My story
When I ended up in Méribel all alone, at the height of the Covid period, I never expected this place would still be such a big part of my life years later.
I had looked up beforehand what the biggest French ski area was: Les 3 Vallées. 600 kilometres of piste. Surely I could ski there for a long time, enjoy myself and not think about anything for a while? (Though I didn't yet know that the ski lifts would never open that winter.)
On an ice-cold January day, in the middle of a snowstorm no less, I arrived in a small mountain village on the other side of the valley. It was immediately my first experience of millimetre-precise driving on narrow, snow-covered mountain roads. Because this was not the valley of the chic ski resorts. It was a mountain hamlet where, apart from twenty houses and a church, there was not much to be found. The nearest supermarket was a twenty-minute drive away, along that same narrow mountain road. Luckily my Airbnb host had insisted that I get winter tyres fitted.
I had no plan. So for the first few days I simply enjoyed the mountains, the nature and the peace. But before long I headed to Méribel and got to know quite a few people. People who are good friends to this day.
The fact that the lifts stayed closed that winter did not mean we stayed indoors. Quite the opposite. Although I would certainly not call myself the sportiest person, the mountains drew me outside and I learned ski touringA form of skiing where you climb the mountain yourself on special skis fitted with climbing skins. At the top you remove the skins and ski back down, often off-piste. (ski de randonnée). We took the bus to the highest point of the valley and from there, with our skis on our backs, climbed even higher before skiing back down.
Sometimes such an outing began in the middle of the night, to catch a sunrise in the mountains. Somewhere in between I also went paragliding, which means I simply jumped off a mountain. But one of the experiences that has stayed with me most was a night in a remote refuge. The mountain hut lay in the middle of nowhere and had no running water or toilet. That night I saw the most beautiful starry sky of my life. In the morning we woke early with the cold, which had crept back into the hut after the fire had died down.
It was a whole barrel of adventure. In a mountain range that would never again have a whole winter this exceptionally quiet and intimate.
The love of the mountains, of nature and – yes – of the cold had completely swallowed me up.
Until duty called again and I had to go back to Belgium. I didn't expect to return to Méribel any time soon, although by then I had fallen completely in love with Les 3 Vallées. And not just that: I had found love there too.
Life kept bringing me back. I even went back that same summer. As I drove into Méribel, I thought: this is already the second time I've come to Méribel! By now I have lost count.
In Belgium people often talk about the winter blues, but I can assure you: if you spend the winter here, there is absolutely no such thing. Quite the opposite, I look forward to it enormously every year.
Bit by bit I got to know Les 3 Vallées better. I discovered the baker who makes the best pain de mie, the pistes where you hardly meet anyone even during a busy school holiday, the places where you can take fantastic walks, which route offers the most beautiful view above a sea of clouds on a grey day, which après-ski bars are never dead and which lunch terraces stay in the sun the longest.
Since then, a whole host of friends and family have come to visit me. That is when I realised how much I enjoy passing on my love for this region. There is nothing I like more than letting people experience Les 3 Vallées in a way that makes them fall in love with the region just as I did.
That is what I want to share with Alps with Sarah. And I sincerely hope you will enjoy it as much as I do.
