Brigels/Waltensburg/Andiast

The praise is for the freeriding and the unhurried mood: Brigels makes the top ten of small Alpine areas and skis bigger than its size suggests. The broad alpine fields work on and off the groomed, and the descent to Alp Dado stays almost untracked days after a snowfall. Reviewers single out the zone between Miret and Gneida with its four-kilometre run-out into the Ladral valley, dependable snow, the train to Tavanasa, and how empty it is in high season, with no queues unlike Flims-Laax.

The lifts draw criticism: apart from the learners' area the whole mountain is served by essentially three chairs, all on the slow side, and a fourth runs only occasionally - locals nickname it the romantic chair precisely for its lack of pace. The second complaint is the near absence of genuinely steep black runs, which is what reviewers say keeps the resort from scoring higher.