My night at Europe’s highest campsite

The chill shouldn’t have been surprising. Camping Arolla — considered Europe’s highest campsite — sits at 1,950m. “Sometimes people are so cold in the night they say they’re going to leave,” the camp’s managers, Cyril Debeauvais and Ambre Georgieff, tell me, “but the next morning, when they see how beautiful it is, they change their minds.”

Hard relate, as they say. The setting is pristine: glossy evergreens, carpets of wild flowers, mountaintops crusted with ice and a river tumbling as noisily as London traffic. On paths up to the village of Arolla, which the campsite is just below, sunlight casts patterns through larch leaves and pine needles crackle underfoot. It’s so quiet, it seems we’re more likely to encounter one of the resident marmots or chamois than another soul.

The glampsite has bell tents

DAVID ZUBER

It feels improbable that just an hour’s drive away, above the wide, glacial Rhône valley from which the Val d’Hérens is an offshoot, are the upscale resorts of Verbier and Crans-Montana. Zermatt is a couple of valleys to the east, yet all are a world away from this barely known corner. I’d go as far as to call it “secret”, though Alpine farmers have been traipsing cattle up to these summer pastures for centuries, and the first British tourists discovered it more than a hundred years ago.

This is elevated camping in more ways than one. The campsite has glamping bell tents and a coffee shop-cum-tuck shop with proper coffee, dark forest-green walls and shelves of local Savoie juices, packets of rosti and good Swiss wine (all Swiss wine is good, of course).

Debeauvais and Georgieff are the friendliest, funkiest hosts you could hope to meet. Having first come to Arolla as ski seasonaires — there is a small but epic resort here, through which the Haute Route passes — the pair received an offer to run the campsite just as they were starting a camper van adventure across the deserts of Morocco. The pull of their favourite mountain village was so strong they scrapped their plans and headed straight back to the Alps, where they’ve ended up managing a mountain hut and Arolla’s historic Grand Hôtel & Kurhaus — where many of those early British tourists stayed — too (though new owners will run the campsite this summer). Georgieff is so passionate about the place, she has a tattoo of Arolla’s mountains covering her forearm.

As a fan of a high/low holiday — roughing it then mixing in a splash of comfort and glamour — I’ve booked one of the campsite’s three Cocoon bell tents for our first night. Ready-made with warm beds, rugs, wood-burners and little outdoor kitchens, it’s a luxurious break from our four-man tent. We play travel Monopoly and sit outside with a glass of white Swiss fendant wine as stars prick the night sky.

Gemma Bowes with her daughter Heidi near the Ferpecle glacier

We’ve booked the Kurhaus for the end of our trip, but first we have to earn those soft bed sheets and buffet breakfasts with some adventuring. When we set out to explore, it’s love at first hike. Some 50 walks start from Arolla — high-altitude treks ascending Mont Collon (3,637m), which guards the valley end; across the ridges of the Pigne d’Arolla (3,787m), Aiguille de la Tsa (3,667m) and Dents de Bertol (3,546m) that flank its sides; and up the Dent d’Hérens (4,173m), one of the region’s “four-thousanders” separating Switzerland from Italy to the south.

Those of us with excuses (young children — mine are six and eight) can opt for an easy stomp to Lac Bleu, of such a vivid shade you might assume it had been dyed by climate activists (algae and glacial mud are the true culprits). Hard effort (in little legs terms) on the 90-minute forested ascent can be rewarded on the descent with ice cream or a crêpe at the wooden hut, Buvette Chez Léon. The views of the surrounding high ridges and luminous lake are insane, and it’s wonderful to be somewhere sunny but fresh while others fry in heatwaves on 35C beaches.

Another day we hike to the Mont Miné and Ferpècle glaciers, driving first through the pretty hamlets of Les Haudères, La Sage and La Forclaz, with their sun- darkened chalets, to a start point near the Ferpècle dam. Walking up beside the river, the children pick wild raspberries and chase large tadpoles teeming in shallow pools, and we rest in the shade of giant boulders. Higher up, we paddle in stingingly cold streams, which stripe the silty alluvial plain and are the colour of blue milk. The glacier is retreating by 25m a year, and it’s sobering to witness meltwater rushing off the ice like a waterfall, overpowering the musical tinkling of cowbells on the Hérens cattle nibbling beside the water.

Down in the valley, this tough mountain breed is more prized than a Ferrari in Verbier, and the aggressive females are put into girl-on-girl cow fights. The winning “queens” are lavished with love and Met Gala-worthy floral head decorations for the seasonal festive processions of “in alpe” — going up to the pastures in June, which I’m told even children agree is more magical than Christmas, and “désalpes”, coming back down in autumn, both of which would be great times to plan a visit.

Evolène is the main town in Val d’Hérens

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Traditional life is tangible in the Val d’Hérens’ main town, Evolène, where old wooden chalets prettied with Swiss-flag bunting and red geraniums house restaurants and shops. We visit a weaving workshop, L’Atelier de Tissage Marie Métrailler, started in 1938 by a local woman and accidental early feminist, who created the first formal work for women here (atelier-marie-metrailler.ch). Denise Métrailler, a descendant of Marie, tells me that a woven blanket I’m coveting (price tag, several hundred francs) took “only a week or two” to make — it’s the antithesis of buying from Asos.

Near Evolène, a two-man chairlift, Lannaz-Chermeuille, operates in summer for hikers so we jump on and go for a very short walk then a very long drink at the top, on the terrace of La Remointze, a mountain restaurant with views to the Dent Blanche and Matterhorn (mains from £25; remointze.ch).

Lucky for Arolla, I think, that it has remained so unspoilt, unlike those starrier neighbours. Yet at the dawn of Alpine tourism in the late 19th century, Arolla and Evolène were almost as well-known to the early British travellers as Courchevel and Zermatt.

We learn how things could have turned out when we check into the classic Grand Hôtel & Kurhaus. It opened in 1896, under owner Honorine Gaspoz, at the time of an explosion of interest in Alpine tourism. She and her husband built it using felled trees and stone hewn from nearby rock. He died before it got under way, leaving Gaspoz with seven children and a business to run.

But as another of these formidable Alpine queens, she made it a success, welcoming the likes of Josephine Baker, who brought her many adopted children from different nations along to raucous Christmas parties.

The Grand Hôtel & Kurhaus opened in 1896

DAVID ZUBER

The only drawback was the arduous three-day journey by mule to get there from Sion. A rail route was planned but never materialised — should it have, then Arolla might now have been just like Zermatt, bloated with luxury chalets, designer stores and champagne bars.

The same family kept the Kurhaus until 1979, expanding slightly but altering little. Its wood-panelled halls and airy lounges, dotted with old trunks, maps and pot plants, are all the better for barely having been modernised. Our lovely bedroom seems of another era, with colourful vintage tiles in the bathroom, heavy furniture and thick white sheets.

There’s a circularity to the hotel’s story in that it was first populated by British tourists and, in 2019, was bought by the British investor Edi Truell, a former adviser to Boris Johnson, and his French wife, but they don’t want to change too much.

The gobsmacking full frontal of Mont Collon from the lawns where we sip cocktails and play ping pong is something that will never change. And while contemporary guests may be dressed in hiking gear rather than feathers and pearls, dinner is still a fine-dining extravaganza. My starter of cucumber jus with high-altitude veg (grown above 1,800m), then local perch, coffee sorbet and glasses of petite arvine is served under chandeliers and red drapes.

The house beer, Rock n’Aroll (alcohol content a devilish 6.66 per cent) was another idea of Debeauvais and Georgieff.

But perhaps the ultimate lunch extravagance is a picnic and guided hike (arranged by the hotel) by a local, Patricia Almeida. As we tramp through Arolla pines onto the fells, she shows us things we wouldn’t have noticed. “Look, wild white carrots grow here. Did you see the butterflies? These myrtilles you can eat.” She points out legendary mountaineering cabanes, barely visible high on the rocks, and our campsite way below.

The bell tents come with warm beds, wood-burners and outdoor kitchens

DAVID ZUBER

At midday, like a mountain Mary Poppins, she conjures a magnificent picnic, laying out woven cloths, melting raclette cheese to spread on artisan bread, pouring wine and slicing different local salamis while we gaze at the mountains. “Local people are proud to share the Val d’Hérens,” says Almeida. “But even the Swiss are only just starting to know about it. And we know if we do too much here it will be different.”

Dessert is brioche perdu, a bread and butter pudding made with chocolate at La Chotte, a cute mountain hut hung with Himalayan prayer flags, again run by Debeauvais and Georgieff on what is, in winter, the home run for skiers.

“Arolla may not be the most developed ski resort but it’s the best for contemplation,” murmurs Almeida. It’s true. I’ve been to the Alps dozens of times, and this is one of the most sublimely beautiful and unspoilt corners I’ve found. I’m even tempted to get a tattoo.

Gemma Bowes was a guest of Switzerland Tourism (myswitzerland.com), Camping Arolla, which has one night’s self-catering from £85 for two in a glamping tent or pitches from £6 for a small tent, plus £7 fee per adult per night (en.camping-arolla.ch) and Grand Hôtel & Kurhaus which has B&B doubles from from £140; mains from £14 (grandhotelkurhaus.com). Two-hour tours with Patricia Almeida from £105 for two (youpitrip.ch). Fly to Geneva or take the train to Sion then the PostBus

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