Glacier 3000, first car up

The case for the early start is written into the timetable. Glacier 3000's own guidance puts the first cabin at 9:00 in the morning, with departures every 20 minutes after that and tickets on sale from 8:45. Take that first car and the mountain is still in its morning order: the bridge uncrossed, the restaurants just opening, the ski area not yet filled with the day's traffic.

The cableway runs from the Col du Pillon, the pass reached by PostBus from Gstaad or Les Diablerets, and it climbs in two stages, Pillon to Cabane and on to Scex Rouge. The ride takes 15 minutes. At the top, the summit station stands at 2,971 metres, and the panorama the company promises is a serious one: 24 peaks rising above 4,000 metres, among them the Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau.

Breakfast comes with the altitude. At Restaurant Le 3, in the Scex Rouge station, brunch is served every day from 9:15 to 10:45, booked online in advance, in a room arranged around the view. It is a civilised arrangement: coffee at 3,000 metres while the light is still new on the glacier, and the rest of the summit still to come. Later in the day, Restaurant Botta, designed by the Swiss architect Mario Botta, who also designed the summit station, serves lunch in a warm, bright room above the Alps.

Then the bridge. The Peak Walk by Tissot is, as Glacier 3000 states it, the only suspension bridge in the world linking two mountain peaks. It runs 107 metres from the lower summit, the View Point, to Scex Rouge, five metres higher, and it is 80 centimetres wide. The bridge is free of charge and open all year round, weather permitting, and a crossing early in the day, before the groups arrive, is the crossing at its best: unhurried, with the named peaks standing clear in every direction.

Below the station, the mountain keeps working. The Glacier Walk begins directly at the Scex Rouge station, and the Ice Express chairlift carries visitors down to the glacier itself. In winter the ski area runs from 3,000 metres down to 1,300, with easy runs on the glacier, harder runs elsewhere in the area, a snowpark and cross-country loops. The season is a long one, from November to the end of April, which is part of the appeal: when other resorts are winding down, the glacier is still in mid-season form.

A word of respect for the weather, which Glacier 3000 itself puts plainly: conditions at 3,000 metres can change quickly, and winds gusting over 80 kilometres an hour can force the facilities to close. The first-car plan therefore begins the night before, with the live openings page and the webcams. Given a clear, calm morning, few starts to a day in the Alps are better composed than this one.