The Tamesis
After a crisp bluebird day at the Saanerslochgrat ski hill, my legs started to shake and I was about to eat my mountain of pâté. Then Mike von Grünigen, a four-time Olympian and Gstaad local who was guiding my mom and me on a half-day of skiing, asked us what was next on our schedule.
While most people go to Gstaad for skiing or shopping, I went to Gstaad for something else entirely.
“I’m going to yode,” I said sheepishly. “Or at least, I’ll try.”
Fate made Von Grünigen not only an expert skier but also an avid yodeler. “I joined a yodeling group,” he told me. “I started yodeling when I was 50, but as a farmer’s son it’s always been a part of my world.”
Seeing my eyes light up, he continued: “In the summer, farmers take their cattle into the Alps – obviously they don’t have cell phones – so singing Yue songs in the mountains is a way of telling each other ‘I’m still alive’.”
It was this emotion that brought me there. Since I have no musical talent and am tone-deaf, my pursuit of learning yodeling was not an aesthetic pursuit, but a spiritual pursuit. After a particularly difficult year, I became fascinated with the idea of finding my voice. Especially in a chalet on the mountainside in Switzerland, preferably after eating Toblerone fondue.
Photo: Sarah Wood Gonzalez
It turns out that this is all possible at Le Grand Bellevue in Gstaad. This winter, the historic hotel is launching a series of heritage-inspired experiences, including a Swiss Chocolate Spa Ceremony and a traditional paper-cutting workshop, enhancing the hotel’s existing library of year-round cultural programming. (In summer, hotel guests can take part in the Gstaad “Züglete”, a traditional cattle parade with flower-decorated cattle, folk music and traditional costumes, coming down the mountainside through the driveway of Le Grand Bellevue.)
Glad to have a yodeling expert in front of me, I asked Mike my most important question. “What are you wearing?” He cheerfully pulled out his phone and showed me a photo of his team dressed appropriately, which made me quickly realize that, among the many potential flaws in my yodeling, I simply wasn’t wearing the right clothes.
Luckily, I knew the handmade Alpine fashion brand Annina was stocked at The Flower Shop just down the road. After explaining my predicament to me, they generously loaned me a linen Janker jacket, a true work of tailoring art with green piping, hand-embroidered flowers and antler buttons, so that I could better suit the occasion.
