Doug  Bryce, resort reporter in Verbier, tells us about a new lift...

A spirit for adventure
Sometimes things simply don’t work out as you had planned or expected...But I guess the unexpected is what keeps life interesting.

The day began across the valley with some superb powder skiing in the trees at the small Bruson area. This week has seen some of the best snow conditions of the winter - and so at mid afternoon we decided to attempt the mythical off-piste route down to Sembrancher train station.

 Heading into the unknown
The top section was hero skiing on amazingly deep light fluffy fresh snow. However, as we descended conditions became less favourable. The snow cover became thiner and thiner and before long we were combat skiing through the near-impenetrable undergrowth, growing concerned that perhaps we had taken a wrong turn (can you guess where this story is going yet?).

Help! We're a long way from home...
However with a bit of effort, imagination and some solid grass skiing skills we managed to link up the remaining snow patches and eventually reached the road, where we finally accepted that we'd run out of snow. But we were still a long way from our intended destination - one hour 15 minutes away, as one signpost helpfully told us.

Fancy a lift?
I resigned myself to walking the remaining few kilometres in our downhill gear and from this point on I'll let the pictures do the talking as we lucked out big time. Fate was shinning upon us and we managed to hitch a lift home on the back foot plates of a swiss dustbin cart! Legendary banter, and slightly surreal.  

If anyone wants to try repeating the Verbier poubelle route then you should be able to hitch at approximatly 15.34 on a wednesday afternoon. Everything in this country runs like clockwork so I suspect the weekly refuse collection is no exception.

 [Report by: Resort Reporter Doug Bryce]