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, it’s snowed – but sadly when our crack team of photographers got going it was decidedly cloudy. The sort of cloudy that makes you want to make an excuse, say flat light makes you feel dizzy and then go to the pub.

However, if you’re interested in how much snow we had in the last storm (and we know you are) we think about 20cm, although there’s been quite a bit of wind up there and it’s been blowing around a bit. So there are some pretty impressive wind lips around the place.

So, the sun is out, it’s been out for quite a bit and looks set to stay out until Christmas. Well, Christmas-ish.

Yes, for the budding weathermen and women amongst you, you will be aware that there’s a whopping area of high pressure that’s settled in across Europe and doesn’t want to go anywhere, so Verbier is consistently getting sunny days, cold temperatures and that groundhog day feeling. Still, the fantastic sunshine does give you chance to admire our fantastic new uniforms and debate if it’s orange, tangerine, saffron or egg yolk. I’m firmly behind saffron, if you’re asking.

What does this look like? Well, epic actually. And whilst these snaps show you that it’s all dead pretty I can also confirm the pistes are skiing really well and are in great condition after the heavy snow of a couple of weeks ago. Naturally more would be nice, but we’ll have to cross our fingers and be good.

 

 

Want more? Well how about Martin ski touring up Mont Fort?

Yes our intrepid Martin decided to put DJ and David in the hurt locker and hike up to Mont Fort. They nearly made it but after realising that it’s miles they made a tactical withdrawal after getting most of the way there. Very sensible in my humble opinion. What did it look like? Well like this…

Yes, this winter has started with a bang and on only the second weekend of the year Verbier can boast lifts open down to mid-station and enough snow for people to be skiing into resort and even putting tracks down the Attelas Couloirs and Creblet.

Now, we certainly wouldn’t recommend that as we know how upsetting a big hole in the bottom of your ski is when you inevitably run out of snow and hit a few rocks. But that said, we’ve all done it…

The snow up top was really good – Sophie said it was “chalky”. Which is good enough for me – especially when you bear in mind some years we haven’t even got Lac des Vaux open. And the next step in the annual guessing game is when will they start opening the lifts all week and not just at weekends?

As well as the Lac des Vaux lift running the Tortin bubble also fired up so that people over in Nendaz and Siviez could enjoy the cracking early season snow. We also have new restaurant news – well quite a lot of that another time actually – but first up is that the Olympique self-service restaurant has had a proper make-over and is actually quite nice. Have a look at the gallery and there’s a snap in the gallery somewhere.

In fact, everything seems to be ticking along nicely…

I’m afraid the cloud is coming this afternoon and sadly for anybody expecting powder it might be a bit cloudy with no real reward. But cross your fingers and it might be good…