Home to Europe's biggest, baddest peaks, Chamonix, France, has always intimidated visitors. When the celebrated British explorer Richard Pococke arrived in the Chamonix Valley in 1741, his party came armed to the teeth because they feared attack from mountain "savages." Pococke, for reasons known only to himself, also went disguised as an Arab.
As it turned out, the alpine villagers Pococke encountered were peaceful and friendly to Brits and fake Arabs alike. The explorer didn't need a musket and a burnoose to visit Chamonix, and modern visitors don't need much, either. Just bring a passport, ski gear, a healthy appetite, and a huge capacity for awe.
Chamonix hosted the first-ever Winter Olympics in 1924, and it has yet to relinquish its crown as the global capital of hibernal fun. The sprawling winter playground, located 50 miles southeast of Geneva, Switzerland, boasts six separate mountains' worth of high, steep, and powder-drenched terrain-and because the French could really give a rat's ass about your or anyone else's existence, unlimited access to all of it. (There's no such thing as "out-of-bounds" here.) Intermediate and beginner schussers visiting for the first time are routinely dumbfounded by the grand authenticity of it all. Experts simply grin.
The town of Chamonix, meanwhile, has what so many master-planned resort villages in North America strive for but miss: a warm conglomeration of narrow cobblestone streets, charming houses that blend seamlessly into the landscape, and genuine alpine spirit. And this being France, the only thing as important as the skiing is the après skiing. Outdoor adventurers may bring all-out focus to their mission here, but no more so than the cheese makers. The mountains demand intensity; the town requires debauchery.
Vallée Blanche
Chamonix is dominated by the hulking massif of Mont Blanc. At 15,771 feet, it's the highest peak in the Alps and the second highest in all of Europe. You can ski and snowboard down its glaciated flanks by taking a tram to the Aiguille du Midi, a legendary granite needle at 12,600 feet. Below the Aiguille du Midi looms the Vallée Blanche ("White Valley"), which is widely considered the world's most famous run. A raw, never-groomed glacier that courses between imposing rock walls and past towering seracs, the Vallée Blanche is a baptism into Big Mountain Skiing. Tumbling down the Alps for 13.7 miles, it's one of the longest runs in the world. Best of all, the valley plummets an amazing 9,200 vertical feet; that's the equivalent of three Vails stacked on top of one another. Chamonix's five other ski areas-Les Houches, La Flégère, Le Tour, Le Brévent, and Les Grands Montets-offer equally impressive terrain for every level of skier.
When you're not skiing in Chamonix, you shop in and around the main square for everything from the sharpest crampons to the hippest clothes to the shiniest baubles. You eat like it's your last night on earth. You go clubbing until the Swedes can't possibly look more beautiful and even the Aussies are drunk. Then you wake up and do it all over again.
During the brief hours between nightclub time and slope time, visitors bunk at first-class hotels, cozy chalets, or gîtes-small, family-owned dwellings where the guy in the next room may be both the patriarch and the cook who prepares you a six-course meal. Unlike their American counterparts, Chamonix accommodations never display little placards warning you that altitude can quicken intoxication and that après-ski cocktails can-horrors!-dehydrate you to the point of getting a headache.
No, Chamonix isn't about care and caution. It's about two of the best French phrases you'll ever hear: Laissez faire and Laissez les bontemps roullez!
