Swiss village of Verbier

Come on Verbier, Give Us A Break!

What is it about Swiss railway journeys that are just so different?

  1. The train leaves on time (is that important? It is when you want to go skiing that afternoon).
  2. They seem to have an elegant feel about them, even though they are not particularly elegant (perhaps it’s just the prospect of skiing that’s clouding my thoughts).
  3. They serve coffee on little trollies that pass by (they do this in the UK too, but somehow here it just seems nicer…probably way too excited now).
  4. The views are magnificent (I’m certain my thoughts are straight on this one).
  5. You end up winding your way up a mountain where the snow slowly gets deeper and deeper until ahead, you see the spectacular spread of mountains that forms the ski area of Verbier (and unlike most railway journeys you are jumping up and down frantically pulling on your ski pants to avoid having to find your hotel).
  6. The train arrives on time (making your day complete as you plan where to dump your luggage so you can immediately go skiing – oh, hang on, it’s Switzerland and they have super large lockers that you can throw everything into).

That started my short trip to Verbier during a sunny period in February 2012 when the snow was abundant and skier numbers to Switzerland from the UK were, well, not abundant.

So I grabbed a sandwich, hopped on the empty cable car from Verbier up the mountain and scanned the slopes for other skiers. Now Verbier is probably one of the best known resorts in the Alps, extensive skiing across the 4 valley’s region that links several villages including Nendaz to the highest point at Mt Fort. Best known for its off-piste skiing, party atmosphere and celebrity visitors (Prince Harry, James Blunt, Richard Branson…it goes on, but actually who cares?). But today, during the February holiday period, things look pretty quiet out on the slopes of Verbier, maybe everyone is off-piste?

I ski immediately down to a brand new chairlift called Mayen which has replaced two old chairlifts that transport you from Carrefour (sort of the top part of the Verbier town) and Ruinettes (the mid-station hub at 2200 meters). I jump straight on and within about 5 minutes I’m straight back up to where the cable car dropped me off at Ruinettes. Next I Head up the funispace (a larger people carrying cable car type thing) to Les Attelas (2700 meters), ski down to La Chaux, up another chair, down again…well you get the idea.

Verbier in Swiss Alps

Verbier used to be just as famous for its queuing as it did for its celebs, clearly the combination of brand new lifts and lack of anyone actually being there (maybe because they all think you have to queue in February?) has eliminated that issue. Now I’m not here to promote Verbier’s fantastic new lift system so I’m going to tell the truth, no queues suck! Within 2 hours I’m done, need to stop and rest my legs, have a coffee and chill out (which obviously costs me money). Queuing was a social thing, especially if you are on your own and gave you a rest from skiing. Also, no-one was on the slopes because they were all in the queue, now everyone’s on the slopes because there are no queues.

Come on Verbier, give us a break.

I chat with other exhausted skiers in the café, apparently it’s Mardi Gras which is taken very seriously in Switzerland and even more so in Verbier. ‘It’s going to be a big night’ I’m told by the staff of Ice Cube Café & Sandwich Bar just below Ruinettes, ‘and fancy dress is mandatory’. I told them I’d just arrived and won’t be heading out in fancy dress and they just laughed, in a slightly sinister way. Still, I skied down slowly all the way to a new restaurant and après ski bar called Le Rouge which is easy to find because it’s on a slope called Le Rouge which gradually tapers down until you’re forced to remove your skis and enter – so this is where everyone is (no fancy dress, which is a relief). I enjoy sitting on the large terrace with a cold beer in the sun until about 5.30pm when I start to wonder where I’m supposed to be staying and where I left my luggage.

I’ll jump straight to my hotel room (8.45pm), showered (8.55pm) and changed at (9.00pm) and won’t go into details about the last 3.5 hours because frankly it’s boring. I’ll just say that it’s possibly better to find your hotel before skiing all afternoon and ending up in Le Rouge, on Mardi Gras, in Verbier. But I head up to Le Pub Mt Fort where I’ve been promised a donation of fancy dress from two American tourists that are regular visitors to Verbier.

Le Pub Mt Fort is somewhat of an institution, nestled right up by the main cable car station that means it gets both the immediate après ski business between 4 and 6pm and then still remains one of ‘the places’ to go during the evening, right up until 1am when crowds start drifting towards to night-clubs.

I meet up with my Californian friends just outside the pub and they kindly donate their spare costumes which include a very large black afro wig that extends my height by at least double.
I have a great evening but go back to my hotel room ‘early’ (by 1am) which I’m informed is when the evening just gets going, but after getting up at 6am, flying from London, skiing all afternoon, drinking the rest….it was time for bed.

My hotel is Le Bristol (I only really get to grips with this fact in the morning) and is well located right off the main ‘Place Central’ that forms the hub of Verbier’s small road network. I have an early breakfast and head out to meet Pierre Yves Deleze, Marketing Director for what sounds like one of the most exciting developments in any European ski resort in the last few years.
Les Trois Rocs is a huge project that has taken over a large area right by the Verbier’s main cable car station, Medran. With a selection of private apartments (some whole ownership and others on a rent back scheme) combined with a brand new W Hotel (part of the luxury Starwood group that includes Sheraton) Les Trois Rocs certainly looks like an impressive addition to the property scene in this small Swiss town.
I ask Pierre whether Verbier needs something like this and he said, ‘Verbier has a shortage of Luxury 5 star hotels and this will help balance things out. It will provide a 30% increase in hotel beds for Verbier and the demand for more upmarket hotels is greater than for 3 star’.
Fair enough, I said, but won’t this drive out the young skiers even more that help make Verbier what it is? Pierre responded to this, ‘we have a very open policy in the hotel, with bars, restaurants, shops and a nightclub where we hope everyone will enjoy the facilities provided. Ten out of eighteen people that have already invested are foreign buyers, many are expert skiers who have been coming to Verbier for years, British, Scandinavian, Russian and German.’
I fail to see the young season workers warming up their evening at the ‘Destination Bar’ or enjoying a meal by two star Michelin chef, Sergi Arola who will oversee the restaurant, but I’m also certain this is not a concern for Les Trois Rocs and I must admit that after a tough days skiing, I’d quite like the use of those kind of facilities myself.

I leave my meeting intrigued about the paradox between a luxury lifestyle and the type of ski terrain Verbier has to offer the expert skier. Is it a bit like the middle aged man in a high end sports car? By the time he’s got the money to buy the car, he just looks too old to be driving it. Will Verbier turn into another ‘St Moritz’, where fur coats rule and small dogs are seen travelling in hand bags (I still don’t get that?)…just to be clear, St Moritz is a great place with some great skiing, but this is the image is portrays.
Will the atmosphere that makes Verbier disappear if the young, free-ride aspirational, British, Scandinavian, Finnish, North American and Australasian seasonal visitors drift away due to the constrictions of pure economics? Some would say this has already happened and a few of the ‘old guard’ residents of the town mumble into their large beers as they complain about the changes.

But the fact is that Verbier is just too ‘prime real estate material’ to stop the charge of elitism from making its mark. A perfect south facing plateau elevated just enough above the valley at 1500 meters that offers views straight across to the Mt Blanc Massive and spectacular Dents Du Midi peaks.
World class ski terrain that rivals any other lift accessed area, anywhere in the world (more on that later), location to Geneva and other large Swiss cities that allow for easy access, new and improved lift system that has stopped the old winging critics that used to constantly moan about queues when they were clearly missing the point in the first place….and this is the real point, that without the lift system dragging itself into the 21st century, Verbier might very well still be purely a ‘hard core’ skiers town where five star hotels are unwanted, no-one cares about queues because they can be avoided and the off-piste stays un-tracked for days after a storm.
Ski tourists want nice lifts, no queues and most don’t care about what goes on beyond the boundaries of the blue, red and black marker poles, these are the ones with money and money is what you need to run a ski resort.

So back to the skiing. I head up and meet with my American friends to tick off some of the famous Verbier classic descents that draw both the young freeride aspirational skiers as well as the well heeled but experienced skier that is looking for a challenge (you know, the type the drives the sports car).
The availability of easy access ‘off-piste’ skiing in Verbier is abundant and even marked on the piste map as Itinerary Routes (marked in black and yellow). They are loosely marked and well sign posted, monitored by the ski patrol and only open once safety precautions have been made.
Many skiers ignore the safety warnings and duck underneath the ropes when the routes are shut, but they argue this provides the best skiing conditions, but of course potentially the most dangerous. Skiers take their own risk when doing this and avalanches involving riders do happen throughout the winter season as they would in any similar terrain and conditions.

We start with Mt Gele, a 3000 meter peak reached by a single cable car from Les Attelas (2700 meters). Mt Gele is a single mountain which provides possible descents on every side. Steep and rocky, the only marked run is an itinerary route on the west facing side that gets ‘mogulled up’ pretty quickly after opening. We take a left turn and head over some rocky terrain and ski straight down to Lac Des Vaux, an intermediates bowl served by 3 chairlifts and several blue and red runs. But the descent itself was surprisingly good, the snow still providing over the boot powder on the north facing aspect even though the last snowfall was over one week before. Traversing the pistes we continue down the open Vallon d’Arby, a huge area in a valley accessed by a small road that hugs the cliff faces for several hundred meters.

Mt Gele Telecabine, Verbier, Switzerland

Photo: Mt Gele Telecabine

Continuing around to the opposite side of the valley, we eventually descend though open glades that provide a mix of spring snow conditions, powder and moguls, lots of fun. After ending up in the village of La Tzoumaz and a quick coffee, we head up to Savoleyres and across to Croix De Coeur, a south facing, low altitude slope that might have provided some firm spring snow conditions, but instead turned into knee deep sludge, we should have kept to the wide-open pistes which looked empty and perfectly groomed.
Heading back up into the main Verbier system, we skied around some more empty, well groomed slopes (is this really Verbier in holiday season?) until I thought I could hear Le Pub Mt Fort calling out like a beckoning angel (a mix of mountain air and exhaustion clearly), but we all ski down to the village, ending up on a small winding road that takes everyone down to one point by the Medran lift.

Le Pub Mt Fort is already pretty busy and the suns shining on the terrace and young, cool people are hanging out drinking beer.
I talk to a variety of people from all over the world including Gibson Rogers from Colorado who’s been spending time in Verbier every winter for the past 15 years. I want to know why he keeps coming back, ‘The skiing terrain and variety are excellent, that’s the main reason, plus the atmosphere in town is always very festive. The unique combination of amazing skiing and fun town are the reasons I come back year after year’. He told me that he spent about 4 to 5 weeks here and I asked how he afforded that, ‘By chance I found a single hotel room in the centre of town for 90 francs (CHF) a night with breakfast, great for Verbier in the middle of the season’. I agreed it was a good rate, but clearly negotiated for a long-term stay.

Verbier is without doubt one of the most interesting and exciting ski resorts in Europe. The combination of the great off-piste skiing and festive atmosphere certainly put it up there with the other major resorts. There are some who say it’s changing, but when I stand in Le Pub My Fort and look around, I don’t see that change is getting anyone down in this place.

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I stayed in the Hotel Bristol in Verbier and travelled there with SWISS from London Heathrow to Geneva. Transport from Geneva to Verbier was with Swiss Railways and takes approximately 2.5 hours.
Tour operators including Crystal run chalets in Verbier throughout the winter ski season
Verbier has a number of ski schools including AlpineMojo and Powder Extreme, which specialises in off-piste ski courses.
Images are by Seb Albert at trobophoto.com.