New Ski lift in Veysonnaz – Piste de L’Ours new 8 man gondola

We are all very excited to hear that TeleVerbier are to upgrade the old 4 man chair in La Chaux to a shiny new fast 6 man, as reported recently on Verbier.com. This will indeed make a difference to those who have outgrown Les Esserts and want a fat lunch in Le Dahu.

But the real game changer is happening over in the 3rd Valley, Veysonnaz. A couple of years go TeleThyon upgraded the old gondola from Veysonnaz town to Thyon. Not only did it reduce the time by about 7 minutes, the wonders of automatic doors meant that you no longer needed a lift assistant to lock you into the tin can and another to release you at the top..!

This year it the turn of the Piste de L’Ours. Described by a French downhill skier as ‘the most beautiful piste in the world’ the Bear piste is a steep, long and undulating piste lined by trees. It is the scene of many FIS World Cup downhill competitions over the years. Although the lift used to be the fastest in Europe in 1981, it certainly isn’t now with a bottom to top time in excess of 15 minutes. The new Piste de L’Ours gondola will halve the time which means you will have time to do at least 2 thigh burning runs of the FIS downhill before a well earned lunch at the Le Bois Sauvage in Les Masses.

 

Today was a very good day. It was cold, it was sunny and it was epic. A word we will return to more than once this season I think…

So we won’t bore you with details, but suffice to say it started with temperatures of about minus 8 in town and although high cloud came over later, it was a cracking day to be up the mountain.

Yes, since Toby blogged the videos of Verbier getting another dump TeleVerbier have been promising to open the lifts if over a thousand of us liked their Facebook post. Naturally about ten million people instantly liked, shared, Tweeted, and Social-Mediad the thing but despite promising to open if the weather was good / safe, the weather is rubbish for the weekend so no June skiing jankers for us.

By way of compensation we have had marching bands in town – well, if you’re on a Bank Holiday what else do you do?

Meanwhile there was a little reference to opening in the summer at Mont Fort if TeleNendaz were up for it. We’ll keep you posted…

 

 

 

So there I was lying in bed on a Sunday morning and the wife says “Lets go ski touring” and I am like “yer, whatever , it’s the 26th May, the season’s over”. But as you know once your married you are not an individual any more, your a ‘team’. So in other words, do what your told..!

Anyway, it turned out to be a fun little trip up to Ruinette from Carrefour. And the snow was rather good..!

 

You know what? Bruson is a great place to ski. I know you all probably know it but we took a trip over yesterday and it was amazing – OK the lifts are slow and the restaurant action isn’t exactly breathtaking but crikey the pistes are good. As Lucas would concur. So roll in the new lift next season…