The second edition of the freeride week in the heart of the Val de Bagnes in Lower Valais offered amateur freeriders from all over the world the opportunity to take part in three 2-star Freeride World Qualifier contests and thus move up the rankings of the FWQ series. The Verbier Freeride Week took place from January 13 to 20. Nikolai Göz reports for PowderGuide:
The initial situation
In the run-up to the freeride week, Mother Hulda gave the entire host area in the 4 Vallées and the smaller ski resorts of Bruson and Vichères a whopping 20-50 cm of fresh snow, which fell from the sky between January 10 and 12. Depending on exposure, altitude and slope exposure, conditions on the mountain ranged from the finest knee-deep Champagne powder to very fluffy stuff on a slightly harder base.
A cold front afterwards brought arctic temperatures of below minus 20 degrees at 3000 meters, which preserved the powder tip-top (as they like to say here in Valais). The additional 10 to 20 cm of fresh snow of the finest kind down to the lowest altitudes made the base simply perfect!
The action
There really was a lot going on! A total of 6 competitions took place at the event, and I estimate the number of riders at around 70-80 per day. (Around 20-30 men's skiers, 5-15 girls' skiers, 3-5 girls' snowboarders and 15-20 boys' snowboarders) You had the opportunity to take part in one to a maximum of three of the week's contests, which meant that the field of riders and the number of riders varied considerably from day to day, as did the slopes, which could hardly have been more different in terms of difficulty and terrain. The contest slopes were selected by Cyril Neril, three-time winner of the Verbier X-Treme on the Bec de Rosses, and Claude-Alain Gailland, the head guide and safety chief at the X-Treme, and were completely untracked before each contest. From this aspect alone, the organization and management of the event during the week deserved gold and earned great recognition and respect among the riders.
The contest slopes
If you opted for the option of riding 3 contests, you had your contest days with option 1: Monday, Friday and Saturday or option 2: Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. I also opted for the first option in advance, which ultimately turned out to be a stroke of luck: I was able to take 3rd place in the Snowboard Men category on Friday, January 18. It was one of the best and biggest faces of the week, and not just for me. Unfortunately, as a rider, I can't tell you in detail about all the other results and the many interesting runs, as the focus in the run-up to the event is very much on my own line and I wasn't there all the time afterwards to discover a few secrets of the resorts myself. (You can also find out more about this in the condition reports for the relevant period.) You can find the results on the Freeride World Tour page.
Conclusion
Overall, all the slopes of the week were great to ride and taking part in the contest itself was so much fun that it was "stoked" enough on its own. The action that was shown to the spectators was great on every day and every face, even if a slightly higher number of spectators would have been well deserved on some days. Tricks such as backflips, 360's, as well as beautiful grabs and high cliff drops from the snowboarders were the order of the day - in addition, there were absolutely spectacular lines, which were simply breathtaking for the spectators or other riders due to the exposure of the line or speed and often took the contests to a world-class level. What I found particularly pleasant was the absolutely nice and friendly atmosphere among the competitors: The international nature of the field of riders probably contributed greatly to this. Everyone always wished each other a good run or good luck, so the idea of "competing against each other" almost disappeared and you were able to focus more on simply having fun during your runs.
