Ladies that ski

Rachel Roberts and two friends checked into Les Lanchers, a three-star independently-run hotel in Chamonix, for a week of fun in the snow.

Jon Rogers started coming to the renowned French ski resort of Chamonix back in 1996 and loved it so much he bought a hotel there. Strictly speaking, though, Les Lanchers is actually in Les Praz de Chamonix, around a five-minute drive from the main town.

It was the perfect fit for our trio’s needs. As ladies who tick the 40-55 age bracket box on questionnaires these days, boozed-up apres ski sessions are (rather mercifully) behind us and we want a cosy, relaxed hotel to hole up in after a day spent on the slopes.

And my, what impressive slopes they have in the Chamonix Valley, located in France’s Haute-Savoie department. The Valley lies at the bottom of the massive peaks of the Aiguilles Rouges mountain range, and of Europe’s highest mountain, the magnificent Mont Blanc, which grazes the sky at 4810m.

Each of the 19 bedrooms at Les Lanchers feature wall-sized photographs of the exceptional Alpline landscape; a warm up act for the real deal just through the window. So lofty is Mont Blanc that she spends most of the time with her head in the clouds, but at 4121m, the neighbouring Aguille Verte dipped just below serious cloud cover, and I fell in love with her jagged, snow-dipped spires that reached heavenwards.

Rogers, who owned a construction company back in the UK, bought the hotel in 2002, a charming Alpine-style building with cornflower-blue shuttered windows and a pretty pastoral mural on its gable-end, and hasn’t rested on his laurels. In 2010, he invested €1.3 million to add a further eight bedrooms to the existing 11 and a new restaurant; a larch-clad extension that blends sympathetically with the original building.

Many of the older rooms also enjoyed a freshen-up the following year, helping to upgrade the hotel from two stars to three. These improvements have reaped dividends; while Les Lanchers goes from strength-to-strength, many of the other hotels along the same drag have gone out of business.

My standard room had a blue and gold colour palette, creating a feeling of the Alps in the springtime despite the plummeting mercury outside. The good-sized single bed had a super-comfy mattress (although it could have been all that Alpine air that made me spark out the second my head hit the pillow!), and my en-suite bathroom was more than adequate. A nice touch was the towel rail set on timer to my towels super-toasty first thing in the morning.

Standard rooms start at €130 in the winter high season (December, February and March), and €105 in summer high season (July and August). For an average of €25 more, guests can check into the superior rooms in the new annexe. These have baths as well as showers to help ease those aching limbs, plus balconies and a little more space. But in terms of comfort and furnishings, there’s not a huge difference between the two.

The hotel has four family rooms, featuring two adjoining rooms with two single beds. For those without little ‘uns in tow, they represent exceptional good value at just €200 a night; perfect for four friends on a budget ski trip.

Although I’m not one to wet my finger and run it along the top of picture frames in search of dust, the cleanliness here was on a par with some of the five-stars I’ve stayed in. In general, the standard of guest care was high, thanks to a core team of around eight dedicated staff who make sure the place runs smoothly.

A day on the slopes can leave you famished, and the food at Les Lanchers certainly hit the spot. We picked from the three-course menu of the day and if you’re going to order the fondue, make sure it’s on a Tuesday when Jon’s French wife Celine takes over the kitchen. We could barely move for half an hour after dipping crusty bread into the bubbling cauldron of melted cheese, wine and garlic. Heaven. Desserts were good too, particularly the creme brulee with raspberries and home-made nougat ice-cream.

To help burn off those calories, there’s a lovely 30-minute walk you can pick up outside the hotel and take to Chamonix. It meanders beside a river, rushing with crystal clear water, through a wintry landscape of trees groaning under the weight of freshly dumped snow and chalet roofs fringed with spiky icicles.

As any skier will tell you, anything that reduces the faff factor of getting ready and helps you get onto the piste, toute suite, is always welcome. And Les Lanchers scores highly in that department – there’s a ski-hire store virtually opposite and La Flegere, one of the valley’s five resorts, is just minutes away. We had the luxury of a hire car (Chamonix is an hour’s drive from Geneva airport), but you can jump on one of the many buses that service the valley.

Back in the hotel, there’s a drying room and boots room to dump your gear in before warming up in the sauna if you fancy it.

We also liked the fact that Jon asked for our feedback, face-to-face. The only thought we had was that the bar area needed a little zhush to bring it up to speed with the rest of the hotel. We left with a promise that he would take our comments on board. Jon struck us as a man of his word, so we’re sure he will.

Doubles start from €85
Visit leslanchers.com

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