The Next Adventure...MOUNTAIN RETREATS FOR WOMEN THAT REST MIND, BODY AND SOUL
A good life is one that feels deeply connected and meaningful, where you spend your energy doing things that matter, experiencing fulfilling relationships with people you like and love. But sometimes, we find ourselves living a life that doesn’t feel quite right – or even flat out wrong. We sense that something needs to change.
Whether it’s time to leave your job, pursue an entrepreneurial endeavour, allow that creative passion to take centre stage, or you need to redefine yourself after a big personal life event, The Next Adventure may just be for you. These mountain retreats for women offer the time, space, connection and facilitated conversations that you need to evolve into the life that’s calling you forward.
Image Credit: @thesecountryroads
Magda 45, Holistic Therapist, Warsaw“I am so grateful for such a mind, body and spirit enriching retreat! Before the retreat I was totally exhausted and drained and my intention became just to regain my strength and flow again. Caitlin was that guiding force that gave me food for thought and tools to find my way again. The caring staff and the delicious food, AliKats, Ursula the yoga teacher, and everyone involved made the experience absolutely amazing! I left full of strength, light and joy. Thank you!”
AN INTENTIONAL MOUNTAIN ADVENTURE
Designed to help foster connection with yourself, others and nature, our four-night alpine retreats are so much more than a holiday. Of course, there will be beautiful scenery and you will indulge in delicious, locally sourced, inventive food. Your body will be treated to a breadth of physical experiences: from exhilarating mountain hikes and wild swimming to the slow, grounding movements of yoga and Qi Gong.
The real difference to our retreats, however, is that you’ll be guided through the entire process by Caitlin Cockerton, a professional life and leadership coach. Your coaching work with Caitlin begins before the retreat; is deepened with one-to-one and group coaching throughout the experience; and is integrated with a post-retreat session, supporting you in the return to daily life. You will leave equipped with inner resources and resilience, a clear path forward and a framework to venture onwards.
Our retreats are aimed at women in midlife, united by a desire to open a new chapter in their life or work. This is a difficult time for many – the juggle of family, career and life demands time and energy, often leaving little for yourself. Whatever the challenges you are facing, a fresh perspective, in a beautiful environment, can do wonders. Guests come on our retreats to be both stretched and supported in their mental, emotional and physical adventuring. They know that what they are about to embark on is scary and exciting in equal measure. They want to be around like-minded, brave women who are also taking a leap into the unknown.
There is great power in women uniting in community. The model of the nuclear family is a relatively recent, post-industrial phenomenon that can be solitary and isolating; and striving to achieve with a career-first mentality can be equally lonely. Our retreats are a non-judgemental, open container in which to explore yourself and your desires in a supportive, safe environment. When we are surrounded by women who can identify with and relate to our challenges we feel less alone. Our retreat participants begin the experience as strangers and leave feeling seen, heard, and belonging to a group of wonderful women who are exploring new ways of being and doing as they continue to move down the path of their own personal adventures.
The insight and skills gained from this carefully crafted, guided experience will help you align with both your inner purpose and the outer world, enabling you to move forward with intention and confidence.
UPCOMING RETREATS
SPRING
22-26 May 2024 Take inspiration in the awakening energy of spring. If a shift in work or life is urging you to sow fresh seeds, let nature remind you of the promise and potential of a new growing season.
Autumn
09-13th Oct 2024 Celebrate your harvest and prepare to let go. Autumn reflects back the ‘and both’ - light and dark, life and death, riotous colours and quiet contemplation. This retreat is for those in momentous transition.
“I’m a big believer in living intentionally and found having 1:1 coaching before, during and after the retreat really helped refine what was being processed. I felt before embarking on the retreat having a 1:1 coaching session really helped shed light on what themes I wanted to explore. The paired coaching exercises were also incredibly uplifting. There’s something very consoling about sharing yourself with others from completely different walks of life, yet still finding each other's vulnerabilities relatable. I felt the structure of the pre, in and post retreat coaching created a clear initiation, PrOCESSING and closure.”
Galiena Child Educator, Bath, 26Image Credit: @thesecountryroads
The NEXT ADVENTURE Experience
A guided coaching experience
Many retreats offer you beautiful surroundings, nourishing food, yoga and meditation. They too offer raw tools that can help you connect more deeply with yourself, others and nature — but very few include the guidance and framework necessary to help you make lasting changes from those raw materials.
Our retreat experience not only offers you that guidance, but expands it beyond the experience itself.
Prior to your retreat, you’ll have a 2-hour 1:1 coaching call with experienced life and leadership coach Caitlin Cockerton (valued at €300). During this initial call, you’ll explore what’s brought you to the retreat; current challenges; and you’ll define clear intentions for the retreat itself. Doing this at the outset ensures that you create the foundation to get the most out of your weekend.
During the retreat itself, everyone enjoys group coaching conversations that happen on the trail in a stunning mountain landscape. You’ll also find yourself giving and receiving peer-coaching and getting more 1:1 time with Caitlin.
After the retreat, you'll receive:
● Homework (not the boring kind) to help you integrate your experience
● A toolset to help deepen your outdoor reflection practice
● A post-retreat 2 hour 1:1 coaching session with Caitlin (valued at €300)
Photo Credit: @thesecountryroad.
THREE LEVELS OF CONNECTION
Connection to self
Photo Credit: @thesecountryroad.
The coaching work is just one of the ways in which you will come into dialogue with yourself, reflecting on challenges, triumphs and key themes specific to you.
Through daily yoga, meditation and Qi Gong practices, you’ll begin to feel less anxious and more grounded and connected in your body. These practices also help to improve concentration, flexibility and balance.
And, as an added benefit, all that yoga will help to stretch your muscles after your daily hikes — ensuring you’re ready to tackle whatever the next day holds.
Connection to others
To create a more meaningful life, you need to connect not just with yourself — but with other people. We don’t live in isolation. Group coaching will help you to understand how you relate to others and how to improve your interactions to create more lasting and beneficial bonds.
Many of the past retreat attendees have spoken about the deep conversations and friendships that have developed over the few days of the retreat as one of the most enjoyable and surprising parts of their experiences
Connection to nature
Photo Credit: @thesecountryroad.
Immersion in nature is a vital part of our seasonal mountain retreats. To live a deeply resonant and meaningful life, you need to connect to yourself, the people around you — and to nature. And what better place to connect to nature than the French Alps?
During your stay, you’ll experience daily guided hikes past swiftly flowing rivers, through forests of vast pine trees, up steep mountains and to beautiful vista points. Utilising the Japanese practice of Shinrin Yoku, or Forest Bathing, and other meditative techniques, you’ll find yourself physically and mentally immersed in your surroundings.
Spending intentional time in nature has been proven to reduce stress hormone production, improve feelings of happiness, inspire creativity, lower heart rate and blood pressure and boost your immune system. That's a lot of benefit from a walk in the woods!
THE VENUE
The Chalet – Ferme a Jules
Our seasonal mountain retreats are held at Ferme a Jules, a luxury chalet in a small hamlet outside of Morzine. Located only 1 hour and 15 minutes from Geneva, and minutes away from adventures in the mountains, the chalet offers private ensuite rooms and spacious common areas in a stunning setting.
INCLUDED IN YOUR STAY:
Private luxury room with ensuite
Spacious common areas for relaxing
Numerous balconies and outdoor seating areas—all with awe-inspiring views
Access to sauna and jacuzzi
3 meals a day, including 4-course dinners each night
prepared by award-winning chefs, and afternoon snacks
MEET THE TEAM
CAITLIN
Life and Leadership Coach
Caitlin is the creator of Great Heights Pathways. Her work blends years of experience in business innovation consulting with coaching approaches and tools that help people reconnect to themselves, one another and the world at large. Caitlin is the lead designer and facilitator of our retreats and bespoke team experiences. She loves taking people on these adventurous, accelerated journeys of reflection, renewal and redirection. Discover more about Caitlin’s story here.
URSULA
Yoga and Qi Gong Instructor
Ursula has been cultivating a yoga, tai chi and qigong practice for 18 years. She weaves in various movement and breathwork modalities for optimal physical and mental health benefits, helping her students reconnect with themselves and return to a natural state of peaceful being. She is particularly passionate about the functional approach to the yoga practice, fascia work through yin yoga, self-massage techniques as well as Medical Qigong, all delivered from a trauma-informed perspective.
AL
Co-Founder & MD AliKats
His “Why” is to be free to build creative collaborations that celebrate the beautiful place he lives and positively improve his local and global communities. With climate change warming the Alps twice as fast as the global average, he helped launch the charity Montagne Verte, a brand new concept for leading environmental change funded by the community it serves.
KAT
Co-Founder & MD AliKats
She is on a mission to learn new ways to develop a nurturing environment which celebrates and protects the beautiful place she lives. She gathers people together, feeds them mentally and physically stimulating food and builds communities of interest around her passions. She is also on the board of trustees for Montagne Verte.
LOGISTICS
We’ll connect you with a local concierge booking service, who will ensure your easy and comfortable transfer from Geneva Airport to Montriond. Your airport transfers will be made with the environment in mind, ride-sharing and utilising hybrid vehicles as available.
Investment: €1995 per person (not incl. flights & airport transfers)
*discounts available when you
bring a friend/room share
Tara 34, Entrepreneur, London“It was truly a ‘working out’ for the body, mind and soul — revitalising to the core. The exercises Caitlin facilitated gave me new perspectives from which to interrogate my personal and work life and the yoga connected the physical to the elemental in the most perfect way. I loved connecting with the others on board and hope to stay in touch. I feel nourished from the time in nature, new connections and delicious journey from beginning to end.”
FAQs
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You need to be comfortable walking for a whole day (about 6 hours) with some steep elevations. We take it slow and steady and leave no one behind—but we do challenge ourselves and move our bodies a lot!
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We take payment in one or two parts.
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You’ll receive a pack list prior to the retreat, but here’s a sample list to give you an idea of what to expect:
● Layers for the top half: 2 x short-sleeve base layers*, 2 x long-sleeve base layers, 2 x fleece/jumper, a light puffer (if you have it), a waterproof shell
● 3 x leggings and/or walking trousers and/or walking shorts
● Waterproof trousers if you have them and it looks like rain
● Whatever you like to wear for yoga
● Sports bra(s)
● Good socks for hiking
● Sturdy, water resistant/waterproof hiking boots
● Blister plasters (especially with new boots)
● Sun hat (cap, not beach hat)
● Sunglasses
● Suncream (don’t forget your lips)
● Comfortable day backpack to carry water, food and layers while hiking—think sporty over stylish and avoid leather**
● Water bottles/Camelpak that allows you minimum 1L of water—we recommend 1.5L
● Swimsuit
● Something comfortable for chalet time, including slippers
● Travel insurance; travel documents; euros
● Notebook and pen (ideally with your pre-retreat work in it)
*Base layers are made of sweat-wicking material like merino wool or synthetic fibre, not cotton.
**If you don’t have a good hiking day bag, please let us know as we have a few spare.
