Blissfully soft 'n' fluffy snow

Fantastic day today with some of the best skiing in ages - which is just as well as I fly home tomorrow. (Sigh!)

 

When I moseyed back from the Pub Mont Fort last night, it was one of those lovely crispy clear nights where all the mountains were lit up by starlight and gleaming atmospherically through the darkness. So I wasn’t really expecting there to be lots of fresh snow up the mountain this morning. Unfortunately I didn’t quite get first lifts (damn both beer and packing!) but it was still fabulously soft and fluffy underfoot when I did.

Perhaps I should have had a proper plan of where to ski on such glorious snow, but there were lightly shifting clouds screening the blue, so it seemed best to follow the densest patches, where the cloud appeared the whispiest.

Warming up with some lovely off-piste around Lac de Vaux, I whipped through the pow and then headed up Mont Fort, where the only patch of blue sky was lingering. The snow was deliciously soft, probably the best I've seen it in ages, but unfortunately the cloud started to creep over and soon the peak disappeared into glittering mists so I started chasing patches of blue, down Tortin and over towards Siviez and Nendaz.

As usual the Combatzeline was rather cruddy and juddery by late afternoon and the least said about the Medran the better, but otherwise a fab day. It's been slightly weird coming out again as a seasonnaire, but also a lot of fun. So until next time, Verbier, farewell.

Savoleyres and seasonnaires

Arabella Mileham, reports on the snow conditions in Verbier
- February 23, 2010

Great day skiing over in Savoleyres today. It’d snowed overnight and although it was still pretty cloudy in resort, the cloud was definitely the thickest over the Medran, so I headed out in the opposite direction. Despite expecting another white-out, I was really glad that I did. The snow conditions were lovely – lots of fluffy goodness with some patched of powder to be found here and there. Although it was making a half-hearted attempt at snowing, some weak sunshine managed to get through and even when the snow became proper flurries in the afternoon, the visibility remained good. However it is beginning to feel like Spring– riding up the cranking chair-lift from Tzoumaz, I could hear birds singing, although the tell-tale Spring sound of running water luckily still hasn’t made it.

Over the last few days, I’ve been concentrating on improving my technique – having become horribly lazy in recent trips and indulged my desire to rip up the miles. When you only have a few short days as opposed to five long months in resort, it’s easy to get into the habit of just doing the stuff you enjoy rather than being a tad more disciplined. So it was lots of short, stabby turns and heavy mogul-busting, which has been crying out for improvement for a while.

Most of the off-piste was already fairly tracked out, but there was still a little of the fresh stuff off the shoulder of the Verbier-facing south side of the mountain and a great little gully hidden between the main wide pistes. I finished up skiing through the trees under the lift, heading towards Tzoumaz, which was fine, until I found a steady trickle of people walking uphill towards me.

Now I don’t mind hiking anywhere when there’s the promise of a glorious powder field at the end of the hike, but I when you have to drag yourself up to a chair-lift because Televerbier can’t get the Tzoumaz bubble going and don’t warn you in advance, it’s a slightly different matter. I think people were stuck on it for a while. It’s a shame there were no ice-hockey playing monks on the small rink below the bubble this week, robes flying in the wind – the slightly random sight that greeted me last time I was over in Savoleyres.

Right now, a seasonnaire party is about to break out in staff accommodation, so perhaps I’d better remove my laptop to a safer place. One of the chefs is returning home tomorrow with a bust shoulder so it looks like it’ll be an interesting night. Things are kicking off with Jaeger-bombs followed by the promise of champagne. Considering there aren’t any glasses (and even the jam jars have run out), it’s proving slightly difficult to coordinate – the preferred method seems to be swigging from the bottle first and then the can of red bull, followed by vigorous head-shaking to mix the two together… Classy!!

Skiing through coffee icing

Arabella Mileham reports on the snow conditions in Verbier - February 22, 2010
Now that the English half-term is over, suddenly life is a lot more relaxed. The slopes are still busy but the queues are nothing like as bad. The temperature has been yo-yoing all week – one minute you’re skiing through fresh snow, the next it’s more like caster sugar and by the time you get to the bottom of the Medran, you are almost surfing through the top of a coffee cake. The rise is temperature on Thursday last week meant that the slopes became pretty melty in places and as soon as the temp dropped again, froze over forming hard-packed ice. There are also some patches of mud and even a few blades of grass poking through, especially on the final run home –the top of Carrefour is getting particularly carved away as everyone takes the same route home. I bumped into Roddy, one of welove2ski's Verbier snow bloggers yesterday though, who assured me that there is still powder to be found - Vallon D’Arbi is apparently particularly lovely at the moment.
Despite the meltiness though, I still managed a great ski today with my new ski-buddies. As everyone was a little hung-over, we took it fairly easily. Somehow I ended up skiing switch most of the way down to Ruinette, slightly unintentionally... hmm, still not quite sure how that happened…
One piece of good news though - staff accommodation finally got a once over this morning. The person with the lowest tolerance to squalor (which wasn’t me for a change!) finally snapped and after a whirlwind of chucking out dead cake and stale bread, retrieving mugs from underneath the sofa (I wish I was kidding!) and transferring the piles of manky crockery from the sink to the dishwasher, a semblance of civilisation has been restored. I give it until Wednesday before it needs doing again…
Right, I’m off to the Croc Bar with the others to chill with a mojito and some über-kitsch, smoky euro-lounge tunes...

The foodie blog...

Food-wise, the week’s actually gone pretty well. Considering I was out here to replace a chef and therefore guest expectations were extremely high, it really could have been a lot worse. Freed from the tyranny of a set menu and with flagrant disregard for the budget, it's been quite a lot of fun to experiment again and push out all the stops.

As I arrived in resort a few days ahead of my guests, it was helpful to spend the first few evenings as a sous-chef with a couple of the 5* chalet chefs, getting inspiration and derusting myself generally. Once again, I was back in regulation polo shirt and appointed to Ski Armadillo’s flagship chalet, Le Marais-Rouge, ostensibly to help chef Jake McWilliams prepare dinner - although I'm sure the help that was required was only to humour me.

As it was Chinese New Year’s Eve, Jake had decided to welcome in the Year of the Tiger with an eight course tasting menu, starting with a delicate celeriac soup with a hint of truffle oil, moving onto a smoked trout and fennel salad, with poached quails' eggs and hollandaise sauce. Next came creamy scallops with asparagus and a pea foam, followed by the 'main' course, flash fried sea bream with new potatoes. Finally, it all came to a close with a massive fruit platter, a traditional Chinese New Year dish to bring good luck and prosperity.

The following day I was with chef Helena at Chalet Katarina (a chalet I can't help having a sneaking fondness for, having written an article about it), where Helena, despite suffering from a busted shoulder, produced an array of canapes, including cool gazpacho shots, sizzling chilli prawns and piping hot spoons of revueltos (spicy Spanish-style scrambled eggs), followed by perfectly cooked steak with rosti potatoes, and tarte aux citron.

So, the following night, having added a dash of cheffy inspiration to add to my own collection of tried and tested recipes, reacquantined myself with what you can (and can’t) get in the local Coop, ordered the meat from the butcher and stowed the provisions away in my new kitchen in Plein Cie, I was ready to face my guests.

With six adults (one of whom was a veggie) and six kids to cater for, as well as a couple of pretty impromptu cocktail parties thrown in for good measure, there's been a lot to do. However, probably the most challenging bit was writing the shopping list  - how many eggs do 12 people go through in a week again? I'm sure I used to know these kinds of things, but I've no idea off the top of my head now!

Catering for kids in the chalet is usually pretty easy – lots of nursery favourites, but made that little bit more interesting. As well as the perennial favourites of cottage pie and my crispy chicken nuggets (bite-sized pieces of chicken breast coated in crunched-up ready-salted crisps and then oven baked), I gave them fish goujons with a spiced flour coating and'tatoe wedges, chicken and veggie kebabs and easy-peasy homemade pizzas.

Go, go power rangers!

Ah, I'd forgotten the other side of life as a seasonnaire! Last night I found myself dressed as a power ranger and dancing on a bar with a whole lot of ski bums in drag (you don't want to mess with these people - they're the only ones out here who can put on a pair of snow chains in a whiteout, a vastly under-rated skill). This came after an entire afternoon spent in the T-bar with my laptop subbing copy from the Olympics in Whistler and writing about the quality of the snow here, shortly before dashing off to fashion an outfit out of tin foil and cardboard... Oh, and somewhere in the middle, I cooked a four course meal for my guests and all their offspring...

Am confused – I thought I trained to be journalist?  Does this really count?

Tin foil and sticky back plastic

Arabella Mileham gears up for the Mardi Gras celebrations in Verbier - February 16, 2010

Now that Valentine’s day is over and we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief that enforced romanticism is over for another year, the main question on everyone’s lips in Verbier is what to wear for Mardi Gras. I feel a little sheepish for completely forgetting to pack a half-decent fancy dress outfit so I’ve got about an hour to either cobble something together fashioned out of tinfoil and sticky-back plastic (actually, I don’t think you can get the latter in resort) or be a party-pooper and make a stand for personal dignity. As I’m feeling totally uninspired at the moment and the only think I want to make is a chocolat chaud, it may end up being the latter.

There are some aspects of seasonnaire life that I had conveniently forgotten in the years since I was last working out here - much as women reputedly forget the pain of labour shortly after giving birth. My hands are already as dry as a bone despite the wonders of Elizabeth Arden’s 8 hours cream and I’m not sure if it’s heartening or slightly worrying that I remember my way around the Coop with unerring accuracy.

However the weirdest thing is being back in staff accommodation. It’s a return to eating bread and brownies during the daytime, the kettle fusing every time you want a cup of tea, and the usual seasonal deprivations of no mugs, milk, loo paper or light bulbs because no-one has remembered to bring any back... I don't really do squalor - well, I guess I do now! It seems that the state of staff chalets in the Alps is inversely proportional to the spotless-ness of guests’ chalet – my guess is that chalet staff use up all their cleaning prowess in one the blast in the morning and cannot muster enough for another 24 hours? However, my housemates for the week are a great bunch and it’s lovely to catch up with loads of people I was out here with several years ago.

As staff accommodation is clearly not the most propitious place to work in, I have found myself a great new ‘office’ to operate from. Le Rouge, a bar/ restaurant at the end of the piste by Brunet bus stop, opened at the end of last season and does a fine line of relaxed chilling, with loads of sheepskin rugs and a good vibe. Last night, I came with a few of the Armadillos and had a game of giant backgammon and a quiet pint, which made a change from the rigors of an evening in the Pub Mont Fort or après in the Farinet.

However, having sat outside on the terrace for the best part of two hours, the DJ pumping behind me, my tiny hands are too frozen to continue typing and I think my laptop battery is about to give up the ghost. I guess I had better start thinking about that costume again…



Click here for welove2ski's Verbier resort report.

The Ghost of chalet girls past…

Arabella Mileham dons her marigolds to revisit life as a seasonnaire and report on the snow conditions in Verbier - February 13, 2010

I’ve definitely just stepped back in time. Half-term week was looming fast when I answered a plea to come out to Verbier for a week to fill in for a chef who’s had to return to the UK (it’s that time of the season when chalet staff are like in high demand as half of them have falled ill or fallen over) So I find myself back in rubber gloves, oven-timer in one hand, laptop in the other and acting as a chef for 12 guests, while trying to snatch the odd hour to sub-edit the latest snow blogs for welove2ski and check out the conditions on the slopes. (Hey, although this is a working holiday, someone’s got to do it!).

Unfortunately I seem to have just missed a fresh patch of powder that fell on the 4 vallées at the end of last week – Bruson in particular has been awesome (or so I’m told) and should be the best place to head to at the end of next week, when another dump is expected. However, it was lightly snowing when I first arrived (Thursday afternoon) and the temperatures have been around minus 10, so the conditions have remained pretty good, although increasingly tracked out and mogully in the afternoon.

Friday was a bluebird day but bitterly cold and punctuated with a fair amount of glittery mist - it looks lovely but pretty much hits you in the face on chair-lifts, freezing your nose before heading towards your fingers and toes. Before I got just too damn chilly to even breathe, I had a great couple of hours warming up, starting over by Lac de Vaux, Atelas and then Ruinettes, skiing all around La Chaux for a while, before heading up to the base of Mont Fort (though I thought it wise to err on the cautious side so early on in the week and therefore had to wuss out of the mogul field in front of me, as inviting as it looked.).

The queues weren’t too big, but next week will be mega-busy as the half-term hoards descend. Bearing that in mind, I skied over at Savoleyres on Saturday in an attempt to avoid the crowds. The slopes didn’t seem too packed but there was the odd wait at the chair-lifts, which is quite unusual over there. I didn’t manage to find any powder but kept to the pistes, which were pretty fast, with good snow but a few patches of ice in places. After playing on the south facing slopes, I blasted down to Tzoumaz, eventually skiing back to Verbier via Carrefour as the valley was shrouded in mist.

Ah, there are some views you just don’t tire of…

Click here for welove2ski's Verbier resort report.