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!!