After 3 days reorienting my circadian rhythms in Barcelona, I flew out early morning to Zurich, transferred quickly, and landed in Geneva at 2pm.
Victor, Patricia, Cindy, and Donna had already arrived the night before in Geneva where Cindy, who instead of me had got everyone’s Tomorrowland bracelets this time thanks to her pre-sale access (she had went last year), presented them with their boxes including both the bracelet and butterfly wings to wear during the festival. I had Donna’s as she signed up later.
They all then drove to Huez earlier this morning in their rental car, which was filled with their warm bodies and ski gear, leaving no room for a big ogre like me. Therefore taking one for the team, I arranged an Alps2Alps private transfer instead of trying to make the 1pm Tomorrowland shuttle, which I would have missed anyway.
This private transfer cost me 300 euros and was probably the most expensive transfer I’ve ever paid for, and definitely the first time I’ve done that internationally. But after 15 years of this, back when I was a medical student hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt who would’ve spent seven hours on trains and buses to get somewhere like this, I’m now at a point where 300 euros to skip all of that is an acceptable trade. I’ve adapted. Or I’m getting old.
The group had just finished their early ski runs by the time I arrived 4 hours later.
Once I was dropped off, I checked into my overflow Airbnb at Les Bergers in the La Christiana building complex that was located directly across the street from the Sunweb apartment Cindy had booked for the group. This worked out because as Donna signed up for this trip a few months after Cindy’s original booking for the group, we avoided cramming five people into a one-bedroom with a sofa bed thanks to this additional Airbnb unit.
After my Airbnb host Pierre personally oriented me around his second home and got me settled, Donna arrived. After she unpacked, we then headed to the Les Bergers main lodge to pick up my ski rentals at Intersport.
Once they gave me some Atomic Maverick 84s after I told them of my positive experience with Atomics last month in Finland, Donna and I crossed back uphill to Cindy, Victor, and Patricia’s suite at the Sunweb Les Bergers complex, whose poorly lit interior looks like it came straight out of a college dorm horror movie.
Their sunset views made up for it though:
We then cooked our first dinner together: pasta fettuccine with chicken.
After our dinner we headed out for our first night of Tomorrowland Winter.
Here’s what the setup looks like for anyone who hasn’t been: the evening festival area is about a 10-minute walk from Les Bergers over a bit of slippery ice and snow (so be careful!). If you haven’t slipped and fallen down yet to call it quits, once you get in it becomes a true carnival festival staged outdoors in the Alps, with a combination of indoor and underground venues.
You scan your bracelet at the entrance, get patted down, and then you’re in.
The first “venue” is a small room called Immersion, which is a tiny intimate party space.
Past that, a post office to mail Tomorrowland postcards . . .
. . . and a warmed up photo booth sponsored by the Sunweb property:
Both sandwiched the Tomorrowland merch store where I picked up a beanie and Donna came back every single night to stare at the 500-euro Tomorrowland-branded snowboard and ultimately held out. Whew.
Beyond the merch store, there’s plenty informal outdoor DJ booths with impromptu dance floors including in front of the Tomorrowland BBQ restaurant Brasa, and the ski lodge-themed Moose Bar. Then downstairs into the CAGE, one of two secondary stages, underground, featuring harder and more underground sounds in a venue that is literally underground.
Outside, the CORE stage is the other secondary stage. On our second night we were out there raving in a full blizzard with snow coming sideways and everyone losing their minds (in a good way). That was a trip highlight. More on that later.
And then the Mainstage: Tomorrowland’s perennially redesigned centerpiece, which is always different every year. We caught the tail end of Steve Aoki’s set and beginning of Charlotte de Witte’s before someone tried to grab Victor’s gold chain from behind. Bastards. They got the chain, but Victor managed to hold onto the pendants, which had a greater emotional value. That incident nevertheless deflated the night pretty fast and we headed home early.
The next morning after an early recovery both physically and emotionally, we woke up to a bluebird day for my first day of skiing at Tomorrowland Winter.
Morning meditation with this view and coffee became my new daily ritual.
Then we walked over to Victor, Patricia, and Cindy’s spot for breakfast with our gear before skiing out to the base and taking the lifts up.
During the day, Tomorrowland Winter sets up 3 additional stages on the slopes which is the part that makes this festival unique: You ski to a stage, pop off your skis, dance for a set, click back in, and move on to the next one.
Orbyz is the main slope stage, where we caught Charlotte de Witte as the day’s closer. Then suddenly, a huge white blanket covered the slopes as if it were White Walkers descending upon Alpe d’Huez. I began to play the soundtrack to Dune 2 in order to fit the scene.
The second stage was the Reflection of Love, which was completely frozen down on our second day during the blizzard.
On a better day:
And finally, Frozen Lotus, where we caught Alok in the front row on our third day as the storm started clearing.
6 hours of skiing and 4-5 hours of raving at night means day 2 and 3 involved a lot of beanbag breaks and extra coffee stops on the mountain. No days off.
Our our second night, we cooked chicken and kale salad.
Afterwards we headed to back to the night festival grounds where we ran into and reunited with monsooner Fanny and her brother John for Henri Bergmann b2b Layla Benitez in the CAGE. After their set, we went back outside to CORE for another set under a night blizzard. I’m not going to forget this moment. This part stood out.
As we were raving under this epic blizzard, I saw dudes still working up the nerve to try to shoot their shot with lone girls just trying to have fun underneath a magical sky. I sadly witnessed as they scattered under the persistent harassment when the dudes couldn’t take the hint. One of them must be the same guy who stole Victor’s chain last night.
Day 3 (or the second day of skiing) as mentioned above was fighting through zero visibility for as long as we could before calling it on the skiing. Cindy and I spent more time hanging out with Victor and Fannya at the Les Bergers sandwicherie shop before trying one more time to skip up and catch Alok’s closing set at the Reflection of Love stage.
Later that night we cooked some beef stew with salad. Then Patricia and Victor stayed behind as Cindy, Donna and I headed to Mainstage to party with Afrojack b2b R3HAB for their set. They know how to throw down a good set!
This is also where Cindy, Donna and I discovered a hack: Find the taped up boxed squares on the floor to stay put for your dancing at the Mainstage, because between each DJ set, stage staff members come in to clear them out for performers to strap in and dance above you for the 5 minutes before introducing the next DJ. This allows for some breathing room once the performers are done and the crew lets you fill in those squares again.
We woke up to a bluebird day again on Day 4. Cindy and I took advantage of this by riding up to the Huez summit at 3,330 meters above sea level, and skied above the clouds on powdery black diamond trails (my nemesis, other than moguls) for most of the morning.
Am I on Everest?
Where we skied from:
The oxygen gets pretty thin if you want to take the 3 gondolas up here for the views.
My views skiing down from the top:
Eventually we made our way back down to the Orbyz stage at the base, unclipped, and danced with Galantis spinning.
Victor and Patricia, in the mean time, found some backside trails with these views of Alpe d’Huez:
After his set, we headed back and cooked both marinated steak and chicken for dinner by yours truly.
That night it was Cindy who was fading, so we prioritized getting her to the music quickly. We headed back to the taped up square area where the performers were scheduled to dance between each sets so we had plenty of room to ourselves, caught Kölsch at mainstage just in time, and then Alok closed out the festival with the best set of the entire trip. We then headed to CAGE to take a peek, and all of us returned back home to pack for an early checkout as Cindy rallied to stay until closing.
I woke up, got in my morning routines, and ran to catch the Alps2Alps transfer bus at 9:15am; they’d given me the wrong pickup address and told me over numerous WhatsApp calls mid-sprint to head to the main Les Bergers shopping area instead. I’d make it just before it left. And traffic out of Huez was bad enough that Victor, Patricia, Cindy, and Donna in their rental car caught up to my bus anyway on the road.
Nearly five hours later we all reached Geneva. The bus dropped me at the airport and I Ubered to reunite with the group at our Airbnb stay called KoooK, where I then got a massage in the neighborhood to reset my body. 2 hours later we reconvened at the nearby Coop supermarket for our last dinner together: make-your-own Swiss cheese fondue with white wine specifically brewed for fondue.
We then miscalculated deciliters for liters and bought way too many bottles, then refunded the extras for Swiss francs cash that Donna now had to spend before her flight the next day. We also got some green beans, potatoes and a charcuterie board.
As the night wound down, Patricia and I took Donna’s leftover francs as a spiritual sign and headed into Geneva’s train station by tram for chocolates and gifts. We wandered the around the train station mall as if we were phasing through a liminal space, grabbed one last mango for the road (an oversized Peruvian mango had become our nightly tradition), and headed back for dessert and goodbyes.
I couldn’t have asked for a better group of humans to party with, dance with, ski with, and cook for. I’ll miss y’all already. This week has been a family dream.
The next morning I’ll wake up whenever and begin my way over to the second part of this trip: The Swiss Alps!
- At time of posting in Alpe d'Huez, it was -3 °C - Humidity: 52% | Wind Speed: 8km/hr | Cloud Cover: blizzard storms
