Courchevel in Summer: The Alps Without the Crowds
The summer season at Courchevel offers the same dramatic landscape with a fraction of the winter crowd. FFGR operates year-round in the resort.
Courchevel in July is a revelation to those who know it only in January. The ski runs have become hiking trails and mountain bike routes, their gradients unchanged but their surface transformed from white to the luminous green of Alpine meadow grass at altitude. The summit restaurants are open, serving the same quality of food with the same views, to tables occupied by walkers and cyclists rather than the ski boot-clad lunch groups of February. The village itself is quieter — significantly quieter — and the specific pleasures of the resort reveal themselves more easily when they are not shared with forty thousand other guests.
The Trois Vallées in summer offers a breadth of activity that is underappreciated. The Col de la Loze, accessible by vehicle to 2,304 metres, provides views on a clear day that extend from Mont Blanc to the Vanoise massif. The Bourgeat lake below the Saulire cable car is open for swimming in July and August — cold, clean, and surrounded by wildflower meadows at 2,200 metres. The marked hiking routes from Courchevel to Méribel and Val Thorens can be completed in a day by a reasonably fit walker, with the resort infrastructure of refuges and restaurants providing genuine comfort at every stage.
FFGR operates its full service portfolio throughout the summer season. The transfer routes — Geneva, Chambéry, Lyon, Paris — are active year-round, albeit with different traffic patterns and road conditions. The mountain roads above 2,000 metres are open to vehicles from mid-June to late October, and summer driving in the Alps at altitude is among the finest road experiences available to a private chauffeur and client combination.
Summer guests at Courchevel use FFGR differently from winter guests. The pace is slower, the itineraries more exploratory. A full day with a vehicle and chauffeur in July is an opportunity to cross multiple passes, visit the lake villages of the Chartreuse, descend to the Isère valley for lunch, and return to 1850 in the evening through the Courchevel forest road with the last light of a long Alpine day. FFGR designs these summer programmes for clients who want to understand the landscape they have been skiing over for years.