The brief
Dad was turning sixty and still likes to adventure. The family wanted a week that felt like him: proper skiing, real mountains, and a few things nobody would think to ask for – not a resort week that could have happened anywhere.
What was arranged
Zermatt, in a village where cars don't exist and everything moves by e-taxi and gondola. A private mountain guide for the ski days – the kind of local who knows which mountainside restaurant is worth stopping at and holds the reservation when the trains run late. A night toboggan run, four kilometres down to the village with exactly one street light. A guided cold-plunge morning in a mountain lake, reached by train, cut open by hand that morning. And one dinner planned well in advance, at a Michelin-starred room the birthday actually deserved.
Sixteen components in total – passes, rentals, guides, tables, transfers – sequenced so the family's only job was to show up.
How it went
Bluebird days. A guide the family now asks for by name. A cold plunge that two of them signed up for and neither regretted. And on the last day, with the connection open and the sun out, they skied across the border into Italy for fresh pasta at altitude and were back at their hotel for the birthday toast.
The details between the highlights are the job. The highlights took care of themselves.