The issue being the strong winds and thermals combined with the fact that a/c such as the Cirrus were “too light and quick.”
An "instructor" with this kind of attitude should not be teaching.
I've been right over Samedan and an SR22 can easily do exactly what I did in something similar: go straight over the top of the whole lot, in a nice straight line, FL130 or higher. With a decent plane one doesn't have to mess about inside the canyons.
The only inconvenience is having to sniff some O2
