The STW Ski and Snowboard thread – 2011/2 Edition

I bet you’ve got all the gear…

Un peu du fartage! Getting ready…

Wax on, wax off…[/url]

Erm…. 😳

I have quite a lot of stuff as it happens, from several very friendly companies from a previous job….. (Big thanks to Eider, TNF, Salomon, Smith, Oakley, Hestra, FAIISE, Burton, Killy, Buff, Columbia, Schoffel, Helly Hansen, Odlo, Icebreaker and Smartwool!) 8)

oh dear, too easy

Guilty as charged, m’lud!

Couldn’t persuade anyone to give me any skis, though. Still not sure about buying, as I only do one or two weeks a year.

Snigger.

My stuff is ancient, why buy all this new, bigger, wider, go faster, when my old school parabolics, do the job.

Oh and I have been off piste ‘proper’ with guides and everything. Spent most of that morning on my arse though.

pretty heavy and slushing in PDS today – cooled down through the afternoon though, and more snow forecast for the next couple of days…

mutzigs in robbos were appreciated afterwards.

Benn to glenshee and glencoe already last year, coe was awesome on the 17th dec.. will try and get up most weekends weather permitting. Off out to morzine start of march, cant wait!

Thought my Rossi S86s were excellent and a fair bit better than my older Bandits B2s.

86mm with slight rocker meant nice and floaty in the deeper stuff, but strong edges on the piste where the rocker made them feel shorter than their 178cm.

Friends on Sultans (85 and 94) with no rockers were complaining of catching edges with the tips, so rocker seems to be a worthwhile improvement (skills compensator).

Roll on St Anton in 4 weeks 🙂

Not as good as the season 3 or 4 years ago as that started in Late Oct but its bigger in Europe now. Everything filled in and everything will go once we get the stability.

Some videos for your pleasure:

I like Movement Skis…used the Logic model for last 2yrs easy to ski but still can hold edge when needed….very light too. Im mainly doing guided off piste ..i had 11days in Dec with Wayne Watson(superb!) .. can’t wait till my next trip 🙂

Had a great week in Cervinia last week. First day we only had one tiny lift open as it was so windy (quite good to get the legs going on the same 2 runs over and over again), but that was followed by 4 days of bright sunshine, stillness and fantastic snow. Last day was windy, but all the lifts were open.

Now planning our Easter trip. Seen a really good deal to Sauze, but the OH isn’t keen to book this early with their dodgy late snow record. Especially after last year and the ever decreasing snow at Les Arcs while we were there.

hammerite, if you go to Sauze, get to the Orso Bianco at Sportinia for pizza. ‘Tis epic!

Cervinia must be fantastic in winter with the Matterhorn as a background.

I remember sitting on one of the chairs at Cervinia on the way up to Rosa and seeing a snow storm barrelling down the side of the Matterhorn and then coming straight towards us across the glacier. They stopped the lift, me and my mate turned away as best we could then got hit by this wall of wind and snow. Immediately the chair went out to what felt like degrees and it was howling. The thing was over in about a minute, blue skies and off we went again.

It is a cracking backdrop, plus you’ve got Zermatt to play in as well. I’m off to France in 3 weeks, then Sweden; I can’t wait

Now then…..Ski hire shop has the following options for me to hire. Which to plump for….

Salomon Enduro LX750
Rossi Experience 78
Head iPeak 74
Dynastar outland 80
Fischer Progressor 700
Atomic Vario Scandium

So far, I’m erring towards either the Salomon or Dynastars. Used Enduros last year quite a lot and really liked them, but then have heard good things about Dynastar (Sultans, though). Anyone skied any of those? I think the Fischer and Atomic might be a bit too “racy” piste based for me, as I want to get a bit more beyond the ropes this year!

Thanks CF, epic pizza certainly get’s my vote.

Skiing with the Matterhorn as a backdrop is very cool. Looks even better from the Zermatt side, as it’s looks a lot more “pointy”.
We were hit by wind and snow on one of the chairs, sat there for 25 mins absolutely frozen. That accelerated the lunch stop forward a bit!

Actually if I had to criticise Cervinia for anything it would be the feeling that I always had to clock watch. Was getting paranoid that we’d miss the last gondola up from the Zermatt side and end up stuck there the night (like the staff from our hotel did)!

That’s never a good thing!

One thing I love about Serre Che is the awesome free ski bus running up and down the valley. Get caught out on the hill? Just head down to any of the villages and pick up a bus back.

Had a great week last week at Montgenèvre, loads of snow and lots of fresh powder. I’m still using my 4 year old Decathlon Wed’ze skis which I really like (not that I’ve tried any others, so wouldn’t know the difference).

[/url]
Lots of fresh powder[/url] by brf[/url], on Flickr

People are going to die this week – and I mean that quite literally, not figuratively. They’re not going to die from happiness, they’re going to die under tons of snow. There’s so much snow in the alps at the moment that entire communities are trapped. Zermatt is cut off – road and rail are shut due to avalanche risk, and air travel is not possible due to the heavy snow (well,as of 10pm uk time last night).

The main road up the Haute Tarentaise is closed from Bourg St Maurice onwards due to the snow. People are being told not to travel between the various villages in Tignes

There are road closures around Les Deux Alpes and Alpe d’Huez due to the snow

Despite all this the “hardcore” will be charging off the first lift, desperately seeking those elusive “first tracks”. And sadly, some of them will trigger avalanches, and some of them will die.

Be careful out there folks.

From what I saw last month I think nbt is on the nail. I have never ever seen snowfall like it.

My trip report from December

NBT +many!

The Lautaret pass is shut, from what I gather. There’s a ton of the stuff out there and it only takes one idiot…..

Safety first, folks.

I was talking to my friends in Val D’Isere last night and it sounds pretty grim. Massive winds and some windows blown in etc.

80cm in the day and another 80cm over night. The road from Bourg is closed and opening at 10am earliest.

People were genuinely scared last night.

La Plagne is more or less entirely shut – there are just two drag lifts open down at the very bottom end of Montalbert

They don’t close entire resorts for no reason. Let me re-iterate, be careful out there folks…

And bear in mind that La Plagne is *down* the valley from the place where the road is shut from BSM onwards (please don’t call it “Bourg”, “Bourg” means “Town” and thus is meaningless on it’s own – use BSM if you can’t be bothered typing the full name)

La Plagne is more or less entirely shut – there are just two drag lifts open down at the very bottom end of Montalbert

Holy moly!

From the alps

The Mont Blanc massif, all of the Savoie and the Belledonne range in the Isere are all on extreme avalanche alert tonight with a risk of 5/5 (road closures and buildings liable to be damaged). In Val d’Isere where two vehicles were buried up to their windows on the road to la Daille earlier today people in buildings at risk have been told to keep shutters closed and a number of footpaths are out of bounds.

The road between les Menuires and Val Thorens has been cut by three avalanches. One of them is 4 meters high and has hit a number of cars without injuring anyone. People are being found emergency accomodation in les Menuires tonight. The road to les Arcs is closed. In the Maurienne Bonneval and Bessans are cut off, no road, no power. In the Isere an avalanche has blocked the road at Clavans near l’Alpe d’Huez and another slide had hit the main Grenoble Briancon road at Livet et Gavet.

High winds at Geneva airport this evening where a fallen try by the autoroute was causing traffic chaos at 6pm.

I drove across the whole of the Savoy tonight and it can only be said that driving conditions were appalling. High winds and rain. Given the avalanche forecast I think the police should have been more proactive at closing access to ski resorts. The Col du Lauteret and Vars in the south have both been closed until tomorrow morning (despite the Isere highway’s dept website claiming the col is open).

St anton now has 4 metres at mid station!

No one on the Cucumelle today. Looks like the Vallons lift isn’t running to me.

Skied there only last week – weird to see it completely deserted!

Serre Che, Footflaps? How was it? Off in a couple of weeks!

SC website shows Vallons isn’t running – you can get the bubble to the top at the Briancon end, but as you go up the valley the lifts stop lower than the ridge

PSA – 20% off hundreds snow pants, jackets etc. here –
http://www.surfdome.com/pages/hit_the_slopes

I know there is some distance (and probably height) between these sites but this really isn’t comforting when I am going skiing for the first time in Morzine in two weeks.

nbt – Member
People are going to die this week – and I mean that quite literally, not figuratively. They’re not going to die from happiness, they’re going to die under tons of snow. There’s so much snow in the alps at the moment that entire communities are trapped. Zermatt is cut off – road and rail are shut due to avalanche risk, and air travel is not possible due to the heavy snow (well,as of 10pm uk time last night).

The main road up the Haute Tarentaise is closed from Bourg St Maurice onwards due to the snow. People are being told not to travel between the various villages in Tignes

There are road closures around Les Deux Alpes and Alpe d’Huez due to the snow

Despite all this the “hardcore” will be charging off the first lift, desperately seeking those elusive “first tracks”. And sadly, some of them will trigger avalanches, and some of them will die.

Be careful out there folks.

Things will have calmed down immensely in two weeks.

In fact morzine is so low, all the snow will probably have melted in Morzine by the time you get there 😉 😆

The arlberg is affected too, much further east

Ok Folks, today is time to catch up with all that lost sleep. Everything is delayed in opening. Even the lower kinderlifts are closed !

Bus connection from Flirsch & Strengen to St Anton is not possible due to Avalanche control.

AlbergPass, FlexenPass are not likely to be open today. Zurs Lech & Stuben not possible to access

We had an away day from Montgenèvre to SC, so were only there for a day and it was our one snowy day – about 20cm fell, so I didn’t really get that much of a feel for it, we stayed quite low in the trees as the visibility was OK. On the higher runs it was about 5m visibility and quite unnerving as we didn’t really know where we were going, so just followed our Reps when we could see them (Rachel from Crystal and John from Nielson).

Might try a day in Monty this year. Never been! Did you meet Caz from Neilson as well? Top lass!

In fact morzine is so low, all the snow will probably have melted in Morzine by the time you get there

Git

This is probably the best place to ask rather than starting a new thread but I have been looking at lessons while out there, I have already had a couple of full day dry slope ones here. ESF looks quite good particularly this deal. Anybody care to comment whether they are good or bad? The ski pass alone is 158€ so another 70€ for 6 lessons seems good.

http://www.esf-morzine.com/ski-school-morzine/adult-group-lessons/ski-adults/adult-beginner

I’m in Val d’Isere at the moment. 200kph winds on the Bellevarde last night, and the resort pretty much shut down. It must be bad as all the ESF instructors are in the pub getting pissed. It’s been snowing and windy all week with the link to Tignes only open on one day.

Conditions will be awesome once the weather improves, but off to Morzine tomorrow.

I really liked Monty, not that hard – Blacks were quite easy. There’s also a nice ‘easy’ off piste run from the top station at the Italian border down to Clavier.

Just turn left by the rocks or turn right and head down a Red into the Italian side:

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Route to the Italian Side[/url] by brf[/url], on Flickr