Nendaz Boarding

The Four Valleys are home to some world-class snowboarders such as local heroes Alex Courdray and Geraldine Fasnacht for one simple reason: the backcountry riding options are almost limitless. If you have a love for powder riding, Nendaz is a good place to base yourself. Don’t just follow tracks as you never know who made them – book a guide.

There are also many perfectly-corrugated pistes to swoop down, although beginners and intermediates may wish to avoid the itineraries when they are full of sizeable bumps. Intermediates will love the itineraries when it has dumped with snow.

Beginner or early intermediate snowboarders might be a little frustrated by the amount of cat tracks running out of the bottom of pistes such as the links going between the Thyon sector towards Siviez and at the bottom of Mont Fort past the Cabane Mont Fort. A head’s up for advanced boarders: there is a really long cat-track is at the bottom of the Vallon D’Arbe.

For the freestylers there are two parks in Nendaz at the top of Tracouet including the Burton Progression Park. As implied in the name, this is for those wanting to improve their freestyle moves with instructors on hand for advice on Mondays between 1.45 and 4pm. See www.onthemountain.ch or call +41 (0)27 288 3131. The Nendaz Snowpark for beginners’ is off the Jean-Pierre lift on the other side of Tracouet which hosts a couple of jam format competitions. There are kickers, rails and boxes to play on.

There is also a large snowpark in Verbier.