[Closed] The STW Ski and Snowboard thread - 2011/2 Edition

hot hot hot in morzine 8)

slightly hard in the mornings, but softening up very quickly. very moguly by the end of the day in most places. good fun slush skiing!

pistes still very skiiable here, certainly linderets/avoriaz is in good condition, morzine less so, i believe.

I was in Les Arcs yesterday and it was classic spring stuff - solid cord followed by dusty cord, then softer, then mushy later. All of that on one piste if there's enough shade. Off piste entirely tracked out but not unrideable once it's warm. Still chilly at times, roasting at others.

I loved it and it was better than working!

just back from a week in soll (ski welt) great week

18 degrees and sunny during the day and cold enough to refreeze at night and we got a foot of fresh on monday!

snow holding up well above 1200m on the north facing side but southside and low levels losing a lot of snow

Good good, sounds like everyone has had great times.

Edukator, did you get heavy snowfall early last week? I only ask as they had problems with Volta Catalunya bike race due to snow.

enduro - we're off to Kitzbuhel so encouraging to hear it's still good in Soll. The big problem for me is what clothes to take - looks cold in the morning but really warm later on.

Yes, Hammerite, between 10 and 30cm depending on altitude. It's been dry and sunny since though so the snow is thoroughly transformed at all altitudes and melting fast low down.

Vents are your friend Hammerite. I was wearing ls base, gillet and a shell but I'm cold blooded, mates were in less...

The Mrs will be in full on winter gear regardless. She's a better skier than me so I rely on grunt factor, especially in mounds of sugar so I warm up pretty quickly.

I'm hoping it gets to bikini weather like when we were in Les Arcs last year. Not me or the OH wearing them! But hordes of students from Manchester University who were there at the same time 8)

I did wonder how long that snow would last for Edukator. We had an Easter in Andorra a couple of years back, it was great, warm a couple of days, followed by a couple of days cold and snowy, then warm again. No Manchester Uni students to deal with, but a stack load of Portuguese students - who I think gave British students a good name!

As an alternative to all the rad pics here's how I've spent most of this Winter on skis:

[img] [/img]

I slammed so hard yesterday. It was been a long time since I've taken a hit like that snowboarding.

Gunning it switch, as fast as I ever ride in my normal stance. Edge-catch in heavy slush. Boom. Straight down before I even knew what was happening.

Day of rest today. 😳

Am in Les Arcs in about 5 sleeps, getting excited now 🙂

Hammerite.....only think i can suggest is make sure that your winter gear has vents and no matter what the temp always wear gloves, we seen a few folk with bloody hand from falling while not wearing gloves

we skied with salopetes (leg vents open) t shirt and light jacket (somthing like a soft shell but still with vents, as long as your moving you will be fine and when you stop ditch the jacket

night times its still jeans and jacket or hoodie weather

always wear gloves

I find "Park/pipe" gloves very useful for spring skiing/boarding.

(decent full finger bike gloves will do too)

@ stevomcd

Ouch ... hope you've not bruised anything serious. Did you catch your heel or toe edge whilst riding switch?

btw - thanks for the Livigno clarrification. I've ridden in (and around) Courmayeur in the past couple of years and noticed that they provided avalanche transceiver test & practice areas but wasn't sure of the situation in Italy outside of the vallee d'aosta

Did my first ever winter holiday in Livigno ten years ago and never really saw much of the place apart from the bunny slopes ...

Stevo - ouch! whiplash today?

On a lighter note, this is the first time I've seen this thread title and got a little flutter of adrenaline and anticipation. Trip's getting closer!

Off a week on Thursday to France with wifey-to-be Ceri. 2 days with mates in Les Gets at the end of their trip, a day in Les Arcs, 4 day's touring hut-to-hut in the Vanoise National Parc, then a week in Cham with my mate Robbie and his fiancee. Taking the week as it comes: touring, climbing, walking, St Bernard Monastery, huts, Gran Paradiso, Mont Blanc, lolling about in the sun, semi-gnar... Whatever looks best when we're there.

The knee's much better, I sold the Voile, bought a Venture Zephyr + G3 skins for me and a K2 Panoramic for Ceri, both with big wedges off in sales.

Cannae wait! Fingers crossed for snow, weather, and the knee.

Digby - when are you off to Norway?

Been watching this thread all winter, it's provided hours of amusement! I have a pass to go snowboarding for a week after Easter (14th April) and there are some blinding deals, BUT I need a +1. Anyone fancy it? Or know of a way of finding someone who might?

You could try SCUK, they have a "No Mates" forum for people looking for +1s:
http://www.snowboardclub.co.uk/PNphpBB2-viewforum-f-12.html

Thanks Graham I'll give that a go. I'd found the one on snowheads but not on SCUK. Cheers ...

Sounds like an awesome trip Ned. I'm off to Courmayeur on Sunday, 2 weeks teaching groms to ride!

Very sore shoulder and neck yesterday, easing off a bit today. Think I must have caught my toe edge. All happened a bit fast, haven't been catapulted into the deck like that for years!

Thanks Enduro/Graham - I took my Specialized sub zero inners last year and they did the trick.

nedrapier - just under 3 weeks to go until Norway. 😮

Feeling ok(ish) fitness-wise. Been doing plenty of running & cycling etc. This recent fine weather has made it fairly easy getting out of the house for early morning runs, so can't complain.

Your trip sounds fantatastic - a little bit of everything! Fingers crossed you get some good conditions for your various plans!

Be interested to know how you get on with the Venture Zephyr.

Out of interest, what boots do you use for splitboarding? I've been using Salomon Malamutes for quite a few years as they fit great and I like the stiffness, but find they aren't lasting very long - i.e. they are packing down after about 6 weeks riding (at least one week of which would be pretty intensive touring). I then end up cranking the bindings pretty tight which results in foot pain.

Ended up having to buy another pair of Malamutes whilst in Fernie this year and paying literally top-dollar (about £280 when they are only £230 RRP in UK). I've tried to get hold of the Spark R&D Deeluxe boots but left it too late in the season (and postage/import duty makes them too expensive to buy direct from Spark R&D)

@ stevemcd - hope the stiffness in your neck & shoulder eases.

Did anybody witness you hitting the deck? There's nothing quite like a tremendous bail in front of friends to provide your mates with hours of amusement at your expense is there?

@Digby - I think half the seasonnaires in the resort witnessed it. And they told the other half. People who weren't even there were talking about it in the pub last night!

BTW, I've got the Spark R&D boots. Pretty impressed, they've held-up very well to a full season's riding. Haven't done loads of split-boarding so far this year, but plenty of hiking and they're great for that.

I think half the seasonnaires in the resort witnessed it. And they told the other half. People who weren't even there were talking about it in the pub last night!

lol - Pleased to hear that your pain, discomfort and embarrassment wasn't in vain and you've provided immense pleasure to others at your expense! 😆

Thanks for the Spark R&D boots comments. Interesting - how are they size wise? One of the reason I prefer Salomon over say the likes of Thirty Two is I've got quite narrow feet. Did you have to drop a size or half size from normal 'street' footwear?

I think it's touring/hiking/sweating/crampons etc that accellerates the decline in my malamutes. Plus I don't tend to loosen my laces too much when touring as too much foot movement in the boot tends to lead to rubbing and cause blisters on my soft peely-wally feet! 😯

Its so easy to catch an edge in spring conditions.

So 3 stwers go to Les Arcs, 2 skiers, one boarder and the snow is holding up remarkably well considering it's warm as a gorilla's armpit. Layers are the answer.

Today we skied the top to bottom from Aiguille Rouge to Villaroger, with a couple of stops to catch breath, then a lovely lunch in the restaurant in Villaroger, which has a proper mountain (not tourist) feel.

The highlight of today was the "piste natur" , mostly reds, with some bumps, rocks, drops and narrow bits to keep you on your toes.

Been a bit of a chilling holiday with a later start and skiing until we (nearly drop).

I hope it snows before the Easter break as a little more is always appreciated.

Kevin cought the toe edge in February, this was the start of the bruising, he finished up with his full leg and bum bruised. The dark bit is the outline of his impact shorts.

[img] [/img]

😯

And that's through his impact shorts??
Blimey, that's impressive.

What sort of speed was he doing? When you say he [i]"caught the toe edge"[/i] do you actually mean he [i]"caught the toe edge and fell off a small cliff onto some pointy rocks"[/i]??

Ouch. I've done that on skis before. Stacked it off a mogul with the consistency of wet cement and landed hip first. Was on the run down from Pointe de Mossettes to Ardent in the PdS.
Was an amazing technicolour array of blue and yellow and purple.

He was going to fast trying to keep up with me, he turned down a lads trip to Courchevel last week because he was stil hurting when they booked. He shold be OK for the Alpes dhuez on the 7th

@Digby - the Spark boots are a "normal" width, as opposed to the Salomons which are very narrow.

I have small (size 7 in the Spark) but wide feet, so I have a lot of trouble getting boots to fit.

Sole Bootlab in Chamonix fitted me for the Sparks and they re-formed the forefoot area for me, making them significantly wider than normal.

Interestingly, the guys at Sole very much select their boot range on the basis of what they can work with (i.e. re-shape to suit). On the snowboard boot market, they reckon only top-end Salomon, Deelux and the new Ride range are structurally tough enough to take the abuse of re-shaping without just being torn to bits.

Weird that you say Salomon are narrow. I have a very wide forefoot that gives me no end of trouble in normal shoes. Salomon fit me just lovely. I use Synapse snowboard boots, and when I'm skiing I hunt out a shop that has salomon rental boots. I find them wide in the toe box, narrow in the heel. Perfick for me, with no modification other than shoving in a pair of superfeet green insoles.

I physically can't get my feet into Salomon boots. They are infamous for being narrow. Bootfitter that sorted my boots for me advised that there was no point even trying Salomon. I suspect your feet aren't really as wide as you think! 😉

I do have properly disproportionate feet though. I'm 5'11", 90kg+ and have size 7 feet. They have to be a bit wide just to hold me up!

I suspect your feet aren't really as wide as you think!

You obviously have some sort of weird mutant feet so who knows what works for you... 😉

Yeah, for me it's the fore-foot/arch which is wide - my toes are actually quite a bit narrower than the widest part of my foot. Mutant right enough!

@stevomcd

Thanks for the info and details on the Spark R&D boots - might have to pay a visit to Sole Bootlab next time I'm in Chamonix - they always seem to get very good recommendations, especially from people with 'awkward' feet 🙄

If anyone is looking for REALLY late snow then Engelberg (Switzerland) have announced they have enough snow to continue the season (on the glacier) till the 28th of May!
http://www.snowboardclub.co.uk/news-11559.html

You might also be interested in this report on the Top 10 snowiest resorts in 2011/12:
http://www.snowboardclub.co.uk/news-11557.html

And skiinfo also have a top 10 of the best resorts to go to in Easter:
http://www.skiinfo.co.uk/news/10-resort-choices-for-easter-2012-104-en-182706.jhtml

Grrr. Pack away ski stuff for the summer, and volunteer to do on-call support this weekend, and only then do I get the 15cm fresh snow alert! 👿

Interesting list of snowiest resorts Graham. Especially considering it's from the Snowboard Club....

3. Alta, Utah, USA – Average 15.59m per season. Based on 5 year average 06/07 – 10/11.
www.alta.com/pages/snowfallhistory.php

Wasn't this the place featured on Ski Sunday for not allowing snowboarders?

This time tomorrow we'll be on the coach transferring between Innsbruck and Kitzbuhel 🙂 Not looking to be too warm next week, cloudy and wet/snowy - bit disappointed really!

Actually I take that back, as the snow forecast midweek looks like being a bit more than a short flurry so it might be really quite good.

Wasn't this the place featured on Ski Sunday for not allowing snowboarders?

Yeah, I think the original list was actually compiled by SkiInfo:
http://www.skiinfo.co.uk/news/best-in-snow-the-worlds-10-snowiest-ski-104-en-182687.jhtml

I like this pic:
[img] /ts_1230505200000[/img]

Today we skied the top to bottom from Aiguille Rouge to Villaroger, with a couple of stops to catch breath, then a lovely lunch in the restaurant in Villaroger, which has a proper mountain (not tourist) feel.

You should have waved on the way down, you were looking across at me! 😉

Rather bizarrely (and much closer to home) I've just seen that snow is forecast at Swinhope all day Tuesday and cold on Wednesday.

It'll be more than happy to dig the ski's/board out of the loft even though they've only been put away for a couple of weeks.

Yeah that figures. Allenheads are taking down their tows this weekend and my board is off getting an end of season service at snow+rock, so we're bound to get a ton of snow next week. 😀

Ah well, there is always the sledge 😀

You should have waved on the way down, you were looking across at me!

Sadly back now, however it's sunny enough here in England to get all the washing out and dried, to be put away until next season 🙁

Don't pack the kit away yet, there's still plenty of snow.

It's ski alpinisme race season so we skinned up, continued with skis on the pack when we ran out of grip and skied some fairly unpleasant stuff back down - and failed to make the podium for the first time in eleven participations in our local race. I'm feeling old this evening.