Hi, thought I’d start another photo thread, this time leaning towards the snowy side of things. I’m not racist towards dry sunny mountain pics though, so if you have some of those thats fine too!
Just getting in the mood for skiing again and i was looking through all my pics. Here’s some I like.
Switzerland
Switzerland again
The Eiger is there in the background in this shot, hard to make it out though.
And this 360 at Waterville Valley is a stitching trainwreck as I thought I’d be cocky/stupid and take my pano gear with me on the chair and try a moving one :roll:.
Zweilutschinen is where the train splits from Interlaken to go to Lauterbrunnen of Grindelwald. It could be one of the stations between grindelwald and zweitlutschinen though.
Oh god I look like a train spotter…… 😳 (i’m not, I just know the area)
Haha well it’s not the worst place to be waiting for a train anyway, nice place. I’ve only been there once when i was staying at Interlaken, skiing in Wengen.
Had to drop off my hire ski’s somewhere up the mountain at the end of the week 🙂 .
GrahamS
How does Whistler compare to Banff – Sunshine, Lake Louise, and if you’ve been there, Kicking Horse?
Not been to Kicking Horse, but we’ve done Whistler, Banff and Fernie.
Banff has good variety of riding and the scenery is great, especially at Lake Louise. The powder bowls over the back of Lake Louise were also a highlight.
Plus it was stupidly quiet at times (I remember coming down slopes and not seeing anyone else at all for the entire descent).
Pic: Lake Louise – not very busy.
It is a proper little town and there is some nice gentle walking by the river for days off.
But I have to say that sitting in the bus to get to/from the slopes every day was a bit of a drag, especially the longer ride to Lake Louise (~45 mins IIRC)
Whistler you can walk to the slopes from most hotels/chalets and it has a lot more going on by the slopeside: many a post-ride pitcher of beer was sunk in the Longhorn bar 😀 but it is definitely a much more commercial, purpose built resort – with the highs and lows that go with that.
On balance I think Banff had a little more variety, but we picked a fairly crap season to go to Whistler and we only got 1 day of “proper” Whistler powder.
Pic: Whistler pow day
So it is hard to judge. Both were awesome holidays!
Sorry, I meant to say we’d been to Banff a few times so know the score re transport and the shopping. It was more after a comparison of the skiing at Whistler.
Kicking Horse used to be a Heli Skiing place and features a 10K ‘beginner’ run. We’ve not been for a few years and I see they have MTBing there now – http://www.kickinghorseresort.com/
We know New Hampshire well and go there on the basis of knowing where the deals are (tis much cheaper than Canada).
Sorry, I meant to say we’d been to Banff a few times so know the score re transport and the shopping. It was more after a comparison of the skiing at Whistler.
Well as I say I think there is a little more variety at Banff, as you have the multiple resorts – but Whistler is pretty huge and you’ve got two mountains which are now joined by t peak-2-peak gondola, so you can go up one and down the other 😀
There’s probably a little more for kids at Whistler (family areas, tube slides etc) and I think it had more terrain parks than Banff.
From memory the slopes were a bit more open in Whistler and more of them seemed groomed (*spit*) but that could just be because they were getting a bit thin on snow when we were there.
We had -28′ C at Lake Louise one year and New England is known for being cold and icy.
Would like to go back to Mammoth sometime; – I imagine it might be like Whistler. Have also skied at Winter Park in Colorado. The base area is 9000ft up and that takes some getting use to!
Hey Grum, my photo above is also of Doufourspitze and Nordend like yours. My pic is taken from the summit of Signalkuppe. we caught the train up to Rotenboden station and walked to the Monte Rosa Hut (in your first pic but virtually impossible to spot), then up the Gornergrat glacier (big central glacier in your first alps pic), then up Doufourspitze and back down to the Monte Rosa Hut.
B.A.Nana – awesome, would love to do something like that. I was just being a tourist up at the Gornergrat station. On my pic on flickr I’ve labelled what I think is the Monte Rosa hut.
I think it’s been rebuilt though, dont know if that was before or after you were there.
Yes that’s it.
That trip was 15 years ago, but I’ve been up there again since (approached from the Italian side tho). Unless the Monte Rosa hut has suffered a disaster I can’t imagine it’s been rebuilt since I was there, it was a high standard hut 15 years ago. Possibly they’ve extended it, Doufourspitze is the 2nd highest peak and a bit more technical than the standard route up Monte Blanc, so it’s popular.
This is the summit of Signalkuppe on the same trip, me on the left, but a boy (1995). This is taken outside the Margarita Hut at 5am, it’s the highest building in Europe at 4500m.
M1kea wrote: “..And the same hill without ****tty filtering”
I was thinking along those lines before i spotted the comment.haha! Still a nice pic but i`m glad you know how you feel about making things look bad by overshopping when its beautiful as it is!
Grum, when i scrolled to the bottom of the thread and came across the reflection pic,i grinned and said to myself “that guys unreal” :O)
oh, little Brian, been talking to stumpyjon tonight BTW 2hottie, I’m back to Gisburn this Autumn, I haven’t been volunteering there for ages. What about you (and Brian)?.