Ski trip to Verbier 27.1.-11.2.2000

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Saturday afternoon was cloudy and on Sunday it snowed. But on Monday the sun came out again to reveal the nice light powder snow. Just what all the off-piste skiing fans had waited for! On Sunday morning we managed to be in the first cabin up to L'Olympique.

We had rented avalanche beepers, small radio transmitters that are weared under the ski suit. If one gets caught in an avalanche and buried under snow, other people in the group can turn their devices into reception mode and locate the victim rather quickly. Certainly a piece of equipment you should have if you plan to ski outside the marked slopes. Of course the normal precautions must also be taken to prevent accidents in the first place - respect the warning signs, avoid dangerous looking places, keep enough distance to each other etc.

aut_4204.jpg Saku, Tuomas and Ville headed for the Vallon d'Arbi high mountain tour, a route that is marked on the map but not taken care of by the staff, you ski there on your own risk. I had only about a week of snowboarding experience, none of it in deep snow, so I decided to practise on easier slopes first.
aut_4216.jpg The views were nice.
aut_4210.jpg One of the main runs down. In total there were dozens of slopes and lifts, enough to spend several days just exploring.
aut_4219.jpg On Monday afternoon all the clouds had already disappeared.
aut_4354.jpg The village down in the valley. This isn't Monday afternoon but a few days later, on a bright morning.
aut_4222.jpg On Tuesday the most popular slopes were already visited by too many skiers, so we headed to the Nendaz-Veysonnaz area to find untouched spots. Here is Tuomas.
aut_4230.jpg I learned quickly to enjoy the powder too, it wasn't too difficult after all. And having tried both skis and a snowboard I would recommend the latter. Blue sky, sunshine, not too many people - wonderful!
aut_4223.jpg Occasionally also upside down, but that didn't matter, the light weight snow was like a soft cushion to fell on.
aut_4255.jpg On Wednesday we had a fondue evening. The food was tasty and price ok (about 20 CHF for cheese and 35 CHF for meat fondue), but service could have been better. There were clearly too few waiters to keep up with our group of about 40 people. A nice evening anyway, after the fondue we went to pub Mont Fort and some continued to discos later.
aut_4202.jpg On most of the evenings we cooked our dinner ourselves at the house. Pasta and some kind of minced meat and tomato sauce was the most common setup, but also rice, omelettes, fish, and different kinds of vegetables proved to be good. We even had fondue once after finding all the necessary equipment for it in the kitchen.
aut_4310.jpg No, this is not Tuomas's reaction to the smell - the oven door proved to be a bit too difficult to open for an average engineering student. Well, after some tweaking we got it work and could have our pancake. Yum!
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Copyright Arto Teräs <ajt@iki.fi> 2000.
Redistribution of this document as a whole or any of the pictures individually is permitted in any medium as long as this copyright notice is preserved.

Last update 15.2.2000