Retro Verbier Looks to the Future
17th January 2025 | Simon Wilson, Verbier, Switzerland.
Spoiler Alert – Ski Ballet is involved. PlanetSKI’s Simon Wilson looks back at the history of the Swiss resort, ahead to its future + examines how it has built its success. NEW
Now, here’s a topic for discussion on that next cold chairlift or gondola:
Is there a ski resort anywhere in the world which presents two such contrasting images to outsiders as Verbier?
On the one hand, the Swiss resort has long been established as one of the great centres for freeride Snowsports.
It’s a claim that is cemented each season with the Xtreme Verbier event on the terrifyingly steep Bec des Rosses mountain.
Now the final competition of the FIS Freeride World Tour.
Bec des Rosses, Verbier. Image c/o PlanetSKI
This year’s Xtreme Verbier takes place in the final week of March.
Xtreme Verbier, Freeride World Tour. Image c/o DDAHER, Dominique Daher.
It’s a reputation that attracts young (and not-so-young) skiers and snowboarders from all around the world to make a beeline for Verbier.
Once here, they live as cheaply as they can (not easy).
They sleep, eat and drink wherever they can.
Grab the chance and plunge at every opportunity into the reliable powder that regularly blankets the resort’s impressive ring of 3,000m + peaks.
On the other hand Verbier is favoured home for some of the world’s super-rich.
Strict planning rules and very limited availability of land for new building mean that house prices here, especially for second homes, are off the charts – as PlanetSKI recently reported.
The resort is packed full of high-end fashion and jewellery boutiques.
At night the streets hum with the sound of expensive SUV’s gliding between Michelin and Gault & Millau-recognised fine dining restaurants.
Verbier, Switzerland. Image © PlanetSKI
And then there is this eye-opening statistic.
In a resort that has fewer than three thousand year-round residents, there are now not one, but TWO fee-paying international schools.
One of which brands itself as the world’s first and only ski-in, ski out establishment offering the IB – International Baccalaureate.
But slip off the main streets to the old village and you are transported back in time.
Verbier, Switzerland. Image © PlanetSKI
In many ways, Verbier is a resort which has something of a split personality.
The first record of any sort or meaningful tourism in the valley where Verbier is located, the Val de Bagnes, was back in the 1890’s.
In those days, it was hiking and the clean mountain air that attracted hardy voyagers from around Europe, many of them from Britain.
Val de Bagnes, Verbier. Image © PlanetSKI
But it wasn’t until the period between the two world wars that skiing began to take off as a sport and pastime in its own right.
In 1933, the first ski school opened and in in 1937 the Société de Développement de Verbier was founded – the forerunner of the organisation which runs today’s resort.
After the Second World War, the first metalled road was built up to the sunny plateau Verbier sits on and this led to an explosive growth in tourist numbers.
In 1950, around ten thousand overnight stays were registered in the resort.
By 1980, this had grown to over a million – a one-hundred-fold increase over the course of thirty years.
And all this, posed a dilemma to those in charge of running the resort at the time.
“We had a big challenge back in the 1980’s and 90’s,” says Patrick Messeiller who was Director of the Verbier Tourist Office for more than twenty years until 2009.
“We had become something of a centre for the hippy skiing counter-culture in the 1970’s.
“We wanted to keep these clients happy, but also to attract more families to the resort at the same time.”
Patrick Messeiller. Image © PlanetSKI
And so, much of the marketing effort which began during Mr Messeiller’s time and which continues today is aimed at reassuring intermediate skiers and families that Verbier does indeed cater for them.
As well as the thrill-seekers who come for the off-piste steeps.
Along with his No 2 at the tourist office, Pierre-Yves Deleze, the pair set the course for what Verbier is today – an international resort with Swiss charm at its heart.
Raclette in Verbier. Image c/o PlanetSKI.
On my recent press visit to Verbier, PlanetSKI I was able to verify this first-hand.
I was bowled over by the place and enjoyed meeting the locals who have been in resort for decades.
Meet my new Verbier best friend, Steve Sparkes.
Yours truly and Sparky. Image c/o PlanetSKI
He treads the boards.
And here’s the resort current advert – not your obvious one for a ski resort.
Although on-piste conditions were generally excellent on my visit, high winds and low cloud meant that that the main high-altitude lifts up to Mont Fort and Mont Gelé were closed both days.
Next time.
Much of the off-piste skiing and the links in the 4 Vallées ski area – Switzerland’s largest – were off limits.
However, we enjoyed some lovely cruising on blue pistes around the La Chaux and Ruinettes areas and the challenging black FIS run all the way back down to resort level.
And now there is the return to Verbier of ski ballet as the resort looks back to the past and ahead to the future.
It is is aimed at reinvigorating a lost skiing art form from the resort’s past.
Herman Reitberger ski ballet former world champion . Image credit @MGG
Ski Ballet grow out of the freestyle skiing movement of the 1960’s and 70’s and reached its highpoint at the 1988 and 1992 Winter Olympics when it was included as a demonstrations sport and performed in front of thousands of spectators.
But the sport was dropped from the Olympics after that and quickly declined in popularity.
Herman Reitberger ski ballet former world champion . Image credit @MGG
Now Verbier is lending its support to an attempt to bring Ski Ballet back to the Alps.
There is to be a demonstration event to be held in the resort this March and a new documentary featuring veterans of the discipline – like former world champion Herman Reitberger.
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He is now in his 60’s, and who can still turn a mean backflip on skis.
Herman Reitberger, in Verbier. Image © PlanetSKI
With the world of snow sports constantly reinventing itself and coming up with new high-octane disciplines such as Ice Cross, which was featured in PlanetSKI back in December, relaunching the careers of Herman Reitberger and his colleagues may well prove a tough ask.
Herman Reitberger ski ballet former world champion . Image credit @MGG
And another man now in his 60s who enjoys Verbier is my boss, PlanetSKI editor James Cove.
He has been a Verbier regular for well over three decades and is something of an expert on the resort.
He first skied in the resort on a regular basis in the 1990s, then he repped in the resort for the Ski Club of Great Britain before becoming an instructor across many seasons for European Snowsport.
Verbier, Switzerland. Image © PlanetSKI
Here he is with his long-time friend Warren Smith from the Warren Smith Ski Academy.
Warren & James in Verbier, Switzerland. Image © PlanetSKI
“The resort has always managed to remain fresh and exciting, every time I visit there is always something new to experience, but it also retains its heritage and history.
“Winter is not winter for me unless I get to ski in Verbier and I am as happy hitting the fresh powder from Mont Gele or cruising around the Savolyeres area
“Verbier is quite simply unique.”
But whatever the future holds, one thing seems certain: from extreme skiing and snowboarding to Lamborghinis and swish international schools and the reintroduction of ski ballet – Verbier will likely keep surprising us with its different faces long into the future.
Related Articles:
Shaking off the negative ski gremlins with the Warren Smith Ski Academy in Verbier
Construction starts on long-awaited new lift for Verbier
Verbier, Switzerland. Image © PlanetSKI
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