fact, the handful of hard blues and easy blacks would probably have been lined by red poles in another resort.  Still, experienced skiers will find plenty of challenging off-piste terrain. During the week, the slopes and the lifts are pretty empty, but the resorts can get uncomfortably busy at weekends and on public holidays when many Italians make the relatively easy drive up from Turin.

April Skiing in Verbier, Switzerland

Renown for its upmarket nightlife, the smart Swiss ski resort of Verbier still has something of a buzz in the second week of April. Although many of the chalets stand empty and you can walk straight on to the Medran gondolier, the sun terraces of the town's bars can still get busy come 4pm. Most of the pistes face south, so if you want half decent snow at this time of year, you need to stay above Les Ruinettes station at 2,200 metres. Up here, there are several wide sweeping red runs from the Attelas and Fontanet stations. On the way down to Ruinettes, you can branch off towards La Chaux, from where you can catch a big cable car (3 Jumbo) up to Col Des Gentianes (2,950 metres) and the glacier. The 150 capacity cabins seems to leave every 10-15 minutes, but it is worth the wait. Up here, the views are tremendous and the challenging red run down to La Chaux can be blissfully empty first thing in the morning. Many of the skiers wait for another cable car up to Mont-Fort, which boasts 360 degree views of 4,000 metre mountains. From here, there is a fiendishly steep black mogul run back down to the Col Des Gentianes station - not one for the faint-hearted.

Skiing in Obergurgl and Hochgurgl, Austria

A mid-morning view from Festkogl, at 3,038 metres, the highest point in the ski area above Obergurgl. From here you can take a mixture of a winding blue, a fun red and a tame black down to the Plattachbahn chair lift.

The Top Express - the eight-person gondola connecting the ski areas of Obergurgl and Hochgurgl - glides over tempting off-piste slopes between the settlements. The journey takes eight minutes to cover 3.6 kilometres. In April, at least, you rarely have to wait more than a minute to board.

April skiing in La Plagne, France

With a glacier and slopes as high as 3,000 metres, La Plagne is popular with skiers and boarders looking to get their fix in April. Even in the balmy spring of 2011, there was a respectable covering of snow on the dozen or so pistes above 2,300 metres, but they can get pretty crowded during the school holidays after 11am or so, when scores of reckless teenagers and their parents pad out the lift queues. Most of these higher slopes are cruising blues or reds, supplemented by a couple of blacks. But experienced skiers tend to head-off piste.

Easter Skiing in Saas Fee, Switzerland

A picturesque and mostly-pedestranised ski resort, Saas Fee is overshadowed by a glacier, which more than makes up for its smallish ski area. With pistes as high as 3,600 metres, you'll find plenty of snow around well into April. Late in the season, Saas Fee also boasts short queues, lots of sunshine, great views of stately 4,000 metre peaks and fast, modern lifts, so you'll spent a lot of time speeding down the slopes rather than standing around. As Saas Fee is quite strung out, try and stay near the hub of the lift system, which is flanked by the children's play area, plus three nursery slopes. At the top of one of the nursery slopes, a big, modern cable car leaves every 15 minutes and whisks you up to a train station at about 3,000 metres. From there you can ski a black down to one of the main piste clusters, take the frequent subterranean train up to the top of the mountain or hike through a tunnel to a series of blue and red runs back down to the middle station, where there is a snow board park and a big self-service restaurant.