A couple of generations ago, Megève was blanketed in snow every year without fail, becoming a favourite with the rich, famous and fashionable. But with climate change taking hold across Europe, the resort's low altitude — at barely 1,000m above sea level, it's lower than Snowdon — leaves is at risk of soon having no snow. Richard MacKichan finds out what they’re planning to do about it.
The French alpine town of Megève draws its name from the Celtic word, mageva, meaning ‘village in the middle of the waters’ — bisected, as it is, by two mineral-fresh mountain streams. It had been not much more than a small hamlet with a storied church and cluster of agricultural holdings at the turn of the century, but at the advent of the First World War it played host to a generous visitor.
Souring on her time in St Moritz across the Alps — owing mainly to its popularity with then-hostile Germans — French baroness and philanthropist Noémie de Rothschild found Megève to be much more hospitable. A 1914 article in the French Alpine Club’s magazine had alerted Baroness de Rothschild — and many in high society — to the superior skiing on its panoramic slopes and she decided a resort must be built.
The early 1920s saw the opening of her sweeping hotel and a private Rothschild family chalet, the first ski-specific cable car in France then erected in 1933. The area was swiftly frequented by the era’s great and good — ‘the 21st arrondissement of Paris’ writer Jean Cocteau himself a regular, once quipped. By the early 1960s, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn were shooting Charade here, earning Megève the honour of its own Henry Mancini theme on the soundtrack. Today, the Rothschild hotels remain and much of what makes up the rest of Megève is the work of Noémie’s anointed architect, Henry-Jaques Le Même, the godfather of the Savoyard chalet style.
So this ‘build it and they will come’ story has relied on a few things: wealth, connections, natural good looks, and snow — lots of it. But at an altitude of just over 1,000m, and with our increasingly erratic climate, the white stuff is becoming less and less predictable.
An alarming 2022 report by the University of Basel predicted that, by 2050, resorts at Megeve’s level might have to shutter their lower slopes altogether, and rely on artificial snow-makers to keep their higher ones in use. As such, Megève — embracing diversification and sustainably minded shifts — is becoming something of a bellwether for how it reacts to seasonal uncertainty.
Snowfall is certainly the talk of the town when I arrive the week before Christmas and begin the hour-ish ascent from Geneva (the relatively swift airport transfer is another tick in Megève’s ‘pro’ column). The preceding weekend had seen the first real dump of the year and, although we’re at the very beginning of the season, there is palpable relief following two quite patchy winters. When I take a horse-drawn carriage ride through town by way of orientation, my driver Michel fears a third might make people want to ‘abandon the station’, although quickly laments how chaotic the traffic gets when a busy season is in full swing.
Of course, the nature of ‘a season’ has been shifting somewhat across the travelsphere since the pandemic years. School holidays might still dictate family trips, but our rediscovery of overlooked locales, and our collective embrace of more last-minute bookings has seen a shake-up of traditional surge times. But up here, the seasonal shifts have been more radical.
After a hearty steak lunch at Le Café on Megève’s main square, I walk west through the snow to L’Alpaga (above) for coffee with Camille Henri. The hotel’s sales manager has lived and worked in the area for a number of years. ‘We’re seeing more and more people coming in the summer,’ she explains. ‘We’re not very high here so it can get very hot — every season we get to more than 30℃. People have discovered what the mountains in summer are.’ With some irony, many visitors heading to the hills between June and September are doing so to avoid the now stifling temperatures of ever-hotter summers down at sea level.
L’Alpaga has also seen its winter guests skew a little younger and more open-minded, keen to hike, skate, shop, swim, wind down in the spa, sample the hotel’s Michelin-starred La Table restaurant or the growing gastronomy scene in general if the slopes aren’t at their snowy best. Indeed, the town has seen a notable jump in turnover from non-ski activities in recent years and many locals proudly mention La Palais, the largest sports complex in the Alps which offers everything from climbing walls to thermal baths.
I decline the kind offer of a shuttle and decide to walk back across town as Christmas lights start to twinkle and the setting sun paints the peaks around Mont Blanc in pastel pinks and oranges. My base for the trip, Ultima Megève, is tucked into the tiny hamlet of Demi-Quartier and stands, unassumingly from the outside, as an exemplar of UHNWI-tailored luxury — one of what the group’s stylish operations chief, Sven Flory, who joins us for dinner, calls their ‘superyachts on land’.
Guests here, then, are often of the more last-minute, why-the-hell-not persuasion — booking when it snows, not hoping it might. But there’s plenty to distract either way: games room, wine cellar, basement nightclub, mountain-view pool, soothing steam room, treatment rooms (I have maybe the best massage and facial of my life) and an army of staff chicly kitted out in polo necks and Timberlands to tend to every whim (chef Alessandro Bergamo tells me an anxiety inducing tale of a late-night rare truffle request that was miraculously procured, whisked up into the mountains and served the next morning at breakfast). The high-spec mountain bikes parked up in the garage are another small nod to the growing year-round appeal.
Up on the slopes of Saint-Gervais the next morning — a true bluebird — Ultima’s go-to ace instructor Sebastian gestures over the grand vallée and points out his favourite forest paths for hikes and snowshoe treks. ‘It’s not just up here that’s beautiful’. I couldn’t agree more, I think, sipping a beer back down in the cobblestone town later that afternoon. This ‘village in the middle of the waters’ might be just one caught in the tides of climate change but it’s plucky, adaptable, and has charm to spare whatever the season. There will be many looking to follow its lead.
At a glance Richard MacKichan’s itinerary
Ultima Megève, a private eight bedroom chalet, is available for exclusive weekly rentals from €155,000. Visit www.ultimacollection.com/our-collection/ultima-megeve for more information and to book. Ski passes can be arranged via Megève Tourisme. Classic rooms at L’Alpaga, part of the Beaumier hotel group, start at €310. Transfers from Geneva airport to Megève take around one hour. Helicopter transfers to Megève Altiport are also available. Sallanches station is 13km from Megève and is served by the TGV from Paris and Lyon.
