Verbier - 01/04/05

ChrisC

Well-known member
WARNING: Verbier really needs some more snow. I would ski elsewhere until its base doubles. Currently, the base is 25-75cm/10-30in.

That said, Verbier is a really nice resort and should be visited once during a week trips to Chamonix (1.25-1.5 hrs away). The place is HUGE!

Town/Parking
Switzerland is a very expensive country. We drove up to Verbier and had to pay 12 francs ($10) to park near the Medran gondolas. I would recommend people park their car down in Le Chable and ride the Medran gondola up to Verbier. You get to avoid 15 hairpin turns and parking is free.

Expert Skiing
I would like to tell people about its great expert terrain, but most was closed or unskiable. Mont. Fort and Mont Gele were both closed - although trams were open for scenic rides. The Tortin-Chassoure gondola and Tortin-Gentianes tram were open and you could ski the closed expert terrain underneath these lifts. This was some of the best skiing since crowds had not yet skied it down to rocks. Also, the Plan de Fou cable car in the Nendaz sector was decent -- chutes leading into an open bowl.

Frankly, the most interesting skiing did not look to be Mont Fort, but Mont Gele. There were numerous chutes and bowls accessible from the cable car.

Intermediate skiing.
I founf the intermediate skiing to be just OK. The Attelas slopes were nice, but very crowded. The Lac des Vaux area had good coverage, but is small. Finally, the La Chaux area was wide-open, but not very steep.

Overall, I would really like to come back and ski Verbier when the resort has more snow.
 
Mont Fort and Mont Gele are both great. Mont Fort is somewhat bigger but also busier and thus more mogulled. Mont Gele, in addition to having the north-facing bowls I skied down to Tortin, has some interesting chutes (which I did not have time to try) dropping the other way back into the main part of Verbier.

Given the Alps' modest snowfalls by North America standards (the Verbier rep sent me 30 years of data from Les Ruinettes 7,200 ft. with an average of 223 inches snow) these places are best visited in February/March. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Grands Montets was adequately covered this early. Snow preservation is outstanding in areas like Grands Montets and the Tortin bowls due to latitude, altitude and exposure.
 
Verbier averages only 223". Ruinettes is only the top of the twin gondolas, right? I guess Attelas and Mont Gele and Fort are higher up - maybe 300"? I would guess it would be barely adequate -- and there could be some really poor/unskiable years.

Was coverage adequate when you were there? Or could you still find rocks. I would agree that Mont Gele looked a lot more interesting than Mont Fort.


Coverage at Les Grandes Montets. I think it was luck - down to the specific day. There were two stroms immediately before Christmas which dropped about 150-200cm. Most area in Chamonix did not open until Dec 20. I then got to ski Les Grandes Montets when the next 20 cm fell on Dec 29th. This made surfaces really nice -- although it had not really settled yet. Therefore, you had to stay away from rocks (no real settled base), look for the lee side of humps and gulleys, but it was boot deep powder for the most part -- with an occasional face shot. Although I am sure traffic had it down to the rocks in a few more days.

I don't know if storms knock into Mont Blanc and really unload -- but the snow was much better than at Verbier. And the two areas are pretty close. Verbier bordered on unskiable. Chamonix skied pretty well.
 
Coverage was adequate last February above 5,000 feet or so. Sure there were some rocks, but in vast terrain like that you could easily avoid them. Verbier is the only area for which I have hard data. I suspect it's fairly average for the Alps.

The distance between Chamonix and Verbier is plenty to have radically different snowfall (think of Alta and Park City, and there are many other examples). I haven't heard that Chamonix is high on snow, probably because the town is low and you often need to download at the end of the day. Val d-Isere and St. Anton have high snow reputations, and the numbers I hear are in the low 300's.

I would personally be leery of going anywhere in the Alps before first of February. If you want to save $, push the late season rather than early if you're interested in expert and/or off-piste terrain.
 
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