Legs wobbly from making the most of the crisp bluebird day on the Saanerslochgrat ski mountain, I was about to tuck into my heaping plate of bolognese. Then, Mike von Grünigen, the four-time Olympian and Gstaad local saddled with guiding my mom and I on our half-day of skiing, asked what was next on our itinerary.
While most people head to Gstaad for hitting the slopes or shopping, I was there for something else entirely.
“I’m going yodeling,” I said, sheepishly. “Or at least, I’m going to try.”
As fate would have it, not only was von Grünigen an expert on the slopes, he was also an avid yodeler. “I’m in a yodeling group,” he told me. “I started yodeling when I turned 50, but as a farmer’s son, it has always been part of my world.”
Seeing my eyes light up, he continued: “Farmers would go into the Alps with their cows in the summertime—obviously they didn’t have cell phones—so yodeling across the mountain range was a way to say to each other, ‘I’m still alive.’”
That sentiment was exactly what had brought me there. Seeing as I have no musical talents and am very much tone deaf, my quest to learn how to yodel wasn’t an aesthetic pursuit but rather a spiritual one. After a particularly tough year, I was enchanted with the idea of finding my voice. Specifically in a tiny chalet, on the Swiss mountainside, and preferably after a Toblerone chocolate fondue.
Photo: Sarah Wood González
It turns out all of that was possible at Le Grand Bellevue in Gstaad. This winter, the historic hotel launched a series of heritage-inspired experiences, including a Swiss chocolate spa ritual and a traditional decoupage workshop, bolstering the hotel’s existing arsenal of year-round cultural programming. (In the summer, hotel guests can participate in the Gstaad ‘Züglete,’ a traditional cattle procession complete with flower-adorned cows, folk music, and traditional dress that brings the herd down from the mountainside through the driveway of Le Grand Bellevue.)
Delighted to have a yodeling expert in front of me, I asked Mike my most important question. “What do you wear?” With a flourish, he pulled out his phone to show me a photo of his smartly dressed group, which quickly made me realize that, among my numerous potential yodeling deficiencies, I simply did not have the right clothing.
Luckily, I knew that the handcrafted alpine fashion brand, Annina, was stocked just down the road at The Flower Shop. With an explanation of my predicament, they generously loaned me a linen Janker jacket, a true work of sartorial art lined with green piping, hand-embroidered flowers, and stag horn buttons, so that I would be better equipped for the occasion.