7 of the best late-season ski breaks

Compared to Chalet Chouqui, the showpiece of Tom Avery’s Ski Verbier Exclusive group, Chalet Rock is a baby. It’s like a fun-sized Toblerone compared to a jumbo one you get in Duty Free: it’s still Swiss, swish and perfect, just smaller. Set on the shoulder of Verbier – a short drive away in a plush SVE van from the main ski lifts – the well-staffed Rock boasts five double beds, a home cinema, a games room, sun terrace and an outdoor hot tub, where you can sip champagne while watching the sun sink over the pine-clad slopes. Chefs prepare breakfast (homemade bircher – when in Switzerland…) and when you return from pounding up and down Le Quatre Vallées, including the famous Mont Fort and Tortin runs, there’s a charming blackboard on the table where tea is laid out, saying: “Please help yourself to banana and Toblerone cake.” (Toblerone, again, yes.) Later, your evening starts in front of the fire with canapés, then the in-house chef will uncork her culinary skills, which are so astonishing that guests have been known to refuse to leave the chalet on cook’s night off. Carbs at Verbs: the very definition of having your cake and eating it. Rachel Johnson

This being the Italian side of the Alps, glamour is guaranteed at Le Massif, both within the hotel – all granite and woody mountain minimalism – and in the cobbled, designer-clad resort town of Courmayeur. Located near the main cable car, this sleek, five-star design hotel houses 80 rooms and suites; bedrooms are cozy with balconies, while there are two-bedroom corner arrangements for families. The food is a major draw – the two restaurants lean towards fine dining rather than the trattoria-style comfort food that we all crave after a hard day’s skiing, but you can’t argue with the quality of the wagyu beef, the lashing of truffles shavings and the excellent wine list. The buffet breakfast offerings are also incredible: half a dozen choices of bread; eggs done any way imaginable; freshly squeezed juices and Prosecco. The sun-filled, slope-side club La Loge du Massif, meanwhile, has some of the best sushi in Courmayeur, as well as a boot room, sandwich bar, formal restaurant, vast firepit terrace, and a kids club and nanny service. But the real star of the show is the spa with its rooftop hot tubs – the seriously able-handed therapists and organic products work wonders after a session on the slopes. Book through Momentum Ski. Catherine Fairweather

With its glass walls overlooking an exposed southwest stretch of the Canadian Rockies, this black-painted hideaway is like something out of the pages of Architectural Digest. Pioneer Cabin is a sustainable, four-bedroom retreat with sparse, tastefully understated interiors so as not to distract from the views of the snow-capped mountains outside. Explore the rugged wilderness straight from the back door on the numerous ski trails, gentle local pistes or the more hardcore Kicking Horse Resort circuit.

If Queenstown in New Zealand is the adventure capital of the southern hemisphere, then the Whare Kea Chalet is the region’s temple of luxury, where one can rest feet tired from all the snow-shoeing, cross-country skiing and heli-skiing that the southern Alps have to offer. This remote cabin, which sleeps up to six guests and two staff, sits 5,700ft high in the Albert Burn Saddle on the north side of Dragonfly Peak and is accessible only by helicopter. Whare Kea’s resident pilot, Charlie Ewing, can drop you from his chopper into the belly of a glacier, or give you tours of Mount Aspiring National Park.

There is history at every turn in Zermatt: grand Victorian hotels; ancient sun-blackened chalets; a mountain railway dating back to 1898. Yet despite that weight of tradition, it is home to one of the Alps’ most strikingly modern places to stay. The Heinz Julen Loft is a Manhattan-style space hiding inside a wooden chalet, sitting on a rocky outcrop just above the venerable hotel Monte Rosa. This three-bedroom apartment, with its six-meter-high, floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the village, was clearly designed with parties in mind: there’s a Steinway baby grand piano, a hot tub, a bar and even a rotating bed.

Deep in the Fljot Valley in the remote Troll Peninsula of northern Iceland is Deplar Farm, a restored 3,000-acre former sheep ranch. It’s a game changer for heli-skiing enthusiasts, who can ski until June, while also being an idyllic place to stay for groups of up to 28. Here, you’ll get a taste of what it feels like to ski on the vertical, on virgin powder, standing on the edge of a drop as if you’re the only person on earth. There are also snowmobiles to take you to gentler slopes and endless trails for cross-country skiing, from which you can stop off at Deplar’s sister property, Ghost Farm, in a neighboring valley.