Verbier

Well, Verbier we were looking forward to as it has been well hyped up. And no, it didn’t disappoint! We arrived midweek, and as it turns out, in the week that no one was on school holiday, which means – no kids and very quiet on the slopes. Woohoo!

And what slopes they turned out to be! Fresh powder for the first few days – falling in our faces. In fact our first day we weathered blizzard conditions – and it was fantastic!

Even though the visibility was limited at times, at others the place brightened up and with so much fresh snow about off piste was just the place to be. We found a fabulous powdery playground up by La Chaux, with dips and bowls to muck about in. And as even more of a treat, the sound system in the nearby boardercross zone was blaring Fat Freddy’s Drop – perfect!

Beautiful fresh powder everywhere!

deep in off piste

oh dear where are my legs!

It’s funny how people don’t like to hang about in heavy snow conditions – maybe they’d rather go sit in a pub, but for us it was heaven and such a shame when the lifts finally closed.

Riders on the storm

Next day we headed up to the Savoleyres sector, and yet again, it seemed the weather was keeping the punters back in the village. Which meant all the more powder for us! How greedy are we becoming??! Magical runs through open fields of powder, dipping and diving and ducking into natural bowls and drop offs. Savoleyres really does have some great free riding terrain. including some great forested sections to weave about in too. We pretty much spent the whole day off piste. A real shame when the lifts closed at 4.45, we could have stayed all night.

Last run of the day with a well deserved gluh wine

Now Verbier is a cute little village, and I guess can get well boisterous in busier times. But there was a great vibe around with the O’Neill Xtreme Freeride competition in town. 24 of the world’s best skiers and snowboarders, with one aim – to descent the 3222m (rocky) north face of the Bec des Rosses with the trickiest moves in the fastest time. The sponsors were well out in force with giant inflatable Powerade bottles, brand new 4x4 Nissans littering the streets, and a giant screen set up to relay the action. These guys were well crazy, and it was just awesome to watch. Fortunately, there was only one casualty – a Canadian skier who tumbled down half the mountain and only suffered a broken leg – and all in good humour, or so she seemed as she relayed her experience to the crowd later that night.

Spectating at the Bec des Rosses

View from Mont Fort looking back at Mont Blanc, Chamonix is out there somewhere too!

By our fourth day on the slopes the sun was out in full and so were all the punters. A real shame after you know how it can be! All the off piste powder had been tracked out, not much fun that day especially as Eric managed to get some food poisoning from the ‘world class’ on piste cuisine. Definitely sticking to the packed lunch next time!

Time to move on ;)