The Alps
Gstaad is a valley. Courchevel is a set of altitudes. December opens the season. February fills it. The house should be chosen before either.
A winter stay in the Alps is a house, a village and a field, in that order of consequence. The house decides whether the week feels inhabited. The village decides the morning. The airfield decides whether Saturday still belongs to you.
Courchevel’s villages are stacked by altitude. Higher is closer to the snow and more dependent on a driver when the road has just been covered. Gstaad is a valley in which a day can be spent without skiing at all, which suits parties who are not uniformly enthusiastic about boots. Do not book one because you liked a picture of the other.
The season, honestly
December is the opening. Snow is not guaranteed in the first weeks; Christmas is busy; the days between can be the best of the winter if the brief allows them. January is colder and often clearer, and it is when flights from the Gulf make the most sense. February is the full month: school holidays, fewer beds, less patience at the small fields.
A chalet needs enough nights to be worth the keys. A hotel suite is the better tool for a long weekend. Meals at home are the point of a chalet; if the party intends to be out every night, say so before a cook is stood up for a week of waiting.
Getting there
Geneva, Chambery and Saanen are not interchangeable, and none of them is immune to weather. Name a second plan. A car that already knows the road is worth more, on the day it snows, than an earlier slot that then sits on the tarmac. The mountains are the pleasure. The margin is the work.
