For the first of four days in and around the highly rated Val d'Anniviers region, the sun never quite came out completely and it continued snowing lightly all day; however, visibility at the locals mountain Vercorin was far better than the previous day at Anzère.
A gondola services the entire 3,200 vertical feet and then are several steep Poma lifts on the upper mountain. This is a classic compressed Alps trail map that doesn't show any of the extensive and challenging tree skiing:
I was alone and nobody was around so the pix aren't spectacular and because there were so few people, I didn't get any in-action shots. Close to three feet had fallen over the previous 36 hours (they only reported half of that). In the trees, where I stayed pretty much all day, it was knee- to thigh-deep every turn.
Base area gondola:
While in the cabin, I got talking to two local snowboarders who were raving about a tree line that literally went down the entire mountain -- "c'est malade, je vous jure!" ("it's sick, I swear!") -- so I followed them in and spent the next I don't know how long picking my way down 2,800 verts of consistently steep trees while they zoomed ahead in "no friends on powder days" mode.
A pillow store:
After I recovered from that and changed out of my soaking wet shirt at the car, I headed back to the top, had lunch, then spent the afternoon nailing low-hanging fruit alongside the trails:
... or skiing in the woods within a few yards of the Pomas and then cutting back to the lift path when I hit a flat spot:
At 3:30, I crashed, double-ejected, and lost both of my skis -- took me ten minutes to find them (it's been a while since that's happened) -- which signaled that I was done for the day. While I wouldn't necessarily go there to ski the cut trails like in this report, that was world-class tree skiing.
A gondola services the entire 3,200 vertical feet and then are several steep Poma lifts on the upper mountain. This is a classic compressed Alps trail map that doesn't show any of the extensive and challenging tree skiing:
I was alone and nobody was around so the pix aren't spectacular and because there were so few people, I didn't get any in-action shots. Close to three feet had fallen over the previous 36 hours (they only reported half of that). In the trees, where I stayed pretty much all day, it was knee- to thigh-deep every turn.
Base area gondola:
While in the cabin, I got talking to two local snowboarders who were raving about a tree line that literally went down the entire mountain -- "c'est malade, je vous jure!" ("it's sick, I swear!") -- so I followed them in and spent the next I don't know how long picking my way down 2,800 verts of consistently steep trees while they zoomed ahead in "no friends on powder days" mode.
A pillow store:
After I recovered from that and changed out of my soaking wet shirt at the car, I headed back to the top, had lunch, then spent the afternoon nailing low-hanging fruit alongside the trails:
... or skiing in the woods within a few yards of the Pomas and then cutting back to the lift path when I hit a flat spot:
At 3:30, I crashed, double-ejected, and lost both of my skis -- took me ten minutes to find them (it's been a while since that's happened) -- which signaled that I was done for the day. While I wouldn't necessarily go there to ski the cut trails like in this report, that was world-class tree skiing.
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