The STW Ski & Snowboard thread. The 2012-2013 season

First ski holiday booked for early March to Borovets. Can’t wait.

Thanks hammerite – will get in touch with them.

Going in the next few weeks. May be paranoid but I don’t like to say exactly when I’m going on holiday on a public forum.

GrahamS – yeah a few people I know really rate Mayrhofen. Was slightly put off by the idea you can’t ski to the village and I read that the main gondola can be a bit of a bottleneck for queues etc. Going early season they quite often don’t have the parks open yet but I’m guessing there is one on the glacier if it’s open all year so that shouldn’t be an issue there.

Wouldn’t worry too much about queues Mayrhofen. Can always get bus to Horbergbahn lift rather than take Penkenbahn, and then you come in to the main ski area from a different side. At the end of the day, you can have a beer or 3, and take lift down at any convenient time (not that I ever had any major queues there).

I read that the main gondola can be a bit of a bottleneck for queues etc

Yeah it can be – get up early, or late!

Got a bad reputation because it used to be much, much worse – they never used to have a queue system at all, just a massive rammy of hundreds of people trying to squeeze through a couple of doors at the top of the stairs!

(our technique back then was to form our group into a phalanx: snowboards held vertically as a wall of shields, ski poles as spears to poke away aggressors, women and children protected in the middle!)

No worries Grum. Use the search thing on Alpine Answers, there seem to be some excellent deals that don’t come up elsewhere.

Interesting hearing all the stuff about Mayrhofen. I’m seriously thinking about going for our Easter trip, found a good deal there last week that I nearly pulled the trigger on, but decided it was too early to book. Since found out that it’s also Snowbombing week then, so maybe not the best time to take an impressionable 11yo boy there (although he may learn some new things!).

First ski holiday booked for early March to Borovets. Can’t wait.

On that note, I’ve been looking at deals in Bulgaria and on the face of it they seem very good value indeed.

I’ve never been there before and am looking for somewhere as nice as possible at start of Feb to take GF on her first ski hol. For obvious reasons, I don’t want to go somewhere I’ve been with ‘the ex’ which limits the usual favorites a bit and we want a hotel rather than chalet or guesthouse.

Is the hotel ‘star rating’ the same there as in France/Austria? Looking at somewhere like THIS which looks very nice and fantastic VFM.

Comments, thoughts, recommendations welcome.

EDIT: should add that she will be going to ski school and I’m not too bothered about hooning around on steep/deep myself as fitness level dictates I’ll be happy pootling around getting my skiing/boarding legs back 😉

Cheers

Grum – for example…. Les Arcs we stayed here a couple of years back. Our host (who most certainly won’t be there this year!) was a bit of a twonk, the chalet is a bit basic, and it’s a bit out of the way from the rest of LA 1800. It’s still an easy walk for an evening out, bit more for the lifts – but might be easier with good snow coverage – it was pretty bare when we were there!

this is it’s sister chalet which seems available the week before http://www.alpineanswers.co.uk/ski-chalets/france/les-arcs-1800/chalet-cicero

I love shopping for holidays!

Woody – I’ve never been before but from what I’ve read it’s great for beginners. The tuition might put you off though. It’s 4 hours a day for 6 days, 2 in the morning and 2 early afternoon. That was with Crystal, you could probably get private tuition when you are there.

Instead I’ve booked my OH in at Chill Factor for lessons before.

That’s unusual. I thought it would be just mornings and then I could take her out in the afternoon to practice what she’d learned. Might be worth a couple of private lessons to get her going (and save arguments 😆 ) and I can take it from there.

Main thing I’m concerned about is standard of accommodation and food as I want to make sure she enjoys it!

Grum – Kitzbuhel is great for night life. The town itself is very pretty with the typical tyrol feel.
However I agree unless you can make the most of getting speed up before the flats and having courage to tuck, (not sure what you call it on a snowboard) then its going to be a bit of a walk (easier in snowboarders boots).

I’m not a fan of having to bus around either. Having the usual Austrian ways of pushing, shoving and general elbows out instead of queuing as we Brits do, does my head in.

4 days into our “cheeky week” and what a good idea this last minute booking was, 20-50cm of fresh powder every day so far, and deserted in this little white gold mine

Massive thumbs up to White Room Chalet, if it wasn’t for Stevo posting here (as they do biking holidays too) I’d never have heard of them or this great little resort of St Foy. When you have two guys who’ve done seasons in Val pick this as their off psite venue you know you’ve madea good choice. I’ll do the fb and trip advisor recommendations too but I cannot recommend them enough and I’ve been skiing for 35 years now,mother chalet and in particular the cooking is outstanding.

BH – was the bus thing about Kitz? There wasn’t a huge amount required that I can remember – and certainly very avoidable.

Woody – sounds like Bulgaria has similar ski school model to Austria. If that’s the case they usually have a couple of hours in the morning, stop for food on the mountain with the instructor and then continue for a couple of hours in the afternoon. I think Jnr ended up having a longer lesson (i.e. 10am-3.30pm with a shorter lunch) as a result.

I’ve only had private lessons in Austria, not group, but it can cause a problem if you end up a solo skier for the week! The OH now goes in lessons if I do so she doesn’t have to ski alone – we end up in the same group most of the time now anyway.

jambalaya you can’t come on here telling us how good the conditions are without posting some pics 😆
Hope the next few days are just as enjoyable!

Thanks hammerite and Bunnyhop. I’m not too bad with flat tracky bits but my missus still isn’t that confident about going fast in a straight line.

re. that point, is she using any sort of rocker board, made a huge difference for me on the flats as you know you won’t catch edges, therefore confidence to go faster 🙂

Got my first runs of the year last week and first time using the gopro snowboarding so might as well post that… its currently dumping down at city level so looking forward to the second night of the year tonight!

hammerite – Member

BH – was the bus thing about Kitz? There wasn’t a huge amount required that I can remember – and certainly very avoidable.I was a very unfit person back then (1993 season I think) and we always got the bus back at the end of the day. Had a few close shaves of getting to the bus stop with plenty of time, however being pushed around so much, that it was hard to get on the bus and I’m not good when tired, hungry and getting shouted at by a large Dutch man for nothing, on a holiday I’ve saved hard all year for…… Mini rant over.

jambalaya you can’t come on here telling us how good the conditions are without posting some pics

Agreed!

PICS DAMMIT!

rs – can’t see the video.

Ok – there is no way she will do that for a week! I might just have to bite the bullet and teach her myself.

My Daughter turned out a tidy skier so what could possibly go wrong 😯 😆

fixed it bunnyhop, here’s a pic too…

Ha ha ha good luck Woody. My husband has been trying to teach me for years, goes in one ear and out the other – whoops 🙂

Edit – thanks rs. Lovely

Woody, I’ve been to Borovets and I’ve been to the Grand Aigle at Serre Chev. If I had to choose between them I’d take the big eagle!

Impressive memory shifter but that is not what I wanted to hear 😆 Seriously, that bad? I’m definitely not roughing it 2 trips in a row!

Ha ha ha good luck Woody. My husband has been trying to teach me for years, goes in one ear and out the other – whoops

Haha Ive had that problem too and the only time she skied ‘properly’ was when she got angry. Didn’t always make for a relaxing holiday and was one of the reasons I took up boarding!

Well you did mention it a couple of times… 🙂

Ok,it was 10 years ago when I went to Borovets but the whole thing was very eastern block. Had some great nights out though, don’t know what they put in the free shots but we had no problem staying awake until 1 or 2am. Good steaks in the little restaurants along the “strip”, don’t know what animal they were but they were good eating!

Not really been photo conditions as snowing almost all day every day – the other group in the chalet as GoPro addicts so if I can get a link to their footage I’ll post .. here are the best of very meagrely photographic pickings

4 days ……………
looks like my Monster 88’s will be useful
although rising temps bringing in rain will make an unstable base even more dodgy .
Slack country antics me thinks

They look pretty good photos to me Jamba. Looks great.

32 days until AdH for me. Sounds like an affliction 🙂

About 8 months until AdH for me, summer holiday with those little skinny dark side bikes. Need to go back there to ski, did my first week there and found the jump between the very easy nursery slopes and the blue runs to be quite big, so barely scratched the surface of the ski area.

I was thinking the area doesn’t look that big…
Good luck riding up that hill!

250km for the area so a reasonable size. Need to go back and do it justice, probably only did 10% of all the runs there, still not sure whether I’d do Le Tunnel though!

Thanks. I’ve ridden up it a few times, last time was when I did AdH triathlon. Looking forward to riding the marmotte route with some mates.

Apparently the tunnel opens up to mogul mayhem – that I may skip, but the rest I’ll be doing twice!

Yes. After typing that last night I decided to search youtube for “Tunnel Alpe d’Huez”, some very amusing videos and some shockers too!

Skiing in Scotland, anyone been there and done it?

I’m thinking about a cheap weekend up there sometime soon depending on conditions.

Not sure which resort, we’re both beginners though.

I’m thinking about a cheap weekend up there sometime soon depending on conditions.

That is the key for Scotland….conditions……..

If you can leave it as late as possible and check forecast/snow conditions it will give you the best opportunity to enjoy it. Problem is, that if it’s nice, it will be busy wherever you go with long queues. It can be wonderful, or one of the most miserable places on the planet if you’re unlucky.

Which side of the country is easiest for you to get to?

Re: AdH and the tunnel, the first “section” is quite character building and like most difficult runs it all depends on snow conditions, if they are poor it’s best avoided. I’m not a particularly good skier but I’ve skied the run a few times without too much drama.

I’ve also skied this, well when I say skied I mean in the sense tumbling down it ..

http://www.travelmole.com/news_feature.php?news_id=2004431&c=setreg&region=2

Snow report!

Which side of the country is easiest for you to get to?

I live in Bolton so it’s all a bit of a trek, but I suppose Glencoe is the the closest. I’d want to make it as cheap as possible, just another snow fix before the season is out.

Glencoe looks great but I’ve never been there as I lived in Aberdeen, so it was always Glenshee, Lecht with the occasional trip to Aviemore.

I’ll leave it to the ‘locals’ to advise 😉

Chuck Morris – Member

Skiing in Scotland, anyone been there and done it?

I’m thinking about a cheap weekend up there sometime soon depending on conditions.

Not sure which resort, we’re both beginners though. What Woody says is correct.
We ski Scotland once a year and I can honestly say I’ve had some of the best conditions ever on Nevis Range. However I once went up for a weekend and high winds just shut every lift. It’s a chance you take.
As you’re a beginner I’d plump for Aviemore/Cairngorm. There is plenty of snow up there at the moment and more forecast, so a good base already.
http://www.winterhighland.info has good advice, or you could join snowheads.com, which has a whole thread running about Scottish skiing.

Old skool couloir content here;