The journalDestinations
When the Alps open: Gstaad and Courchevel
December is not the fullest month in the mountains. It is the month when the stay has to be decided, because January will not wait.
2 min
The winter season in Gstaad and Courchevel runs, in a normal year, from December into April. December is the opening: snow that may or may not have settled, schools that have not yet broken up everywhere, and a valley that is busy at Christmas and quieter in the days on either side.
People treat the two places as interchangeable. They are not. Courchevel is a ski resort built in altitudes, with the highest villages closest to the slopes and the lower ones closer to an ordinary life. Gstaad is a valley. The skiing is real, and so is the walking, and a good deal of the day can be spent without ski boots at all.
Choose the village before the house
In Courchevel, the village decides the day. A house in 1850 is a different stay from a chalet above it. The higher one lives, the shorter the morning, and the more the evening depends on a car and a driver who know the road when it has just snowed. In Gstaad, the question is which side of the valley, and whether the party wants to be in the village or above it.
A chalet is a house, with a kitchen, staff rooms, and a rhythm of its own. A hotel suite is a smaller life, easier for a short week, and simpler when the party does not want to inhabit a place. December is a good month to be honest about which of those is actually wanted. The mountains reward a decision made early.
What the brief should say
How many people, and how many of them ski. Whether Christmas Eve is a family table or a night when half the party is elsewhere. Whether anyone is coming from the Gulf for a week and then leaving, which changes the aircraft more than it changes the chalet.
Snow is not a promise in early December. A serious stay assumes a margin: a day that can be spent indoors without feeling like a failure, and a transfer that still works if the pass is shut. The house plans for that margin. The mountains do the rest.
