Alpine Soul Gathering: A Look Back at Alma at Six Senses
Above the treetops of Crans-Montana, where the light shifts like breath across the mountains and the air carries both stillness and charge, Alma unfolded at the Six Senses from June 5th to 8th, 2025. More than a wellness retreat, more than a festival, it was a four-day immersion into a slower, richer rhythm of being - a sanctuary where science, spirit and nature held equal sway.
Curated by wellness and longevity pioneer Talana Bestall, Alma is more than a moment in the calendar. It is an ethos – a living, growing ecosystem of experiences, conversations and products designed to encourage deeper thinking, feeling, and connection, that echoe the gathering’s values: grounding, clarity, intention, community.
This year’s gathering began with a transition—Land Rover vehicles winding their way up from Geneva, delivering guests to a landscape that asked for presence and gave it back tenfold. The Six Senses Crans Montana itself sat cradled in pine and stone, a high-altitude cocoon where nothing jarred, and everything nourished.
Days were woven with movement, breath, and quiet communion. Mornings began with Sanctum’s signature practice, led by Luuk Melisse – part workout, part ritual, bodies rising with the sun in rhythmic motion. Nearby, the silence of the forest called, and guests answered with barefoot hikes and intention-led walks through the trees.
The inner world was a focus, too. James Nestor, author of Breath, guided explorations into the power and precision of conscious respiration, while Dr. Jessica Shepherd offered an intimate lens on hormonal wisdom and the emotional cadence of the female body. Mycological brand Mother Made – along with co-founder Jessica Clarke – brought a sensory depth with tinctures and tonics that spoke of the forest floor—mushrooms reimagined as allies in daily resilience.
Sound reverberated as a kind of language throughout the gathering. One of the festival’s most quietly profound offerings was Jasmine Hemsley’s sound bath, held in the soft glow of candlelight and Himalayan cedar. Bowls sang, tones deepened, and something inside guests settled. It was not performance but presence – vibration as medicine.
“What Alma offers is not transformation in the traditional sense. It is space: to ask better questions, to meet oneself again, to remember a softer way of moving through the world.”
“What Alma offers is not transformation in the traditional sense. It is space: to ask better questions, to meet oneself again, to remember a softer way of moving through the world.”
Food, too, followed this rhythm of intention. Hemsley’s Ayurvedic menus turned nourishment into a sensory ceremony: broths, pulses, seasonal greens and fermented infusions, plated with care and eaten communally. Laughter and quiet contemplation flowed in equal measure. There was no need for alcohol – connection here was unfiltered, elemental.
Between movement and stillness, guests wrapped themselves in the alpine-chic warmth of Perfect Moment, whose bold outerwear became a second skin against the mountain air. In the Six Senses spa, cryotherapy and Technogym diagnostics met reiki, oxygen therapy and chakra-tuning in a seamless blend of high tech and deep soul.
What Alma offers is not transformation in the traditional sense. It is space: to ask better questions, to meet oneself again, to remember a softer way of moving through the world. Beneath its curated elegance lies a quiet, beating heart—community, intention, depth.
And when guests returned to the world below, they didn’t leave Alma behind. They took it with them – in their lungs, in their cells, in the subtle realignment of how they think, feel, and connect.
Until next time, aho.
Curated by wellness and longevity pioneer Talana Bestall, Alma is more than a moment in the calendar. It is an ethos – a living, growing ecosystem of experiences, conversations and products designed to encourage deeper thinking, feeling, and connection, that echoe the gathering’s values: grounding, clarity, intention, community.
This year’s gathering began with a transition—Land Rover vehicles winding their way up from Geneva, delivering guests to a landscape that asked for presence and gave it back tenfold. The Six Senses Crans Montana itself sat cradled in pine and stone, a high-altitude cocoon where nothing jarred, and everything nourished.
Days were woven with movement, breath, and quiet communion. Mornings began with Sanctum’s signature practice, led by Luuk Melisse – part workout, part ritual, bodies rising with the sun in rhythmic motion. Nearby, the silence of the forest called, and guests answered with barefoot hikes and intention-led walks through the trees.
The inner world was a focus, too. James Nestor, author of Breath, guided explorations into the power and precision of conscious respiration, while Dr. Jessica Shepherd offered an intimate lens on hormonal wisdom and the emotional cadence of the female body. Mycological brand Mother Made – along with co-founder Jessica Clarke – brought a sensory depth with tinctures and tonics that spoke of the forest floor—mushrooms reimagined as allies in daily resilience.
Sound reverberated as a kind of language throughout the gathering. One of the festival’s most quietly profound offerings was Jasmine Hemsley’s sound bath, held in the soft glow of candlelight and Himalayan cedar. Bowls sang, tones deepened, and something inside guests settled. It was not performance but presence – vibration as medicine.
“What Alma offers is not transformation in the traditional sense. It is space: to ask better questions, to meet oneself again, to remember a softer way of moving through the world.”
“What Alma offers is not transformation in the traditional sense. It is space: to ask better questions, to meet oneself again, to remember a softer way of moving through the world.”
Food, too, followed this rhythm of intention. Hemsley’s Ayurvedic menus turned nourishment into a sensory ceremony: broths, pulses, seasonal greens and fermented infusions, plated with care and eaten communally. Laughter and quiet contemplation flowed in equal measure. There was no need for alcohol – connection here was unfiltered, elemental.
Between movement and stillness, guests wrapped themselves in the alpine-chic warmth of Perfect Moment, whose bold outerwear became a second skin against the mountain air. In the Six Senses spa, cryotherapy and Technogym diagnostics met reiki, oxygen therapy and chakra-tuning in a seamless blend of high tech and deep soul.
What Alma offers is not transformation in the traditional sense. It is space: to ask better questions, to meet oneself again, to remember a softer way of moving through the world. Beneath its curated elegance lies a quiet, beating heart—community, intention, depth.
And when guests returned to the world below, they didn’t leave Alma behind. They took it with them – in their lungs, in their cells, in the subtle realignment of how they think, feel, and connect.
Until next time, aho.
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