It looked like a path to nowhere, an unmarked, narrow traverse heading back the way we'd come. But John, our guide, seemed confident. A few hundred metres from where we'd left the pisted motorway, his objective lay before us - a plunging bowl of powdery, north-facing snow, pristine and unmarked. At the end of a glorious, swooping descent, I asked John his secret. 'It only just opened after being closed for days because of avalanche risk.' He patted his jacket pocket. 'I got a call on my mobile when we got to the top of the chairlift. I was pretty sure we'd be first.'
Skiing in a guided group - most days there were three of us, plus John or one of his colleagues - was a new experience for me, and it had some distinct advantages, beyond the obvious benefit of following someone who knows the mountain. For the past five Easters, I've spent a week in the Alps with my daughters Nushy, 14, and Tushy, 11.
Their mother and I parted eight years ago. While the girls have made rapid progress on the slopes, the hours they spend in lessons has always posed a problem for me. Instructors say that teaching adults and their offspring at the same time doesn't work, so either I meet the extra cost of separate lessons for myself, or I ski on my own. After a while it gets a little lonely, so the distinctly upmarket Powder Byrne's all-inclusive service, with guiding for me and the 'SnoZone' advanced ski school for the girls, seemed ideal.
We were staying in Flims in Switzerland, Powder Byrne's flagship resort, which otherwise gets few British visitors. Ninety minutes from Zurich, about 20 miles west of Davos, it tends to get busy with Swiss only at weekends. It seemed to be in a state of transition, and although my daughters weren't old enough to use them, I noted some enticing cocktail lounges amid more traditional establishments. In previous years, the girls and I had saved money to spend on skiing by roughing it in cheap French gites.
Nevertheless, we managed to adjust quite easily to the relative luxury of the three-star Hotel Waldeck, most of whose guests were also Powder Byrne Brits.
There are holidays when you might forget you had booked an organised package: not this one. In the valley and on the slopes, PB was everywhere. All I had to do was ensure my daughters were up and dressed. The ski-school minibus came to get them from the car park next to the hotel boot room at nine each morning, followed by transport to the bottom of the lift system for me. The minibus then dropped the girls back at the end of the afternoon.
Most days I skied as part of a cheery quartet. Besides the guide, my companions, whose kids were also at the SnoZone school, were a broadband internet mogul who formerly ran a music TV station, and an affable City dealer. We soon settled into a routine: skiing as hard as we could until a late lunch, followed by a few undemanding and rather slushy runs home. Our very different backgrounds gave us plenty to talk about while riding Flims's somewhat sluggish chairlifts, while the descents were made more enjoyable by having a hint of competitive edge.
Known as the 'White Arena', Flims's ski area - shared with the neighbouring villages of Laax and Falera - is Switzerland's third-biggest, with 220km of groomed pistes up to a height of 3,018 metres, and a further 40km of designated 'freeride' terrain. Some of it is exhilarating. At the top of the little Vorab glacier, a long, wild black plunges over a vertiginous saddle into a craggy defile, descending almost 1,300m. From La Siala, the resort's second-highest peak at 2,810m, a big freeride zone offers the chance to board or ski steeply across a broad swathe of mountain, punctuated with just enough vertical rock to require full concentration.
But it has to be said that with the bottom of the lifts at only 1,100m, and with most of the mountain facing south, the White Arena is not ideal for spring skiing, and in 2005, Easter was too late to enjoy it. All week, all but the highest runs were very soft by mid-morning, and about a third of the area was closed altogether.
There were compensations. Drawing again on the guides' local knowledge, we ate lunch somewhere different almost every day. Startgels, halfway between the valley and the top of La Siala, which specialises in grilled organic meat, ought to be on any list of the best mountain restaurants in the Alps.
As for the girls, they bonded quickly with their fellow students. They were, they told me, learning some unconventional techniques, such as how to ski as fast as possible while bawling Guns N' Roses songs, using poles for air guitars. 'SnoZone was a great way of making friends,' says Nushy.
On two of the evenings there were SnoZone evening activities: a group meal, and a visit to an indoor climbing centre. Which of course meant that there were also corresponding activities for me and the other adults - the chance to get stuck into some authentic Martinis.
Fact file
A week half-board at the Hotel Waldeck with Powder Byrne (020 8246 5300) costs from £868 per person (child reductions are available if they use an extra bed in an adult's room). The SnoZone classes for children cost £320 per week, the guiding service for adults is free.
