Ok it’s on the Verbier Medran roof but as per the rumors the Bruson telecabine has been ordered. Although the rumors also say it’s not going to be built by the winter.

Still, cool eh?

 

UPDATE: Building work confirmed

Televerbier have announced building work on the new lift starts October 2012… Click here for the video

Summer is well and truly here, so we chose the day with the least impressive hazy cloud cover to take some photos and show you what you can do in and around Verbier in the summer.

Contrary to popular belief there is life outside the resort itself and if you drive half an hour up to the top of the valley you can see the rather impressive Mauvoisin Dam. A geek would be able to tell you about the clever the green energy it releases is, but as I’m not a geek and Toby couldn’t come, I can only tell you it’s very big, very impressive and I nearly wet myself when I looked over the edge.

Well, after a cheeky beer with Toby and Kent they both headed down to Le Chable. Se we thought a quick trip up to Savoleyres was in order to look at the view before the sun went down. And you know what? There’s actually rather a lot of snow up there..

 

Yes, it’s started. There are cows running through the middle of Verbier and at some point this afternoon we’ll all start trying to consume our body weight in raclette.

So we’ll upload pictures of all the cheese madness later – there will be yodeling apparently. And quite possibly some more pictures of cows…

We thought you might like to see the first snow in town. Well, the first snow since August or something…

Anyway, it looks like this although the snow in resort has changed back to rain. Very, very heavy rain.

It’s that time of year. The time of year when people start the first rumours and generally turn their thoughts towards winter.

Now, there are a few of us – the slightly more cantankerous sort – who deliberately start rumours. Then there are the old wizened ski bums and guides who quote all sorts of natural phenomenon to indicate the coming winter.

Then still there are the (actually, more sensible) scientific minded ones who point out that the weather system is a chaotic system, a system not accurately predictable more than three or four days in advance. They sometimes talk about the butterfly effect, but by then I’ve usually zoned out.

Finally there are people who talk about sun spots. The less said the better.

But this season it seems the volume of berries on the trees and the size and quantity of spiders in your sink are to be the key indexes of the snow levels next winter.

Yes, I was surprised too.

You see, Verbier is inundated with spiders this autumn (the giant house spider I think you’ll find – Tegenaria duellica) and I might be guilty of exacerbating the situation with hysterical mutterings on facebook and twitter. But the fact remains there are some hefty arachnids floating about.

And the combination of eight-legged monsters and berries on the trees means everyone’s predicting a bumper season for snow. I don’t know about the science of the prediction, but it’s a prediction I like and I’d like to give it momentum by showing you the kind of beasties we’re dealing with…

Best photo?

It’s one of those competitions I already know who will win, but at the moment I think I know who’s got the best photo in terms of artistic merit, and also who’s got the best one in terms of making their spider look like something out of a special effects cupboard. But please let us know your thoughts by commenting. I might be wrong.

And if you want to know why I’m typing this at 6.30 am, it’s because at about 5.30 I woke up convinced there was a spider crawling over me and now can’t get back to sleep. Oh, the irony – still, if you live by the spider…