[Closed] The STW Ski & Snowboard thread. The 2014-2015 season

Last day in Les Deux Alpes today and it was the only one that wasn't scorchio!
Predictably there is a 30cm dump predicted on Saturday and another 50cm on Sunday. Aargh! Oh well.

I saw a butterfly today.

I saw my first Selfie Drone being piloted by someone as he rode through a busy main slope. A taste of things to come 🙄

The skiers are still arguing about the best way to ski and they've had a lot longer to sort it out than we have...

True Dat!

Old Joke:

Q: How do you know when there is a Level 4 Ski instructor in the Bar?
A: Don't worry - he'll let you know!

Predictably there is a 30cm dump predicted on Saturday and another 50cm on Sunday. Aargh! Oh well.

Cool. I'm going home on Tuesday after 6 weeks work in Turkey.Looking very much forward to getting out in it 😆

Thanks for the replies guys.
Think I'll book a few private lessons next time. I'm happy to ride anything including blacks, but always conscious that I could be better, especially in icy conditions and going full tilt.
Only managed to ride at a max of 52kph this holiday. Our 7yo daughter reached 57kph (on skis) in total control too when I stuck the phone in her pocket. It was her first week on snow.
Can't have her beating Daddy next year!!

May have a look at boards and bindings before next time to replace my Northwave boots and K2 Nemesis from 2004-ish. 🙂

Yeah - Europe does have a big chunk of people who like 'To be seen Skiing'.

I once saw some women in 'Vail', who all got into a gondola (heavily made up and in all the latest gear). They managed to get themselves over to one of those very posh restaurants (where they take off your boots for you and give you slippers) without really skiing and then loudly announce to their waiting husbands 'what a bore' it all was 🙄

I saw my first Selfie Drone being piloted by someone as he rode through a busy main slope. A taste of things to come

Not sure if this is more annoying than ****hats with "selfiesticks" styling it for teh sikk editz or not, but I would be sorely tempted to hook the little blighter out of the sky with a pole and smash it in to a thousand little pieces.

All the action-cam footage, it's getting a bit like people doing a slide show of their photos way back when, isn't it? No one else wants to look at it, and it will never look as good as;
A - You thought it would
B - Proper videos

Not sure if this is more annoying than ****hats with "selfiesticks"

Waaaaaaay more annoying.

Picture a guy with a massive box backpack on, sliding blindly through a very busy connecting piste, staring at the screen and twiddling the controls on his chest-mounted remote, while a drone flies about ten metres ahead of him distracting everybody else.

Not cool. And I say that as a quadcopter fan that considered buying one with a camera for Canada. But just not like that!

* puts newly bought selfie stick back in box 👿

Selfie Stick = Stupid Stick

UNless you are filming for ski sunday , then its allowed .

Unless you are filming for ski sunday , then its allowed .

Well, quite! He's WAAAAY better than all of us put together, and has some quality camera kit on there. And, what's more, is on a closed racing piste, not on a busy one!

He's also not doing that stupid duck faced pout so popular with narcissist selfiearsehats.

[img] [/img]Male chicken.

Picture a guy with a massive box backpack on, sliding blindly through a very busy connecting piste, staring at the screen and twiddling the controls on his chest-mounted remote, while a drone flies about ten metres ahead of him distracting everybody else.

Words fail me.

Just relaxing in bed in a gasthoff on the outskirts of Bad Weissee on our way to Mayrhofen.

If anyone is thinking that the roadworks on the A8 between stutgart and Munich might have been finally finished after 5 years, think again. Took us the best part of 4 hours to get through today. Going the West the traffic jam extended from ausberg to about kircheim

Where was the drone being flown? I can't think of anywhere that would be legal low over an open piste.

Words fail me.

Oh that it was true.

Where was the drone being flown? I can't think of anywhere that would be legal low over an open piste.

The main run (Jandri) at Les Deux Alpes.

Not sure it would be illegal, but I doubt he asked permission of the resort either.
Looked like he had a hard backpack that he transported it in, so he probably just whipped it out when he got up there.

I expect this will be an increasing problem over the next decade or so. There are already several drones on the market that can automatically follow you and film you.

There are already several drones on the market that can automatically follow you and film you.

Am sure they'll be all over BPW by the summer.

Any recommendations for one?

I really fancy the idea tbh.

Check out the Snowforcast for Zermatt over the next 48hrs , over 1m alledgedly.
Lucky for the few on half term able to go, its on my list but my god is it expensive.

Any recommendations for one

I believe [url= https://www.airdog.com ]AirDog[/url] are currently front runners for auto-follow drones.
You can expect to pay over a grand for one of those.

But a little manual quadcopter with a camera can be had for about £40.

Found him!

Look at the shot near the end - riding along whilst flying the drone. He must have edited out the bit where I indicated how impressed I was 😀

Yep. He's a ****.

Oh, and looked like a cheeky Woodbine in there as well.....

He must have edited out the bit where I indicated how impressed I was

Skier in yellow trews near the end looked a lot like he was warming up to a pole-****ting of the drone!

Les Deux Alpes = France = Illegal.

Flying at less than 30m of a person is illegal for any weight size or type of drone.

Bloody hell that would very annoying. Flying it around the bar as well as what looked like awfully near head height on the piste. ****.

Pretty sure there are GPS tracker drones that link to your smart phone and follow your phones gps trace , so where you go, they follow.

Boy to geek to drone . The Corrigan way

I'm having an attack of the judgementalness

Annoying looking person

Doing something annoying

At best

A following drone or even selfie stick would just should how incompetent and timid I am on a board (as opposed to the riding God I think I am) - therefore I'm out.

Drone swatting as a "sport" though, that has potential...

Well, that wouldn't bother me in the slightest. If one got in the way it would be swatted - most look like they'd snap at very little provocation.

OPERATIONS UPDATE:
Due to the very high winds at Car Park level we have closed the ski road. This is for safety reasons. It is difficult to stand and there is a lot of stones and debris blowing around. Ops 1

Which centre is that Geoff?

Ahh, that one.

Drones on pistes, nightmare. The resorts need to crack down on that

Yeah - Europe does have a big chunk of people who like 'To be seen Skiing'.

WoW! Why would you do that?

... and looking at the video [cough] 'edit' that GrahamS posted from 'Drone-Boy', it would appear that there are a large number of people at the bar in the early clips who are dancing in ski boots! ... either that or there's been a large scale infestation of pubic lice or crabs judging by the erratic twitching ...

Can't say I'm overly found of euro-style apres ski nonsense with it's face paint and oompah band techno bangin' choons, but each to their own. However ski boots are hard enough to walk in ... let alone dance or throw some shapes ... 😆

I'm half way through a 2 week trip in Andorra.
Nearly everyone has a gopro on a stick or on their helmet regardless of their ability.
It seem that the worse you board/ski the more you want to record it?

"Nearly everyone"? I had a week in Austria last month and I'd say it was less than 10%.

Sorry, I'll do a proper percentage analysis tomorrow.
Off to find a pen and paper in preparation.

That would be better.

I'd say it was around the 10% mark in Les Deux, more prominent in the young.

Personally I don't have a problem with it. Seeing yourself on video can be a very useful learning tool. At least (most) GoPros don't have screens so they are not riding along staring at them. (Though I say this as someone who did ride along filming my wife and daughter on a proper handheld camera with a screen 🙂 )

Gopro sightings where slim at la plagne this year. Snowboarders very much in the minority too. Fantastic too see so many disabled Skiers on the slopes this year with adapted kit/bikes

I hear Beretta make a usefull peice of kit for dealing with drones.

1 cartridge and the noisy , annoying things simply disappear.

If you are going to shoot £1000+ worth of drone out of the sky then you might want to save a second cartridge for the owner! 😀

Just eradicating the owner would be more efficient.

Quite brutal though. It's only a camera

Can't believe that Ski Sunday has finished for the season..it's only mid Feb!

Also ref our earlier mentioned of Graham Bell's jackets, he had the name taped over this week.

So I fell in love with my hire skis this week - they were made of graphene! Totally awesome. Unfortunately they are nearly £600 to buy

When is the "end of season" sale for ski equipment?

Found them half price in Germany! God bless the exchange rate.

I can't believe I've bought my first set of skis! 8)

Can't believe that Ski Sunday has finished for the season..it's only mid Feb!

Oh dear, I seem to have trialed a Jones Aviator after a very helpful conversation in Ellis Brigham at Castleford.

I know things move on, but it's like night and day between the Nemesis and the Aviator. So much flex, less weight. Really positive fast board. Felt right at home straight away, and that's in a dome. Even threw a few jumps, which I haven't done in a while. Very stable.

Must find funds........

I actually have more boards than bikes.

I must admit to using a gopro 😯 . It was mainly used to film/document my daughters first week on snow. The edit I'm putting together is shaping up pretty well too.
I have a pole too, but only used that for low level shots of others. Don't see the attraction of filming myself with a stick. I'd much rather someone else filmed me. Men should not think of more than one thing at a time.

Any decent family resorts within 3 hours of Munich?

Planning ahead for next year and Munich is as easy to get to as Geneva from EDI, so I thought I'd look at options for Bavarian alps or Austria.

Any recommendations for resorts for beginners / intermediates. Juniors will be 11 and 9 and will hopefully have had a good 5-10 days on Scottish snow by then. Probably looking at February half term but a cheeky mid-term getaway is a possibility.

Any recommendations?

Just been looking at webcams for La Plagne (3 weeks to go) looks like its melting like mad. Lots of eartch popping through on anything south facing 🙁

Problem that there is no real base this year.

Will have to hope for a couple more dumps. Booked myself in for an off piste session with Reflex, more to meet up with other decent borders/skiers.

Any one else in La Plagne from 8th March?

Funkydunc - don't concern yourself at all. Webcams can be mis-leading. There is loads of snow now, the bad early season is pretty much just a memory and snow cover is "normal" for the time of year (if not exceptional). It's possible to ski all the way to Bourg Saint Maurice at the moment and more snow is potentially on the horizon for this weekend.

SMcD - keep saying that sort of thing. We don't go until Easter (children at school) and we need the snow to last.

[i]
World championship slalom on now. Lots of ski events to watch yet, get onto RedBull TV[/i]

Watching Eurosport is winter sports paradise currently, just shocked ski sunday finished so early.

Stevo - are you doing a season /live out in La PLagne?

[i]Any decent family resorts within 3 hours of Munich?[/i]

Check out the ski welt, which is within 1.5hrs of Munich and has some great resorts aimed at different skill levels. Soll, Westerndorf are two, but around the area are places like Elmau[url= http://www.skiwelt.at/en/ ]here[/url]

[url= http://www.skiwelt.at/en/ ]here[/url]

Excellent family environments and great value. You can hire a car or book through companies such as inghams.

[quote=FunkyDunc dijo]Stevo - are you doing a season /live out in La PLagne?

stevo runs [url= http://www.whiteroomchalet.com/ ]the white room[/url]

Any decent family resorts within 3 hours of Munich?

Funkydunc - as nbt says, I'm a Tarentaise valley local. I live just outside Bourg Saint Maurice and I'm up snowboarding at La Rosiere and/or Sainte Foy most days.

Funky I'm just home la plagne it's thin but more than rideable after grooming. They should be getting snow all this week above 1800mt. les Arcs is holding up well around the big cable car area.

They should be getting snow all this week above 1800mt.

Don't know about that, the forecast is for good weather most of this week. Still uncertain for next week, but a strong possibility of heavy snow at the weekend (again!).

Thin? Don't know where's thin. But then I don't tend to go to [s]over-populated, flat, boring hell-holes[/s] Paradiski very often.

St Johann is a nice little resort - very family oriented. There's quite a few places around Kitzbuhel that would fit the bill.

A nice little in resort runaround here;
[img] [/img]

There was a dude from Scott riding one of those around the resort here earlier this winter... he looked like a fanny too... 😉

a week and a bit until:

[img] ?oh=cd8022250a26bb5cb5f05d3c014ac885&oe=5548EEA9&__gda__=1435088554_6584bf2651b82767495c5a3d02e5e314[/img]

5 sleeps!

😀

I think I'm beginning to see the disadvantage of having your ski trips early in the season 👿

well, after posting that taken yesterday from where we're going and hoping that it would hold, I just checked the forecast and it'll be 2 degrees and raining in a couple of days' time.

😐

Only one ski trip this year 🙁
But awesome off piste with guides in Engelberg.
Be safe everyone.

I think I'm beginning to see the disadvantage of having your ski trips early in the season

Me too. Not only was there no snow on the first trip, I've had two ski holidays and they were both done and dusted nearly a month ago!

Next year - last week in January and last week in February. Both booked last minute according to location of best conditions.

I just checked the forecast and it'll be 2 degrees and raining in a couple of days' time.

🙁

fingers crossed it holds for you nedrapier ... it's been an odd season for sure this year in places! I'm off to the alps in couple of weeks and based on my luck so far this season I'm contemplating taking flip-flips & speedos! 8)

Cheers Digby, just had another look. the 2°C was near sea level, now it's forecasting 1°C, and 2 or 3 degrees colder and snowing at 500m 🙂

And after Friday, no new snow, very cold and no wind for a week before we get out. Shaping up quite nicely!

Shaping up quite nicely!

Peachy! 🙂

Was hoping to get in another couple of days at Cairngorm this week, but me buying the kids new skis seems to have jinxed the job. 😕

Just gotta hope that conditions improve next week once they are back at school 8)

@stoatsbrother. What was Englelberg like? Lots of swedes go there or Bad Gastein in Austria , plus there is a pro freerider with his own board company who goes there lots. Might try it next year

A mighty 8 degrees in Whistler village and a tip top 6 degrees at the Roundhouse at 1800m, and a couple of degrees at the peak. Still had a fun day and there was some decent snow around, but a little hunting was required. Really busy up the hill too with it being a holiday for the Americans.

Just gotta hope that conditions improve next week once they are back at school

Coincidently, Im also hoping conditions improve once your kids are back at school. 😉

Getting a bit thin at Glenshee. And it's still mild.

Well, 4 days in at Chamonix and the conditions are mediocre. The promised snow at the beginning of the week never materialised. Le Tour has the best conditions due to the height. Got so fed up, we took a drive down to Sestrier yesterday where they've actually got some deep powder, wonderful resort actually!

[quote=whatnobeer dijo]A mighty 8 degrees in Whistler village and a tip top 6 degrees at the Roundhouse at 1800m, and a couple of degrees at the peak. Still had a fun day and there was some decent snow around, but a little hunting was required. Really busy up the hill too with it being a holiday for the Americans.

[img] [/img]

The view from Alpine Meadows (I think), yesterday

^^oh Jeez. 😐

That looks and sounds even worse than when we went in 08. Picture spending a small fortune going there for Christmas, and having loads of Seattle based arseholes saying to you all ten days, "Man, I've not seen it this bad in twenty years..." 😡

Anyway, I think for GrahamS' sake, we must have no more mention of Whistler in this thread.

Cairngorm weekend before last - amazing conditions (better than Whistler? 😛 )

Off to Dienten next week and conditions look great there too. Not that I'm smug or anything.

Anyway, I think for GrahamS' sake, we must have no more mention of Whistler in this thread

I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it ... 😆

It seems Google street view do ski resorts too. [url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/snowandski/picture-galleries/11417784/Google-Street-View-maps-the-worlds-ski-resorts.html?frame=3202301 ]story link[/url]

I never knew that, just had a good look at a few resorts and pistes I know quite well 8)

There have been a few story links from the US about concerns over how Global Warming is affecting their business, thank G-d they have woken up a bit !