Put this quirky European ski resort (and its pies) on your radar now

My luggage slides past me, bound for my “forest house” aboard a human-drawn, metal-framed sled that looks like it was made in a shed by an eccentric, pragmatic tinkerer. I shuffle from the cable-car station to the Hotel Waldhaus in two minutes, powder snow puffing from my boots.

Not a single internal combustion engine has been fired up in my name since I left Zurich Airport for Aletsch Arena, a triple village Swiss Alps ski resort cloistered away in the southern canton, or state, of Valais. A handful of anxiety-inducing tight train connections – perhaps only possible in Switzerland or Japan – deliver me to Bettmeralp Talstation, where the hydro-electric-powered cable car swooshes me up, over a sliver of Rhone River, into Bettmeralp.

Helicopter or hiking notwithstanding, this is the only way for travellers to reach the hamlets of Bettmeralp, Riederalp and Fiescheralp because these snow-globe-esque Bernese Alps villages are car free. If not for the falling snow and low clouds, I’d already be snapping shots of a couple of Swiss Alps celebrities: the Matterhorn (well south-west) and Jungfrau to the north.

Aletsch Arena’s ski lifts and dapperly groomed trails have a Swiss-train-network quality to them. Fanning upwards from Bettmeralp, the clinically logical piste layout makes it easy to swoop down into and back out of Riederalp, gondolas soaring over snow-dolloped chalets. It’s actually challenging to get lost here, although one particularly tantalising forest run flows all the way down to the valley floor, finishing between villages. A five Swiss francs ($9) taxi ride will rectify your “mistake”.

The south-facing (sun-facing, when it’s out) ski area is beginner- and intermediate-focused. The terrain, relatively mild by Swiss standards, is peppered with a healthy smattering of approachable and family-friendly terrain parks and snow-cross courses, with easy plans Bs if you want to chicken out.

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I zigzag towards Fiescheralp, lunching at Battmerhitta mountain hut where I order a Valais staple, Walliser Cholera, thankfully not an intestinal infection, but a pie made with apples, cheese, potatoes, onions, leeks, bacon, and pears in flaky pastry. Over lunch, I gossip with the restaurant’s owner about the condition of his fighting cows – a springtime tradition in this part of Switzerland, through which local herds establish a social hierarchy. Sated, I ride the Eggishorn gondola to the resort’s craggy high-point (2869 metres), a prime perch to behold the Aletsch Glacier. The 20-kilometre UNESCO-listed glacier (unfortunately receding) is the resort’s dramatic natural northern border, two kilometres wide and 800 metres deep in places.

I wholeheartedly recommend executing some turns on trails on the resort’s extreme west (above Riederalp), if only for a glimpse of kitschy Villa Cassell. The compact early 20th-century castle was a folly of a burnt-out German-born English banker, who holidayed here in summer on doctor’s orders.