Snow on the way for Verbier after sunny weeks

I’ve spent a lot of my time this week skiing around the Savoleyres area, as well as La Chaux and Col des Gentiannes. I often choose to ski Savoleyres in peak weeks of the year as it simply doesn’t seem to be as busy as other parts of the resort. This means that the freshly pistes snow stays smooth for longer, and of course with less people on the slopes you can easily enjoy the full width of the pistes without worrying as much about colliding with other skiers. The red runs leading down from the top of the six-man chairlift are the best in the Sav area at the moment, with the higher altitude and north facing position keeping the snow fresh for longer into the afternoon. Down on the lower parts of the runs heading into La Tzoumaz, the snow is beginning to get very slushy and a little thin in places to the sides of the pistes. However, this doesn’t mean that they’re not still enjoyable to ski, as the softer snow and lack of icy patches offers good grip and a strong edge hold, especially for snowboarders.

Similar conditions are found over on the Verbier side, with runs below 2000m becoming slushy and very soft as the day drifts into the afternoon. The highest traffic runs such as the M25 are particularly bumpy later in the day, as the large volume of skiers push the snow around creating some medium-sized moguls. With this in mind, if you’re keen to get the best out of your week skiing wise, it’s always best to get up early and get first lifts and fresh tracks down the perfectly groomed corduroy. The higher altitude slopes above 2000m are keeping their snow well throughout the day, and are in good condition generally, with a decent layer of soft snow on top of the hardpack. The best runs for charging the pistes in resort are likely the red Gentiannes piste coming down from 2950m to the bottom of La Chaux, as well as the Attelas reds and blacks until they reach the bottom of the James Blunt lift. The Fontanet red run is also a great piste, and a bit of a secret in Verbier as it hardly gets skied, meaning when other runs are seeing bumps and moguls due to the high volume of skiers, Fontanet is usually still perfectly smooth and nice to ski.

With no fresh snowfall now for a couple of weeks, it goes without saying that the lift-accessed off-piste is very tracked out and not worth skiing. On top of that, with the warm freeze-thaw conditions we’ve been experiencing, it’s also quite unsafe to head off-piste at the moment, evident through the plethora of large avalanches that have been occurring around the Verbier region over the past week. However, it’s looking as though things might change over the coming week, with over 40cm of snowfall predicted across the next seven days in Verbier. It might not be enough for an epic deep powder day, but a top up of 10cm on Friday and Monday night would no doubt improve the piste skiing conditions, as well as filling in some of the grassy patches that have begun appearing off-piste in lower areas. With a snow depth of 166cm at the mid station, and 200cm at the top of the mountain, the snow is looking like it’s here to stay as we head into the later part of the season. March is a great time to head out to the Alps, with longer, warmer, and sunnier days, along with the occasional late season dump. On top of that, there’s also some cracking events towards to the end of the month, with the Boss des Bosses mogul competition and the epic Verbier Xtreme Freeride event where it will be decided which men and women will be crowned champion of the Freeride Skiing and Snowboarding world.