The STW Ski and Snowboard thread – 2011/2 Edition

As far as I can tell, it’s been continually cold for months, and there is unlikely to have been any melting and refreezing. I was hoping that this meant the snow would be reasonably loose still. Am I incorrect?

Pretty good rule of thumb – except sun and wind come in to play too.

Just back from Chamonix, was minus -20 and colder last weekend.

Brevant faces South, some icy patches over there but still some powder to be had.
Grand Montets faces North, skied lovely soft stuff all the way to the bottom of Plan Joran!

A lot of cracks to be seen in the snow on south facing slopes as the snow hasn’t bound to the ground very well – saw this in St Anton and Verbier.

Before it snowed the temperatures were quite high, then it rained, and then it dumped snow – so the ground was warm and wet, and so the snow is slipping on it.

Winter tyres fitted – Check.
Spent last Saturday morning waxing and edging the family’s skis. – Check.

We’ll be on the Hull-Rotterdam ferry tonight and in Sued Tirol by beer o’clock Friday evening.
If all goes to plan we’ll be on the snow as soon as the first lift opens on Saturday morning 🙂

anyone seen these new fischer hybrid skis?

lever on top switches them between a rocker and a regular profile, so they work well on both piste and off-piste…

combined with touring bindings and a pair of geckos skins… ultimate set up??

how well do you reckon they’d work – jack of all trades, master of none?

i quite fancy trying a pair…

info here

lever on top switches them between a rocker and a regular profile, so they work well on both piste and off-piste…

I thought Rockers we supposed to do that anyway – Rocker makes the contact on piste shorter so they ski more like a piste ski, but off piste you get the full length of the ski in the snow for float plus the rocker helps the float and means you don’t have to do the mythical ‘weight-slightly-back’ to keep the tips up.

with the rocker on it lifts the tips, and yeah, good for short turns on piste. with the rocker off it makes for good carving with a longer edge in the snow

(i should have thought about the order in which i wrote the rocker/non-rocker and piste/off-piste!)

Top technology, easy handling

Two possible settings are what make Hybrid technology stand out.

Rocker on: position 1 gives you all the benefits of a rocker ski. Perfect skiing off-piste, great performance in short turns on-piste.
Rocker off: with the 0 position you simply switch off the rocker function to leave you with a true piste monster under your feet. Ideal for long, aggressive turns on the slopes.

lever on top switches them between a rocker and a regular profile, so they work well on both piste and off-piste…

Not sure how much rocker there is on those as I haven’t seen them, but it’s generally considered that ski’s with extreme rocker are terrible on piste and just spin around like a top with only part of the ski making contact with the snow. You can forget about nice long carved turns with lots of rocker on piste. They would be good in bumps when you need to rotate the skis fast I imagine.
Also not sure of the construction, generally powder skiis chatter a lot when going fast down a cat track or on piste. You’ll see the front foot of the ski bouncing around like a mad thing. Piste skis have dampening properties so the chatter isn’t as bad going through crud and death cookies.

Good idea to bale to swith from rocker to normol profile, me thinks it’ll be a gimmick that will pass over though. I’d rather just have two pairs of skis, just like my two bikes 🙂 .

Check out the K2 Obsethed for an extreme rocker ski btw.

aye, i’m sure they’d not be heavily rockered. my ‘all round’ skis would benefit from more rocker off piste, but are better on piste without. the imagine on their page suggests not a ridiculous rocker

I’d actively put you off Chalet Yves in Arcs 1800 though, granted there were only 2 lifts open, but we had a hell of a trek every morning at 20C + to get to the slopes.

You are talking summer, yeah? We’ve booked Yves for snowboarding in March, because my pals wanted somewhere cheap – and it is. But what’s the actual chalet like? There are almost no pictures of the inside on-line, except for one shonky looking chair. Is it comfortable, or should we plan to be going out most of the time?

Had my ski’s serviced at Jon’s Ski Tuning in Nottingham. What a difference. Last year they were on the “factory” wax, and the bases were white at the end. This year they were brilliant, accelerating and gliding on piste.

The one thing I did learn though was:

Moving the bindings 4 stops forward makes the ski easier to turn, but it will also launch you out of the front in the soft stuff.
I learned this a lot, generally several times daily.

Next trip if it’s still powdery I’ll move them 4 stops back from the starting point. (which is what was actually recommended!)

Looks like we’ll postpone the trip in a week’s time and go at the beginning of April instead now.

absolutely baltic again today in avoriaz. got frost nip on the nose for the 2nd time this week… think my thumb got a bit too, and my knees were fubared (that’ll teach me to go out only in shell pants…)

took 2 chocolat chauds at changa bang before i felt human again 🙁

brrrr…

No doctordee, we went in the first week of April last year, thought we’d be fine booking snowsure Les Arcs! It was a bad season last year, so snow cover was thin, but even we weren’t expecting to ski in 20C+! It was fine once we got high, but there was no snow down to Arcs 1600, one narrow strip to ski down to 1800, and only one run open down to the Vanoise Express. Of course you’ll not have any of these problems this season!! I skied down from the Aiguille Rouge (3000m+) in a t-shirt, there were girls from SCUM (Ski club of University of Manchester) who were very kindly skiing in bikini tops!

Yves as a chalet is ok. It’s far from luxury in any way, but yes I think you could say comfortable. Rooms are manageable, but nothing special. You can sit in the sitting room area no problem, and there’s an open fire. The walk into the village is about 5-10 mins (a bit further to the lifts), this is what put us off. It’s an ok walk for a night out in normal clothes. The problem was the walk in ski boots, carrying all the gear to the lift, especially when you have moaning children in tow, and have to carry their gear! There might be a shortcut when there’s more snow, but we couldn’t work out where it would be (and obviously couldn’t use it with our lack of snow). There was no ski bus. If you are a group of young-ish lads you’ll possibly not find the walk too much hassle, but for us it was. I know what you mean about cheap, we did get a hell of a good deal – but in hindsight we know why.

Our chalet host was a bit of a tosser too and he didn’t keep the place very clean, but I wouldn’t put anyone off the place because of that, as no doubt he’s been replaced.

I’ll have a look to see if I have any photos from the inside and e-mail them to you if you like?

I should add that we’re 10 mins from the lift for our next holiday, but we have the benefit of a ski bus, and a stop outside our place.

Off to Alpe D’Heuz tomorrow………..very excited!

Schladming tomorrow. Fresh snow predicted all week.
Clock watching till I can go home and start packing!! 😀

I should add that we’re 10 mins from the lift for our next holiday, but we have the benefit of a ski bus, and a stop outside our place.

Lazy bugger!

put some cattracks on and walk the 10 minutes to warm up…

Cat tracks? Aaaaaaargh! Spiteful things. 🙂

Lectured by my three year old this morning:
“Daddy, you can only have TWO ski holidays, ok?”
I think she’s been got at! : (

Ace, so good my diesel van didn’t want to leave. Buy a bottle of anti-wax for the fuel and easy start before you leave the UK because the shelves are empty over here. I’d had the good sense to park the thing where I could wind it out on the starter motor then roll down to where it would go again.

Woohoo, Sestriere booked 🙂

Got back from Sestriere yesterday, great week with loads of fresh snow, boarded all over the Milky Way. The Crystal guys were first class, got 3 days of guiding with them.

Ace, Tracey! Glad you liked it! Did you get to Sauze at all? Pizza at the Orso Bianco? Nom, nom and indeed nom!

Got over to Sauze, also had a day in Montgenevre

Monty always looks interesting as we drive past. Love the way the piste and lifts go right over the road! Is it worth a day trip next time I’m over that way?

Well worth a trip, there are some great runs on both sides of the road

5 days to go. 5 days. Insurance is up to date, new gloves are on the way, pants and jacket are tech-washing as I type, and the snow forecast is just hinting at some fresh stuff beginning Sunday.

I foresee a productive week at work.

Thanks, Tracey. Will check it out sometime.

Pig, how often are you checking the webcams?

This was pretty accurate as a forecast site, btw – http://www.yr.no/
From Norway, but excellent as an all round weather forecast.

Shifter, it’s a global kid conspiracy. I’ve had exactly the same!

Their mothers are all in on it too – don’t trust’em 😉

Just waxed up my Atomic Race GS 12s for tomorrow’s fraiche. If I don’t post for a while you’ll know I got carried away. Free transport and free pass thanks to junior’s skicross, if it’s cancelled due to too much snow I shall properly sulk.

Free transport and free pass thanks to junior’s skicross, if it’s cancelled due to too much snow I shall properly sulk ditch Junior and step in to the phatt pow skis I chose to pack sneakily. Then I shall hit all that freshness like a hard hit thing.

🙂

I don’t do phatt skis, better drown in the powder that suffer the humiliation of being seen on anything wider than 67 in the middle. Me bow to peer pressure? Obviously. 8) Junior wants some cheap “double spats” for playing in the park and on the air bag so humiliation is just around the corner – would you be able to resist trying them?

Just back from Norway, not everyones first choice of a ski holiday destination but I am working in Bergen at the moment so thought I would travel round for a couple of weeks and try some of the hills, did Trysil, Hemsedal, Kvitfjell, Hafjell, Strandafjellet and Voss, fair bit of driving involved but worth it, some great weather great snow and excellent back country/offpiste at Strandafjellet, bolted on the AT soles to the boots skinned up the skis and went proper back country for a few days at Strandafjellet
Last two days were in Trysil north of Oslo nice little hill but not very challenging, so decided to spend the last afternoon in the terrain park, big mistake, last run before heading to pub launched off a big kicker like many times before only this time it went horribly wrong in mid air, came down hard, knee feels like it has exploded 😥
Next morning knee is like a space hopper (going home to Bergen today) go to medical centre to get a crutch, mates have to deal with packing all my gear 😆 now back in UK to get it checked out (thank god for Bupa) appointment tomorrow morning and then hopefully straight in for MRI, my GP reckons ACL but obviously doesn’t know how bad 😥

would you be able to resist trying them?

No. Not at all.

I hit up da park a bit on my last trip. Bustin’ some phatt styles on da railz and ting, innit?

(Nervously sliding along the beginner rails, etc)

Attention, ça décoiffe !

I acquired some ‘New to me’ Head MOnster 88’s today .
2009 vintage with bindings. £84.
Hopefully it will snow in 3 weeks in Chamonix and i can see what all the mid phat fuss is about .

Hopefully it will snow in 3 weeks in Chamonix and i can see what all the mid phat fuss is about .

I wouldn’t call 88 mid fat. It would be ok for about 5 inches of fresh stuff. Skis seem to be getting wider and wider, just like bikes went through a phase of getting more and more travel.

100mm seems to be the new width for all mountain anyway.

*Looks around furtively….*

1000!