Lessons Learned in Verbier

As I was driving to Verbier, I noticed a steep mountain to our left with intimidating-looking switchbacks weaving all the way up to a village in the nose-bleed section of the mountain. I was hoping that was not where we were headed. Of course, it was. This mountain village was anything but flat. Our hotel, the "Central Hotel Verbier" was aptly named, kind of, in that it was in the center of town. But I would call it more of a hostel than a hotel. There was no office, no one to greet us. It was run by a couple of British guys who were nice enough, but we never saw them until they opened the bar below the hotel at 5:00 p.m. We had to figure out on our own that there was no parking for the hotel; you had to use a public parking garage nearby. It was a nice enough place to stay if you were 20 some years old, but for almost-60-year-olds, climbing up multiple narrow flights of stairs with 350 lbs. of luggage was decidedly not fun. Trying to move around in the tiny room was not fun either. But the real excitement came at night when competing noise from the neighboring discotheque and the bar downstairs, which went on past 1:30 a.m., lulled us to sleep.

The next morning, we understood why breakfast was not available until 8:00! Normally early risers, we slept as late as we could, ate our meager breakfast, and walked about 3/4 mile uphill with our ski's to catch the first lift.

You need to understand that most of our exercise on this trip has come not from skiing but from lugging our ski's to and from all the never-ending series of lifts (gondolas and trams) and all the steps up to said lifts. It is REALLY a work out! And it's getting old.

Finally, after a long time, we made it to a place where we could ski.

The views were stunning everywhere you looked. The problem was, it was about 50 degrees! We were way overdressed. And it was going to stay that way until well past the time we were due to leave. Ski conditions were less than perfect.

We went to the tram that took us to the very top, at Mont-Fort.

The snow cat greets you when you get off the lift.

The views of the Alps from the very top were breath-taking! There's a frozen alpine lake visible in the distance.

There was even a little wooden hut at the top where you could have some lunch! Most people were out on the porch, but we went inside and enjoyed some goulash soup.

With a smile on his face, Brock got ready to tackle the hardest slope on the mountain: the Mont-Fort mogul field!

Check out all the people struggling to get down.

My excuse was that I did not want to lose my lunch!

You can see that the mild winter has resulted in no snow in the Verbier village below.

Brock managed to slay their toughest slope and had to wait 10 minutes for me to download and join him. He "green contrailed" past 25 or more struggling souls trying to get safely out of the deep-cut, hard-packed, snow-lacking mogul field.

The skiing experience was overall underwhelming due to the poor snow conditions.

Brock's excellent sunset photo captures the busy vibe of the town.

After a second night of very little sleep, we decided that this experience was not what we were hoping for. We were forced to admit we had made a mistake, cut our losses and ducked out of town early.

The lesson learned is that, though it may be unpleasant to pay a high price for a nice hotel in a ski resort town in Europe, in the long run it will cost you less.

We made an unplanned next stop in Geneva, hoping to find some relaxation, a comfortable bed, and a quiet night's sleep, and maybe more than a croissant for breakfast.

We rolled into the Hotel Metropole Geneva, right on Lake Geneva (Lac Leman). It was 65 degrees and sunny, with the same weather expected tomorrow. This is the view of Lake Geneva from our room: