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Verbier Activity Review: 1st September 2012

Mixed weather continues with snow falling up the mountain

featured in Activity reviews Author Lee Fieldsend, Verbier Reporter Updated

Although the weather has remained mixed over this summer the last month of August did take a good turn with temperatures often as high as 35 degrees and plenty of sunshine to give us a real taste of summer. Those highs do appear to be behind us now as we drift into September and towards Autumn at an alarming speed.

Already the Savoleyres/ Tzoumaz sector is now closed until the winter and the Mont Fort sector is only open for the weekends of September.

The good news is that the lifts from Le Chable to Verbier and up to Ruinettes are still open everyday until 17th September and then weekends until the end of October.

The weather for the start of September has taken a turn for the bad which isn’t going to interfere with most peoples plans as the Loft closes on Friday night and the Pub Mont Fort closes on Saturday night, so it should be a boozy weekend. The Pub will also be having a menu sell off where every dish is 12chf until they run out. The menu sell off starts at 18:00 hrs and should be a great lead up to the Pub closing party later that evening.

Many of the bars and restaurants are closing now that the hugely successful Verbier classical music festival and the horse jumping show are over although there are still a couple of events left before winter begins. Over the weekends, when the weather behaves, there are still plenty of people out in the mountains walking, biking, para-ponting and playing golf.

This first weekend of September sees the Mont Blanc Ultra Trail comp www.ultratrailmb.com . The race will be coming into the Verbier area from Col Ferret to Champex-Lac on Saturday 1st September. The following weekend the Verbier BikeFest www.verbierbikefest.ch will be held down by the sports centre. In total contrast to the well behaved horse jumping festival last week, the same area will become awash with Harley Davidson motorbikes, bikers and rock and metal bands playing well into the night.

A few days ago, before the Savoleyres sector closed, I rode from the Pierre Avoi area down to Volleges. I had an hour long ride through thick forests, steep mountain tracks and stunning alpine scenery before arriving in the valley ten minutes from Le Chable.

The Savoleyres lifts were great while they were open but over on the Tzoumaz side the trails never really got opened due to farmers fences, previous storm damage and logging which was a huge disappointment. There were also rumours of new track developments at the top of the La Chaux Express which never materialised.

While the weather is not so great do not forget about the many things to do in resort. Down at the sport centre there is an ice rink, swimming pool and tennis and squash courts plus ice go-carting http://www.kartingextremeverbier.com/ .Up at the Medran Café area there is also an artificial rock climbing wall to while away the rainy days.

As mentioned the weather forecast for the weekend is rainy and quite chilly with lots of clouds around so it may not be perfect weather this weekend but then there are still a couple of pubs to hide in if you find yourself rained out. There are some patches of sunshine over the next few days but temperatures have dropped so much that snow has fallen as low as Mayens (well below Ruinettes mid-station) Hopefully the sun will come back soon and my fingers are crossed for a sunny and dry Autumn, just like last year.