The STW Ski and Snowboard thread: 2021-2022 Season

Is there a World Cup or something happening? Those transfer prices are astronomical!

I did wonder if there’s something else happening on the 12th!

Edit – European Snow Pride in Tignes, but shouldn’t affect Geneva.

@nbt – thanks, can also get a train to Magland.

Might just hire a car and be done with it. Just seems like an unnecessary expense!

I’ve used skiidygonzales.com in previous years

I was trying to find a transfer for that week too, prices and availability are nuts at the moment. Apparently a lot of the usual operators aren’t doing shared transfers this year because of Covid and so there’s more demand for private transfers.

Hire car wasn’t any better, everything was over 400 Euros for the week.

Yep, car hire has gone bonkers. In Early Feb they tried to get me to upgrade to a larger car, I declined and then the chap said he would let me have the upgrade for free anyway. It was the only car he had left! Cheeky bugger.
Friends have suggested going into Geneva off airport car hire places by train but that’s not without a certain amount of faffing about!

When we checked in January you could get a reasonable priced shared transfer with cham bus or alpy bus but only to sallanches or magland then you needed a bus or taxi up the mountain. There is a public bus from Flaine to Sallanche. They were also not running daily. We chatted to our ski instructor who’s wife owns and runs Erica transfers to Flaine – they had more work than they could cope with.
We’re driving on 21st because transfers were such a PITA this year, sorry it’s not good for your dates otherwise we could have helped you out

Thanks everyone. Have rented a car. Has 48hr free cancellation option, so will keep looking as well.

Bloody rentals though, everything’s an option – proper insurance, snowchains (thought they had to provide them?!) Etc

Train to Cluses then bus?
https://www.flaine.com/media/navettecarroz-flaine-express2022.pdf

Proud parent moment. Here’s sweajnr (8) on his way to a 2nd in his most recent race at Sunshine village. He’s already faster than me almost everywhere in the resorts. We live in Calgary and so that’s the benefit of learning to ski almost as soon as you can walk….

Ahhhhh Sunshine Village. I lived and worked up there in the hotel restaurant Nov 94 – Apr 95. Happy days 😄

Nice one Swea Jnr (8)

Been watching Deb Armstrong coaching videos on YouTube. She is rather good.
Went looking for tips for skiing with kids and helping with their technique, stayed for better understanding of my own..

Been up at Mt Hood since Saturday and today is the first time that I can actually confirm the mountain exists. It revealed itself on the drive up this morning and bloody hell it’s a big one! Had a great day pottering around on skis at Mt Hood Meadows today. Here’s Mrs Tuboflard.

Has anyone moved from snowboarding to skiing? Had a good week away at Schladming but can’t help but feel my boarding is going backwards. Doesn’t help when most of the guys I’m with are skiing and want to cover the mountain whilst I’m wanting to carve about on blues, tricks and stuff are a distant memory and the carving and messing about is starting to get boring. Instead of giving up winter sports I’m thinking of lumping in with skiing, a few web pages suggest it’s easily doable but I always had skiing down as the harder to master skill. I did ski a bit back in the 90’s but I’m guessing things have moved on somewhat.

I sort of have. Originally a boarder, got to reasonable standard….park and lots of off piste etc

Then mashed my knee doing a poorly landed 360 at Chill Factor in 2016. Have boarded since, but lost my carefree attitude to it somewhat!

Unless there’s decent snow, I’m happier on ski’s these days, although I’m a fairly crap skier tbh. It is much easier getting around a resort though (mainly as the lifts are so much less faff)

I can do both now, boarding 25 years and skiing for the last 6 or so. It’s actually a really nice change to be able to mix them up, and reading slopes and snow conditions on the ground from boarding translate to skiing too (for obvious reasons).

I took a few one on one ski lessons on a holiday and soon after bought a pair of skis and haven’t looked back. My other half only skis so when I’m with her I tend to ski to keep her company (and slow me down).

Give it a go.

Cheers both, funnily enough the week ended with me stacking it and rattling both knees. One article I did read suggests exactly what you are saying, having the choice to do either is a definite plus. We’ve a dry ski slope and an indoor snow slope close by, nothing to lose by doing a few lessons and seeing what’s what. Happier hearing that’s it’s not insurmountable.

I learned to ski indoors, then did a week of lessons with UCPA too.

I’d definitely say that skiing is easier to get the basics down, then harder to master.

I think that’s very true Tom!

My wife went from snowboarding to skiing, she much prefers skiing. despite actually being quite a good snowboarder she was always worried about falling and after a few years skiing will tackle stuff she’d never have had the bottle for in a board.

For her it’s about feeling more in control.

That said, take a snowboard lesson. It might seem silly but if you can carve on blues but are getting bored, why aren’t you carving on blacks? Lots of people take a few lessons, get to an intermediate level snowboarding and think they can “do it” and never progress past that by learning better technique. With good edge control and a good line choice you can rail turns on the edge no matter the steepness and control your speed with line choice not by letting the board skid through turns.

Believe me, laying out smooth Euro carves on a groomed piste is so fun, heck even moguls are fun if you learn to pump them and gap between them! There’s tonnes of fun flatland / mini shred tricks you can learn that are low impact and liven up a blue if you are stuck pottering with others.

Check out the Korua “ yearning for turning vids “ for a bit of low impact snowboard inspiration!

Our trip to France in 2 weeks has hit a snag – can anyone help ?

One of our party had her 2nd vaccination on 10th Jan and her booster on 20th October – so 9 months and 10 days apart.
According to the French gov website the 2nd and 3rd vaccinations need to no more than 9 months apart to be fully vaccinated whereas the UK gov website for travel to france says you just need all 3.

We have emailed gov.uk and asked on snowheads but I wondered if STW knew anything more…..

Can anyone that’s just travelled through Geneva to France confirm if you have to complete a declaration saying you’ve not been in contact with anyone in last 14 days that’s positive still?

UK Gov site says you do, but French doesn’t mention it.

Some locals doing some of the classics in far from ideal conditions:

Interesting comparing the skiers and snow boarder around 20:45.

I gave up the board at about 50 because the falls hurt more. I was tempted to keep it just for off-piste powder days but didn’t.

It’s been an odd season so far. Lots of rando trips in icy conditions hunting out slopes where the sun has softened the surface. Five with the club the rest with Madame and or Junior. Two excellent fast X-C days the others just to get out when it wasn’t safe for rando. Yesterday was a white day, we didn’t see a thing apart from white and the trackback trace on the phone, snow was OK though with 20cm of fresh on the surface.

According to the French gov website the 2nd and 3rd vaccinations need to no more than 9 months apart to be fully vaccinated

Since 15/2/22 it’s no more than 4 months. It’s evolved, initially there was no limit but limits has been made shorter to push people into getting the third dose. Has the person tried down-loading the French app and then the other app to check it, sprootlet? There was no need for a third dose on 20/10/2021, the obligation came a few days later. All you can do is scan your cetificates into the app and try. The app shuld apply the rules as they were at the times of vaccination.

Thanks for the reply Edukator, she tried the app and it said she wasn’t covered……but my other 1/2 had problems when we did ours. Will have another go today. Can’t believe that 10 days is such a deal breaker 🙁

I’ve checked and the third dose became obligatory on 15/12/21 and then only for the over 65s. In October there there was no 9 month limit.

Madame has joined in with research. Her first comment was “have they got the latest version of the app?” If not erase it and download. She kept getting a fail message until she downloaded the most recent version of app. The other problem we see is that in France/EU it was impossible to get a second dose so soon (France/EU was at least 6 weeks behind at that point) and thus fall outside the 9 month limit for a third dose in October. We’ve been through all the French sites but can’t find a way around the 9 month limit.

However your UK NHS QR code should should be valid for travel into the country. Once in France you can go into a pharmacy to covert your certificates. You’ll need a sworn statement filled in to declare you haven’t had symptons and do an LFT on arrival.

Google Vip-chalets.com and find “easy guide Covid” which was updated 18 February, it seems the best English language source. The NHS code should be accepted in the ski resort for the lift pass.

Thanks, the VIP-Chalets advice is really helpful.

Linky for anyone that needs it.

Confirms that paperwork required on entry includes confirming you’ve not been in contact with anyone that’s tested positive on the last 14 days.

Wife tested positive this morning :o/

I gave up the board at about 50 because the falls hurt more.

Again I’m 49, will be 50 if I go next year and the falls did hurt. From above my knee to half way down my shin I have quite the colourful leg

Ceepers, last year I got a few lessons to tune up some things and enjoyed them alot. Rather than trying to keep up with skiers we were covering better parts of the mountain for boarding whilst doing some tricks and wotnot. Probably reflective of what boarding is these days. Unfortunately the folks I go with are mostly skiers with one boarder who is happy boarding but I see it as more skidding down the steep stuff rather than gracefully descending down the slopes.

Skidding down or being graceful is mainly dependant on the snow conditions. Earlier this year I cramponed down a slope that was only 30° but a week or two later was fairly graceful skiing down the same slope and slopes somewhat steeper. On ice two edges are easier to stay up on than one. However, hauling two skis around in deep, heavy half-transformed powder is much harder than ploughing down on a board.

Unless they are big fat powder skis👍

True, big fat powder skis are utter crap on ice even with two edges. 😉 I have a pair of Dynastar Mythic hardly used but without bindings going free to collect.

sprootlet: If you have 3 vaccine doses, the spacing shouldn’t matter. 3 doses = fully vaccinated regardless of when you had each dose.

The 9, then subsequently 4 month rules meant that, if you had 2 doses, then you were considered fully-vaccinated for 9 or 4 months. After that, your Passe Sanitaire become invalid until you got a booster dose. Once you got the booster, the gap between doses was irrelevant.

I quit snowboarding and went straight to telemark. Oddly, it is a rather similar action. Like Manuel’s English, I learned it from a book. With modern gear it is not difficult.

@john_l

Arrived Saturday, NHS pass checked by easyJet on check-in. Any french paperwork I filled in stayed with me and no one looked at it.

In resort (Les Menuires) it’s close to covid just not being a thing, app hasn’t been checked and mask use is sparse in most places as well as in bubbles.

In Gourette last week and Barrège yesterday there were no checks for my passe sanitaire. Les only places I’ve been checked recently are the swimming pool and public library.

Mask wearing is now optional almost everywhere you need a passe sanitaire and declining fast. However, in public transport and shops where you don’t need a passe sanitaire but the mask is still obligatory it’s still close to 100%.

Fly out to Geneva then onto Avoriaz for 4 days on Saturday. To say I’m excited would be a mahoosive understatement. Havent been out to the PDS in years, and the conditions look awesome at present. So glad that Avoriaz are participating in a day for Jake on the Sunday, so dicking about on boards will be encouraged! Even if there is no new powder, 4 days of immortality await 🙂

Interesting @TroutWrestler…..I’ve never met a Telemarkist before! Or considered giving it a go either….maybe I should?

First check of pass sanitaire today, for anyone coming out in the next few days, remember your suncream, the factor 50 is just about saving me at the moment (Irish skin).

Pistes are doing ok, but it’s warm and they haven’t had fresh real snow for a while, so they are scraped and near icy often at the moment. 3 valleys area for reference.

Still, it’s bloody great to be back and I’m shattered from all the skiing which is how it should be.

Did a week in paradiski last week. Sunny every day, good (piste) conditions although no new snow. Realised at one point carving down an empty red run facing the almost-sunset that it was the happiest and most relaxed I’d been for 2 years.
Roll on normality.

As others have said, here in France hard pack in the morning slight porridge in the afternoon.
Clear skies at night so it freezes, then warms up by lunch.

Full mask wearing in supermarkets but not much compliance with holiday makers in resort (we’ve been wearing them) as they think ‘Oh I don’t need to, well yes you ‘flippin’ well do.
Definitely not seen or heard any heavily made up, jewellery wearing Russians around.