Ski resort Courchevel ratchets it up another notch

Soaring high above snow-capped peaks, it is easy to understand why, given the opportunity of reincarnation, most people would like to return as a bird. The white corduroy slopes stretch out below my hanging skis and the air is fresh and crisp. The sun, set high in a blue sky, glimmers off the mountains and ahead of me with a crown of cloud, Mont Blanc stands proud as western Europe's highest summit. With Herve, my trusty parapenting pilot, we grab the thermals and go ever higher, climbing to what seems an altitude in excess of the mighty mountains that immediately surround us. The peak of Saulire, the main mountain of Courchevel, stands at 2,700m, while the Col de la Loze, Dent de Burgin and the Roc Merlet all frame the resort's 150kms of ski area. As we begin our descent, Herve tells me that in summer he is regularly escorted by a convocation of squawking eagles, but as they are migratory birds I was not so lucky during the first chills of winter. Mapped out below were the five villages that make up one of France's most famous ski stations, Courchevel 1850, 1650, 1550, Le Praz and Saint Bon. Each has its own personality - St Bon is the original settlement, while Iron Age remains have been found in La Praz. Much like the Jackson Five, however, Courchevel is bound together by the most famous of them all and 1850 is undoubtedly Courchevel's draw card. There was a time not so long ago when 1850 appeared to have sold its soul to the modern and illusory god of "bling". If visions of fighting paparazzi pursuing yet another vacuous celebrity flanked by seemingly redundant bodyguards was not enough to turn away even the most devoted clients then an expanding coterie of beautiful women milling around on their own in hotel bars was. And yet, over the past two years, the 2,000 regular inhabitants of this Three Valleys resort have wrested back control. Last season Courchevel managed to secure World Cup ski races for the first time in 31 years to promote the mountain aspect of a resort that is linked to the largest ski area in the world. In an effort to get away from the largesse endorsed by such hotels as Cheval Blanc, the palace hotel that boasts a giant shimmering horse sculpture, the lead was taken by the Laurent Boix-Vives family, who last season opened the 25-room boutique hotel, Le Strato. It is an extended homage to the Alpine tradition that courses through the family's veins, having owned the Rossignol ski company that invented the first carbon fibre ski in 1964. The mantle was taken up this season, however, by a project much grander in scale. The K2 is a chalet hamlet concept which has just opened for this season and it is the antithesis of the pretension that promised to overwhelm Courchevel. The K2 may have some outlandish features but the brouhaha surrounding the hotel's opening is precisely because it threatens to dominate the high-end landscape in Courchevel for the next few years. Everything in the hotel has been thought through to the finest detail. The Anglo-French owners have purchased their own ski lift, there are lifts that take your car from village level to the underground car park outside your chalet and the underground disabled access is unparalleled. Inspired by the world's second highest mountain, the red wooden double doors that lead into the hotel would not look out of place on any building in the Karakorum Range. The reception of the K2 adheres strongly to the alpine tradition of stone and wood; building materials which Courchevel temporarily forgot during parts of last century. The hotel is warmly lit throughout, but it needs to be because the clean, minimalist look feels cold, almost corporate. Of course the flashy few that will be inevitably attracted to the curiosity of the K2 will still be able to show off, but in the main the hotel is rooted in the philosophy of the region which inspired the brand and the needs of that in which it finds itself.