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Loïc was born in the Val de Bagnes, the valley that is home to Verbier, where bisses have carried snowmelt down the mountainside for centuries. Mountaineering runs through it the same way: not a hobby taken up, just something that's always been in the water and in the family. His father was a mountain guide before him, and skiing was never something the family sat down and organised. It was just what a day looked like.
"I don't think I have one precise first memory," he says. "It's more a collection of memories: being outside with my father, skiing, following him around, and probably not really understanding at the time how lucky I was. The mountains were simply home."
That's still how he guides now, not from a manual but from a lifetime of knowing the mountain the way you know a home, building each day around the person he's actually skiing with: how confident you are, what you want from the terrain, who you're with, what a great day even looks like to you.
Your day starts with him reading the mountain that morning, taking in the snow, the weather, the group, and shaping the plan from there.
We sat down with him over a glass of local Petite Arvine at our local restaurant.
"Maybe that the best day means skiing the steepest line or finding the deepest powder. For me, good off-piste skiing is much more about making the right choices and having a great day. Sometimes the best run is not the impressive one you saw on Instagram. It's a little hidden place with good snow where everyone is smiling at the bottom."
"It gives you options. I don't want to wake up with one plan and force the mountain to fit that plan. If you know an area really well, you can adapt all day to the snow, the weather, the avalanche conditions, but also to the person you're skiing with. For me, guiding isn't about completing the plan. It's about creating the best day possible with the conditions and the people you have."
"That the mountain is never exactly the same mountain. You can ski the same place a hundred times and still find something different. Snow, wind, temperature, people, your own feeling that day. Everything changes. When I was younger, I probably thought that knowing a mountain meant knowing where to go. Now I think knowing a mountain is also about knowing when not to go somewhere. That takes time."
"Probably that after a while I stop thinking of them as guests. Of course I'm responsible for them and I take that very seriously, but I don't like having a big distance between 'the guide' and 'the client.' I like sharing the mountains with people. We ski, we talk, we laugh, we eat somewhere, and sometimes things don't go according to plan and that becomes part of the story. Some of my clients have been skiing with me for years. At some point, they become friends."
This is the day Loïc builds: not the steepest line, but the one where everyone's smiling at the bottom. If that sounds like the week you're after, your concierge will already have it in mind when they plan your stay.
