Verbier (or somewhere else?) - La Tzoumaz. How well is it really connected?

A snowHead

Hi Everyone,

I just joined this forum after reading for many years. We are a group of 4 skiers and 2 boarders 3 of whom are very advanced and 3 of whom are intermediates (about 7 weeks experience each). I have mainly been skiing Avoriaz/Morzine for the last 10 years due to the fact that A) I love Avoriaz and B) One of us has an apartment in Les Gets which has made things very easy. This year however we are looking for somewhere new! The main things we are looking for is good quality, lift-served off piste (and a high chance of powder) but also plenty of piste skiing for the 3 intermediates. I (think) I have settled on Verbier (although please feel free to change my mind) however prices seem to be pretty high for accommodation so we have started looking at La Tzoumaz which seems much more reasonable.

I have read a few threads on here about La Tzoumaz and was wondering how well it is connected in reality... So I wondered if anyone with experience could help me with these questions:

1) Are there big queues for the La Tzoumaz gondola in the morning?
2) How long does it take and how easy to get from the top of La Tzoumaz Gondola to the Mayentzet chairlift in Verbier? It looks like just one run from the piste map. If that's the case it's perhaps faster from La Tzoumaz to the Verbier slopes than the big queues at Medran Cable Car?
3) How is the resort for snowboarders? Are there lots of flat sections that may require unclipping?
4) I read about the Vallon D'Arbi slope as a way of getting back home from Verbier which is something we would much prefer to catching the bus to Carrefour. According to threads I read on here, it is often closed because of Avalanche risk... How often can we expect it to be closed during January or is closure quite rare? Does it have a lot of flat sections where snowboarders would have to unclip?

Is La Tzoumaz totally dead or is there a bar to have a few drinks at the end of a day skiing. We are not looking for somewhere hopping but would be nice to have a drink.

Also do people think Nendaz would be a better option to stay in and then drive/bus up to Siviez to catch the lift to Verbier? Or does anyone else have any recommendations for an affordable place to stay?

Thanks in advance for any help!

A snowHead

Hi,
We stayed in La Tzoumaz for 3 years in a row, but I'll add the caveat that it was around 8-10 years ago now. I'd also stayed in Verbier a couple of times prior to that. We avoided the peak weeks and went about late Jan I think.

1) Some queues at the morning peak but nothing to worry about, 5 mins perhaps
2) About 10-15 mins if you're not treating it as race practice. Red runs down the face of Savoleyres followed by a green path through the trees. There is (was?) one short rope tow at Carrefour to gain a few metres height before poling on towards the chair. It's the return that's awkward as you've obviously noticed.
3) Not many flat bits, though there a few patches near lifts e.g. Carrefour area as previous answer. Drags are thankfully rare in Verbier & La Tzoumaz area but more common beyond Siviez.
4) Vallon d'Arbi is a lovely off-piste run and not technically difficult, though timid skiers/boarders had best not look downhill as they traverse the slope just before Col des Mines! We often used it as the last run to get back to the chalet. It does get closed when the avalanche risk is high so it depends on snow conditions more than time of year.

Bars are the sort of thing most likely to have changed since I went. The one on the piste at the bottom of Les Etablons chair (which I never saw running btw) was a good one for a drink or 3 at the end of the last run - it had some life in it but not overcrowded. There were a few in the village centre too, and some restaurants.

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Vallon d’Arbi requires a long traverse that your boarders will not enjoy. It usually closes after a decent dump for them to prepare the path. What about Le Chable (but can be big queues at weekends)? And Medran queues are not long any more with the new Barnes Line gondola. Bus to and from Siviez much worse in busy periods IMO.

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We've owned an apartment in La Tzoumaz since 2003 and can answer some of your questions, although obviously we're going to be a bit biased (as you may have read if you've looked at some of my posts on other threads).

1. Not particularly, compared to anywhere else at the same date/time. During the peak season and weekends, a lot of people don't return as far as the télécabine*, but take the older 2-person chairlift back up from Etablons.

2. Not long if the avalanche gate is open and you can ski to Carrefour and then 150m further to Mayentzet. Here's a

video of the run from the bottom of the draglift below Savoleyres, finishing at Carrefour. The gate is at 1m10s. But if the avalanche gate is shut then you turn right and ski down to the road to get the bus or continue via the Verbier learner slope to the draglift to Carrefour (which is next to Mayentzet). Alternatively, if you see the gate is closed on the display board at Savoleyres, then you can catch the gondola from Savoleyres down into Verbier and hop on the navette to Carrefour. If the gate is closed then you're probably in for 20ish extra minutes of travel from the Savoleyres summit to the Mayentzet chair. It can seem tedious, but then I've also stayed in Verbier at a somewhat distant accommodation and waiting for a bus and 'doing' Médran can be tedious too in busy periods. A lot depends on your location in Verbier and the date/time.

3. The resort is OK for snowboarders but it's not a boarders' paradise. The only piste I'd explicitly tell boarders to avoid is the long blue past the Maison de la Foret to Etablons (basically, this is a run beside the road - really a beginner's easy glide) - the only shame is that the Maison is a really nice little buvette in the winter, and off the beaten track. However, if you return to LTZ from the Vallon d'Arbi, you have to take this beside-the-road route back to Etablons thanks to the topography. It's not flat, but the incline is shallow.

4. The Vallon d'Arbi is not what I'd call a regular run home to La Tzoumaz - more a challenging off-piste that you tick off your resort bucket list. It has a very narrow section cut into deep snow at the Col des Mines which I would think most boarders wouldn't like.

5. No, LTZ isn't totally dead. There is a reasonable choice of bars (Le Blanc, the T-Bar and Le Pub are all near the Télécabine) and restaurants. But it's not Verbier. See the link to my maps below. The outdoor bar at Etablons (by the baby-slope) is nice if the weather is good and you can either ski down to the télécabine (there's a *photo of the end run down to the télécabine on our website) or hop on the navette which stops right outside.

6. Of course, I'm bound to say that Nendaz isn't better - rather that it has its pros and cons vs LTZ, although it's been significantly improved by the new lift to Plan du Feu.

Overall, I think LTZ is a good resort but it's a classic satellite to Verbier's hub: cheaper accommodation but not as central to the ski area. For our own clients, there's a page of Maps or in downloadable form here which show the salient amenities. There are other downloads on our apartment website that you may find useful. Also see the LINKS on the website to amenities such as rental and supermarket sites.

7. Miscellaneous stuff: My preference for eating/drinking on-piste in the Savoleyres sector is Chez Simon which is on one of the photos on our website. It's independently-owned and the wines are from the owner's vines in the valley. We usually stop off there for a vin chaud and some home-made tarte on the last run home. Although the view towards Verbier from the Savoleyres café/restaurant isn't bad:

My recollection is that this was taken on one of our pre-Christmas trips out. It's not usually quite this quiet at lunchtime!

As mentioned, our website for clients Laforêt35.ch includes some photos, links to services, maps etc.

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@Vielle glisses I get where you're coming from - Vallon d'Arbi is a difficult one to characterise, in my experience: I know lots of people who've done it and the feedback has been quite diverse/inconsistent. I think a lot depends on the conditions at the time, and your skill level and experience in off piste skiing. It's a bit like being asked to comment on how difficult Chassoure is as a mogul field - but at least with that you can just tell people to overfly it on the télécabine beforehand, then make their own mind up.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@nclboarder, what are your dates? If you’re out of peak season and not too fussy surprised you can’t find an apartment for 6 on airbnb for a reasonable price?

Vallon d’Arbi is a great run for skiers with infinite options from cruisy if you follow the markers to steeeep and deeeep after a dump in the steep forest but it’s a nightmare for snowboarders. Not just the looong heel side traverse to get to the forest but also the long flat runout where you need to pole. Avoid.

Boarders definitely better in Verbier. The French snowboarding GOAT Xavier de le Rue doesn’t live there for nothing! Attelas and Mont Gelé couloirs are where you’ll find him

After all it is free

Do boarders generally enjoy endless mogulfields?
Thinking Col de Gentianes, Mont Fort, Chassoure….
And boarders need not to go to the Veysonnaz side….tow-lifts everywhere

And again at the risk of annoying the regulars here, here is a plan view map to scale of the main areas in the 4 Vallées:

which might help orient you. I'd say that from Verbier and La Tzoumaz, an intermediate can traverse across zones 1 and 2 without range anxiety (in good weather). But as mentioned by @Langerzug we don't bother going any further than Combatzeline because the long drags to [4] Veysonnaz are, well, a real drag and don't normally bother to enter [3] the Nendaz zone either. From La Tzoumaz, we'd generally reckon to be sat down having coffee and a snack at the Plan du Fou café by 10:30-11:00 if we left LTZ fairly promptly.

The map is to scale and topographically correct, so you don't get the foreshortening effect you find with the official map. It illustrates a couple of things about the LTZ-Verbier link: that if the avalanche gate is shut you'll have to do two sides of a triangle (ski down/drag up) to get to Carrefour-Mayentzet. And that to return to LTZ, the easiest thing to do is to ski down to Carrefour and get the navette back to the bottom of the Savoleyres Sud lift. I personally find this a more pleasant and quicker route than skiing down into Médran, but opinions vary.

To get over to Bruson you take the public transport gondola down from Médran to Le Chable, then walk the 20m across to the Bruson gondola. It can be relatively quiet compared to the rest of the domaine.

(And yes, I know it doesn't really work as an alternative to the official perspective map: it's just that I feel that the perspective maps can be very misleading/hard to read if the pistes are sloping away from the viewer. I'm still looking for that London Underground Map inspiration. I'd add contours, but that would get me into all sorts of copyright problems, and I'm not going to draw my own, it's too hard.)

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@LaForet, I like your map.
But it also reminds me of the substantiated accusation at LQ4 that they were/are lying about the 400+km of pistes.
Indeed I always felt like that.
Loved Chassoure and Col de Gentianes though Toofy Grin

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Thanks everyone so much. There are some excellent replies here!! Thanks to everyone for going into a lot of detail and giving us a good overview of exactly what to expect. I have taken onboard the comments about the Vallon D'Arbi not being very boarder friendly. Since there are two of us boarders we might just get an apartment up in Verbier since there are some for around £450. No hot tubs there haha but I am sure it will be excellent.

snow reports

@nclboarder, Me and my family stayed in La Tzoumaz for a week in Feb half term this year. We found a really good value apartment there and had a great time. I got a lot of help and advice on this forum before going there. My answers to your questions are:
1. Yes, we thought the queues for the gondola in La Tzoumaz in the morning were quite long, perhaps 10 minutes each morning, but one morning it was over an hour as there was a problem with the gondola. We arrived at the gondola in peak time in the mornings though and not when the gondola opened, this is probably why we had to queue for a bit every morning.
2. When we were there in Feb half term, the avalanche gate between La Tzoumaz and Verbier was closed every single day, so we had to take the very slow and old gondola down from Savoleyres, as we are not confident to ski on red slopes. This took about 20 minutes each way if I don't misremember. Then we walked from the Savoleyres lift station to the bus stop to take a bus to Medran lift station. The buses were running often and we rarely had to wait for long. We had to do the same trek every time we got back to La Tzoumaz from Verbier. I would say it took us about an hour each way to get to and from the bottom of the gondola in La Tzoumaz to the Medran gondola in Verbier. But then we have children who don't walk fast with skis.

We thought it was definitely worth staying in La Tzoumaz as it was much better value than staying in Verbier, despite the long trek to get to and from Verbier each day. We also enjoyed skiing in La Tzoumaz, where many of the slopes are blue and family friendly, unlike the steeper slopes in Verbier. We found the food on the mountain and in the village restaurants in both La Tzoumaz and Verbier to be much more reasonably priced than we imagined it would be. There were several restaurants and bars in La Tzoumaz, so it was far from dead. The one and only supermarket in La Tzoumaz we found to be very overpriced though and we were stuck with it for the week, as there was nowhere else to buy groceries. We drove to Verbier one day to experience the town and go ice skating and I think it's a very cosmopolitan and international town with much more going on than in La Tzoumaz, which is a more family friendly quiet location. However, this didn't bother us, as we are not interested in nightlife anyway.

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

@BobinCH,
Err…
I like moguls, and I like Col de G’ and Chassoure, Mont Fort, Mont Fort backside, Eteygon.... Err…

Just cant see boarders enjoying that kind of mogulfields. Which they mostly are.
And you can't avoid Gentianes or Chassoure if you want to make full use of the supposed 400 km of Q4

Saying that you skied powder in November is great for you, but typical info coming from semi-locals, that can pick their moments, and not very useful for the vast majority that is stuck to one week somewhere in January/February....
Reality is: Q4 is great for off-piste, but most of season this means moguls, not powder. Also due to the fact that Q4 is in Valais, which has a relatively dry and sunny climate

A snowHead

@nclboarder, Also do people think Nendaz would be a better option to stay in and then drive/bus up to Siviez to catch the lift to Verbier? Or does anyone else have any recommendations for an affordable place to stay.

I feel Nendaz is often underrated to stay in 4V and well worth considering too. Stayed many times there before new lift connections to Plan du Fou and didn't have any problems then, now enhanced to get over to Siviez. Never used the Navette to Siviez or had cause to. Really God piste skiing in Nendaz section alone with easy access back to village for those building skills, nothing to undermine confidence with wide rolling piste all the way down, plus quick gondola up from village centre.

There's alot of accommodation in Nendaz and more reasonable pricing, decent in the evening too with bar and restaurant.

Pretty quick access to top of Verbier section with no real complications regarding lift/timing etc and all great skiing.

Definitely a good destination for your step out from Avoriaz in introduction to another large ski area.

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As I said, I think Nendaz has it's pros and cons as a satellite, compared to La Tzoumaz, Veysonnaz and Le Chable. It certainly has a lot of accommodation and places to eat and drink. But it just strikes me that it's a bit over-developed, with only one gondola out of it, or a bus which I also have heard reported as busy at the end of the day. But it's probably a bit quicker to get to Col des Gentianes and Lac des Vaux compared to La Tzoumaz, other than in school holiday weeks. (I'm trying hard to be even-handed here!).

To echo @BobInCH one SnowHead recently reported positively about staying in Siviez, which of course puts you much further up the valley towards Tortin, plus it's ski-in/ski-out. We even thought of buying an apartment there, but there's not a lot else to do and it's deserted in summer. But Siviez might suit if you're in the ski/beer/eat/sleep category rather than wanting a lot of choice of bars, restaurants and clubs.

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@BobinCH, "Find a local". Yeah right.
Again, you're sticking to the semi-local's point of view.
Would be nice if you'd add the cost of that 'local' here.
Since that's reality for 99% of people here

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Powder Extreme camps
https://www.powder-extreme.com/camps

I’ve shown plenty of people round. They’d have to be less painful than you though.

After all it is free

Loving this thread, never been to verbier but fancy trying it to see Langerzug and BobinCH have a scrap down a crevasse.

Interested to know @Langerzug what your definition of semi local is, as if I read this correctly BobinCH, skis every weekend?

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Must admit I don't personally know or have heard of any ski areas where locals don't know the best places to access the powder.
Having been to Nendaz quite a few times I would say it's a very good place to access Verbiers areas, the new lifts make it easy.
Before the new lift I would often drive to Siviez as we invariably had a vehicle it was no hardship.

snow reports

Another day of moguls from Col des Gentianes

And Mont Fort even less snowboarder friendly!

You know it makes sense.

Snow started falling in the middle of the night and continues today. Savoleyres opens tomorrow, although only Le Nord chair running.

http://youtube.com/v/wE_9meE3UK4

Todays fall is just what’s needed for the Weekend opening, with the forecast cloudy with light snow on Sat, and sunny on Sun. The temperature on the balcony is currently 0.9 C which is warmer than back in Sussex, although the forecast is for it to drop sharply and hit -13C in La Tzoumaz Monday night.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Quick qu: how accurate is the gondola opening at 05:15am assume being swiss its bang on, I have a 10:30 flight back from GVA so need to be out early doors to get the train back.

A snowHead

A snowHead

Yeah I need to be at work that day Very Happy

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On a more prosaic note, here’s La Tzoumaz this morning on my walk back from the boulangerie:

A nice dump of snow over the last 36 hours. At the moment it’s alternating between foggy and clear, with a bit of light snow possible later this afternoon. So as softies, we’re just going to go out on the snowshoes today. Forecast to be clear and sunny tomorrow with daytime temperatures dropping to -13C at1500m.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Nendaz is definitely an option, though they're pushing getting the cable over to Siviez now. You can get the bus but it will probably be a bit(lot?) busier now they've started charging for people to park in Siviez.

Tzoumaz's local slopes probably better than Nendaz, bit more varirty but not much in it.

My main observation re your questions is, provided you're a good skier, Vallon D'Arbi is a great run and it's usually really quiet. But ! there are usually lots of moguls in the middle section and there is a very significant ski out. The ski out is a pain for a skier, for a boarder it would basically be a long walk. I've never seen a boarder on it . . . but at least it ends at a bar.

After all it is free

Is Vallon d'arbi open at the moment? Anyone been down it?

It was excellent at the weekend but is not formally open yet. They were preparing the path so maybe it will open this week?

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@Nickski, what do you mean by “pushing”? Do you mean encouraging to take the gondola?

Are there long morning queues for the gondola given it’s the only lift out of town?

Help!!

Verbier (or somewhere else?) - La Tzoumaz. How well is it really connected?

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