Yes, the snow has started. Not in the kind of way that leaves you worrying about where you left the snow chains and panic-buying tins of beans. But it’s started. And that is good news people.

Meanwhile Sophie was stopped on the slopes for Verbier Web TV who promptly made her their anchorwoman. If you watch closely you might also spot cameo’s by Pete (we think) and Flori though…

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, while the snowline drops towards resort and we get another dose of pre-season snow, Laura and Jenny are over in Saas Fee doing some preseason training.

Now, normally we only put up posts that show off stunning views and waste deep powder, but when these two are putting up with white-outs and freezing temperatures up on the glacier, it only seems fair that we give them their moment in teh limelight. After all, Laura’s hands must be freezing after taking these…

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…

Yes, despite a little scepticism on Facebook last week the lifts opened today. As usual it’s officially Lac des Vaux but the snow is great and everyone is skiing back down from Attelas to Ruinettes.

Our man with camera is Mr Lewis and he decided – along with a few disturbed friends – that despite them opening the lifts they should ski tour up to Lac des Vaux rather than take the Funispace. Well ours is not to reason why and thanks to Martin we can show you what the day is looking like up there…

The great news is that TeleVerbier has announced the opening dates for the lifts and the plan is to open the Lac des Vaux runs and possibly Attelas to Ruinettes at the weekends from the 9th of November. Which is a week on Saturday. I know, good isn’t it?

Open until May. Even better, eh?

In addition the claim is that from the 30th November it’ll be open during the week as well. Significantly they are hoping to open until May 4th this season – a week later than usual.

 

Mont Fort, Savoleyres and Bruson

Mont Fort is theoretically opening from the 30th November too, with Savoleyres scheduled for the 14th December and the shiny new Bruson lift will open up Bruson from 21st December through to the 21st April – stop me if I’m wrong that’s a week or two later than normal isn’t it? Finally the beginners lift in town is scheduled to open on the 14th.

 

Assuming the weather plays ball.

Now don’t forget that the big factor here is the weather – and Verbier normally opens up the first week of November a the weekends. So the real race is to see if it opens that first weekend, and then how long before week long opening and the pistes from Attelas to Ruinettes opening. If the weather’s good it’ll be sooner rather than later.

Now for some shameless plugging.

As always, there is only one place to keep your eyes on this. Here.

So keep an eye on the blog and don’t forget we’re on Twitter, Facebook and even Instagram – so you can keep up to date there. We’ll be posting photos of anything to do with Verbier constantly, so you’ll be missing out if you don’t…