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Just back from Japan - wow!! That wasn't rubbish!!
Quick vid below, first attempt at stitching together some gopro footage. Won't play on mobile devices - youtube rules about music copyright or something...
And a quick shot of my other half - she's skiing normally (not sitting down!) - it really was that deep!
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igm - Member
In other news...Snow quality Fraiche
Snow (bottom) 95 cm
Snow (Top) 275 cmIn Les Gets! And it's still snowing. That's ridiculous.
Just need it to hold out for a week or two. Stay cold weather, stay cold.
Looking good - I have my fingers crossed too and hoping the warm patch in 10 days doesn't amount to much - there from Easter Sunday. Last few weeks have had loads of snow and the visibility doesn't look like it's been up to much!
Looks amazing dashed!!
Thanks folks - glad you like the pictures. I'll post some more soon - first proper day of touring well away from the lifts today. Unbelievably epic! Probably my best ever day in the mountains. So much totally untracked powder and incredible scenery.
Cheers grum - I'm also really getting into my touring! Gnarly old Canadian dude in Japan told me he plugs himself into a few tunes on the up and just takes in the scenery. Before he knows it, he's at the top... It works - the climbing flies by!
Enjoy 🙂
Well I hope you all made the most of the last few days. Fantastic conditions and not suicidal if you used your nouse. Finished off with an X-C skate this morning, the snow was just perfect and the view spectacular with snow down to 400m.
There's some lovely pics on this page. You lucky, lucky people!
I was fortunate enough to get up the localish hill (1hr45 in the car) in the cevennes with my youngest on Sunday morning and have never seen it so good up there. Metre high snowbanks in the carpark and it wasn't even raining 😀
Oft, I've got a sore neck right now. Skiing down Sapphire bowl and crested a small wind lip into what I thought was roller. Turned out to be the edge of a smallish cliff. Weight too far forward on leaving the lip meant I got bucked forward before back slapping. Skis stayed on and no damage other than the slight stiff neck. Dropping cliffs into pow looks like great fun, but a gentler introduction would of been nice!
Raise in the Lakes has a good covering grand day out last week
[url= https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1643/25330414040_821a09402f_k.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1643/25330414040_821a09402f_k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/EAmZAy ]Untitled[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/nzrich/ ]Richard Munro[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1485/25507423672_6b7de03b7a_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1485/25507423672_6b7de03b7a_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/ES1doL ]Untitled[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/nzrich/ ]Richard Munro[/url], on Flickr
no two ways about it, I've probably just had the best four days of boarding in my life here in PdS.
Arrived Saturday night in a snow storm, spent Sunday blatting around in fields of deep fresh snow under blue skies and sunshine. Deserted pistes, perfect snow. Then encouraged to do some "safe" off-piste and spent the day plunging off windblown lips into bottomless pits of powder and riding out on seas of rolling white. Glorious.
Just sheer good fortune.
There's piles of snow base, and I think everyone expects there to be a full season now that so much snow landed last week. It was touch and go only two weeks ago. We're back out again for Easter, and I dont expect it to be nearly as amazing, but there will still be descent pistes for the kids.
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No, no Stoner. It's going to be just as good at Easter. Stop this negativity now.
The lower picture is Lindarets I think, coming back in from Plaine Dranse - the upper one?
Yep, Grand Plan piste. Always gets the sun first so lovely early doors.
@grum futher demonstrations as to pro photograpgher skills.
@stoner, looking at the trees definitely more snow fell in PdS than Les Arcs/La Plagne. Conditions here really good, powder still very light and its colder than forecast I'd say. Easy to access stuff now largely tracked out but it feels really quiet so I am sure there's plenty of good powder to be had with a bit of effort. Also thats the beauty of havi g your own place, you can pick/chose dates and leave when conditions are good amd arrive in a place you know well and go straight to the good bits. Most friends with places pre book flights and then may use only half but when booked early they are still decent value. Enjoy !
Just need to replace Coca-Cola with a more suitable beverage and this says it all
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Nike outlet in Castleford (opposite Xscape) appear to be selling off snowboard boots at £49. No idea if they're any good, look a couple of years old, but pretty cheap.
Vapen I think, some Boa, some with laces.
Still haven't quite come down from the buzz after 3 and a half days in PdS.
Utterly ghosted with the conditions - a week of puke prior to arriving Saturday night. Sunday & Monday boarding around empty powdery pistes with Stoner being the perfect guide. 🙂 A little bit of off-the-side-of-the-piste fun to be had as well. Monday night saw a foot of fresh stuff down ready for...
Tuesday, a couple of mates popped over from where they were staying, one of whom was a bloody good boarder, and I reckon Stoner would agree, took us well out of our comfort zones for the day. We did two runs through Happy Valley and I can safely say they were the two best runs on a board I've ever had. Did stuff I thought I'd never manage...including some turns (not all successful 😆 ) in steep & deep and finishing the run out with a jump (all of around 18" 😮 ) that I actually landed. Also tried a bit more off the side and popping out on to the piste with little jumps during the day. Massive confidence increase over earlier in the year. New bindings & heel inserts in tired old boots helped a lot.
A perfect short break with great company & local knowledge.
Happy Boys:
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Any way's a good way:
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Fresh, fresh, fresh...
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I hate you all*
*I'm just jealous as I'm out of holiday and money and time to go again this year! Still roll on the 2016/17 thread 🙂
Well the moment has almost arrived. 6.25am flight to Geneva in the morning!
8)[b]WAHEY!!!![/b] 8)
Yay darcy very pleased for you.
Cheers jamba.
Had another really ****ing epic day today. Well actually it was an epic afternoon - the morning I was rubbish! Got promoted to the 'A' group today and felt totally out of my depth this morning - I was well behind skinning uphill, then on the descent crashed out about 5-6 times and couldn't get any rhythm going.
This afternoon though I really got it back and the last run was incredible - still loads of fresh untracked pow to be had and I was nailing it. 😀 😀
Fat Bikes in Peisey this morning
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Weird one in Whistler today. Got up the mountain super early for fresh tracks, but there was so much new snow (40cm + ) and such high winds that they couldn't let us get going for about 15-20 minutes later than usual. After that all but 1 lift closed, which was great if you were riding that lift, but if you missed it then you were basically done for the day. The powder was waist deep in places and incredible on the few steep slopes in the sub-alpine, but impossible to ski thorough and really sticky in others.
On the plus side, I've acquired some new skis 😀
Here's a rubbish photo
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jambalaya, that guide's jersey would have had a familiar logo on the front if you could see it... 😉
That's ex-White Room guide (and still good mate!) Yvan!
(Which reminds that I'm supposed to try to get out for a fat-bike ride with him this week...)
very jealous .
going to France for easter , Millau ( south massif central), hoping there will be a bit of snow left at the local ski resorts .
Is that at the top of lobster pots? 😆
very jealous .going to France for easter , Millau ( south massif central), hoping there will be a bit of snow left at the local ski resorts .
Lots of snow at Lioran looking at the webcams, never managed to be there when every run is open yet but they are at the moment!
Hope it hangs around for you
Spent yesterday evening doing a mini splitboard tour up Cairngorm, it was stunning 8)
[url= https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1582/25599749321_14fa05bdc3_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1582/25599749321_14fa05bdc3_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/F1apAi ]Cairngorm mini tour[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/swavis/ ]Gavin Belton[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1621/25573686742_44b60ec611_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1621/25573686742_44b60ec611_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/EXRQ6u ]Cairngorm mini tour[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/swavis/ ]Gavin Belton[/url], on Flickr
Night are drawing out as this was taken at 18:48
[url= https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1624/25692449805_bb56d26b46_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1624/25692449805_bb56d26b46_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/F9mwdv ]Cairngorm mini tour[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/swavis/ ]Gavin Belton[/url], on Flickr
Torchlight descent and found a decent amount of fresh powder on the way down, lush!
Good news about le lioran, been there lots as a kid and it always seems to be freezing.
Closer to Millau, we have Lagiole, Brameloud, both in Aubrac, and to the south in the Cevennes there is Mont aigoual.
All of them small resorts.
swavis: you might be in a position to advise this guy:
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/scotland-boardingskiing-this-easter
Cool, missed that one 😳
cchris2lou - Member
Good news about le lioran, been there lots as a kid and it always seems to be freezing.
Closer to Millau, we have Lagiole, Brameloud, both in Aubrac, and to the south in the Cevennes there is Mont aigoual.
All of them small resorts.
I was at mont aiguoal on Sunday and it was amazing, never seen so much snow up there. But you know how fast the conditions can change in that neck of the woods. At the ticket office the closing date is the 20/03.
They might stay open if there is snow.
At the same time, I quite would like to ride from Millau to l Esperou, so need clear roads.
My grandad used to drive us in a C15 to the top and we would ride all the way down off road for a swim in the Dourbie.
Oh go on then. Couple of days ago touring and powder in the Maurienne:
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My grandad used to drive us in a C15 to the top and we would ride all the way down off road for a swim in the Dourbie.
Papy uplift, brilliant 🙂
Snow and Rock giving it some with their sale - just grabbed some Burton Cartels for £119 (£200 retail). Then I forced my card back in my wallet against its will.
There were a few breaks in the clouds today:
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@stevo small world 🙂 Lise thought it quite odd I was so keen to take photos of bikes and people I didn't know. Sorry we didn't see you this year for skiing, have been checking your summer availability will revert soon for 2 riders.
Ballbags , at home nursing a case of snowboarders ankle . Ice on it now any some really tasty bruising coming out. Hoping it will be ok as now is the nicest time to be in the mountains.
Awesome boblo looks great. I've definitely got the ski touring bug now. Nobody go to Grimentz though - it's rubbish.
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35793918 ]Six down in the back country in Italy. 🙁 [/url]
I wouldn't describe that as "back country". That's proper ski
mountaineering.
Tomorrow is going to be another excellent day in most of the European ranges - sun, cold, snow. Set your alarm clocks early.
Awful indeed, I had heard very good things about off-piste in the Val d'Annivers area. I've ony done a days on-piste skiing there and a couple of summer trips for walking, clearly an error. Great hotel Bella Tola in St Luc.
Touring opens up so many resorts which people ignore as piste milage looks inadequate. Have friends who hardly ever go to "typical" resorts
Just tying on kit again pre short break with min THM and cant help wishing that you could still get good old fashioned racing pants - will retro styling bring these back??
Another 25cm of fresh snow in Whistler and a freezing level low enough for snow in the valley, but I can't ski because I had a stupid crash on Saturday and seem to have some severe bruising in my left calf/shin area 🙁
old fashioned racing pants
Quite popular with the ladies these days. Maybe try a pair of those?
Back from a week in Flaine, stayed at the UCPA and did the off piste course. Talk about striking it lucky! The snow was falling as we cruised the autoroute from Geneva on Saturday night, so the free skiing day on Sunday was spent messing around on gentle, piste side powder. Situated on a huge limestone massif, Flaine is known for the huge potholes which can easily swallow a skier, so we were reluctant to get more adventurous without a proper guide. The equipment provided by UCPA was good, I brought my own boots but the cost includes skis (Rossignol Sin7, mine were 180cm- I'm 177cm myself) and an Ortovox Crossrider backpack with shovel, probe and beep.
Having heard horror stories of groups of 13 people to a single instructor, we were pleased to find that our group comprised just six people: three Brits (me, my mate Andy, and a chap from Bristol called Colin) and three French (Grégory from Paris and a couple of Toulousains, Arnaud and Delphine). Our guide / instructor Denis has lived in the valley all his life and spends about 12 hours a day on skis in season- he drives from his home in the valley to the lower reaches of the resort then skins up and skis down into Flaine each day, reversing the process at the end of each long day of teaching. As an aside, his Movement Random touring skis were awesomely light- under a kilo for the pair!
Guiding started on day 2 and it was in at the deep end: none of this nonsense about doing a run on the piste to gauge ability, we exited the gondola, donned skis, quickly warmed up then ducked under the ropes and hit the fresh snow.
Not going into detail about each day, but the week went well. The glorious sunshine on Sunday morning turned to fog then snow in the afternoon: Monday was glorious till we finished skiing, then it snowed over night. Overall, we had well over a metre of fresh snow from the snow on Saturday to the time we got out on Tuesday to spend a day in the fog. The rest of the week was glorious sunshine.
The downside of the combination of fresh snow, glorious weather and modern ski equipment meant that more or less anything visible from the ski lifts, or at least anything with a viable visible entrance, was tracked out by the end of Monday. Not a problem for Denis who's been skiing this area for over 40 years, we had fresh tracks each and every day, although as the week progressed we did have to work a bit more each day to get to the good stuff. Unlike the mixed ski/snowboard group who were hiking from day 1, the fact that our group comprised only skiiers meant that traversing was much more viable. Not easy: we had some very long, quite exposed traverses along aretes, over snow which had by Wednesday become very crusty, which is not particularly nice when you're traversing a metre wide arete above a slope of about 30 degrees. It was only on the final day of guiding that we reached the point of taking off skis and hiking for ten minutes, nothing like the forty minute hikes the mixed group were doing.
We had a couple of issues as the week went on. On day 1 Colin ejected and lost a ski in the powder. After half an hour of fruitless searching we decided to call piste patrol to get a lift for Colin, only for me to ski over his lost ski some ten metres further down the slope than we'd been looking. My mate Andy struggled with the stuff we were doing: his technique wasn't good enough which meant he fell often and then got knackered digging himself out. One incident could have been more serious as he fell head first into a tree well, luckily I was behind him and able to help him out. The fog on Tuesday combined with the increasing steepness really did it's business on his psyche, so when he hit a buried block of ice (massive bruise on his knees by the end of the week) enough was enough and he cruised home on piste, spent Wednesday in bed and transferred to a piste group for the rest of the week. That left five of us, all around the same standard, which made for a great dynamic. Denis pushed us all to the limits of our personal comfort, with each day getting a little harder in terms of the skills required. We all felt a little uncomfortable at times, some more than others, and we all had falls at times. Thankfully, no one feel when it counted, like the point we were skiing down a slope that just kept rolling away out of view. The lovely deep powder meant it was beautiful to ski once you committed, but you had to commit and keep going. We looked at it later and it was around 50 degrees at the steepest part. Squeaky bum time, indeed! For me the other bit I struggled with was jumping, never had the bottle for it but eventually made myself give it a go when we had a chance. 1.5 m drop into lovely snow meant that the fact I stacked was not going to hurt me, I just slid a few metres till I managed to stop myself. Well, I tried!
On the non-skiing side, UCPA was good value for money. The centre at Flaine was formerly a hotel and while it's not exactly luxury in absolute terms, it's one of the better UCPA centres. All rooms are en suite, normally you have four to a room but you can pay a little extra (£30 a head) for a twin room. Rooms are not exactly spacious and one of the ways that costs are low is that you are expected to make your own bed on arrival, and on leaving to strip the bed and clean the room. The hot water is HOT and plentiful though, as is the food which includes lunch - either make a sandwich at breakfast and take it with you, or head back to the centre for lunch.
Would I do it again? As a boys' trip, definitely. As a "nice" holiday with my wife, probably not, but then we normally do like something a bit nicer. Overall though, GREAT value for money and some excellent conditions. More pics to follow when I get them sorted out.
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