Wednesday .- Overnight snow approx 20cm so Monster 88’s out for playtime.I was now coming down with man flu , but being a legend battled on armed with Ibuprofen.

That’s the spirit! 🙂

Thursday . Doctor still out of action and seeking external medical assistance 🙁 not good . Snowing and windy out so played in the slack country locally and over around Montchavin side. Some excellant paths in the woods below the Vanoise express. Wind built through the day and we struggled to get home. Sat on the chairs up from the Blacks above Dos Rond was scary. Approx 40 mph gusts and the chairs kept stopping and wildly bouncing up and down. Had to cover all exposed skin as it was blasting ice at you rather painfully. At one point we stopped 20 yrds from the ridgline, they were having to stop and unload each car as the winde over the top was pushing kids back under the chairs.
To get back to Bellecote I had to sit on the tails to avoid poling down the blue runs .
My mate bottled it and took the bus but i risked the Collossus lift home and thankfully it ran non stop . We went to the pub that night in Soleil and it was proper howling with intermittant power cuts.
The drinking did little to lower my temp , but numbed the pain slightly.

Friday. One of the best days skiing ever , wind gone and clearing skies. Very busy and lots of lifts shut due to very high avalanche risk. They blasted pretty much all day and some parts never opened up.
This is the first week I have had really got alot of use from a fatter ski. It really is cheating and makes what was tricky and tiring on carvers almost easy. Went up to the Roche de Mio about 5 times and skied under the Carella chair .
I do have a bleeper , but I was on my own as my mate had a gay hissy fit in the queues ( 30 mins in town ) buggered off.
This was some of the stupidest skiing of the day . Skiing down 30 – 50 cm of fresh on > 45′ slopes , next to already slipped snowpack.

Yes, it was amazing and flattering snow , easy to ski on but worth the risk? probably not.

I was saved by a teext from hissyfit ” Get yourself to the button in Bellecote NOW ”

Fortunatly the Tunnel is right there , so a quick tear up the an ESF instructor and i was there in about 5 mins.
He had found an entire wood with gulleys and ‘singletrack’ with approx 1m of powder in it.
He skis on these american short fatties , about 90mm wide and 100cm long. These are great for super steep deep powder runs in tight trees. we just kept on finding untracked areas , even followed a piste security guy through one gulley . He fortunatly stopped at a 20ft cliff with a tree in the way halfway down so a comedy walk out was required. I was pooped, being ill and having about half of my normal get up and go unfortunatly meant an early end to the day .
To be honest I could have spent hours in there. It was safe, fairly steep , and soft snow without thousands of out of control idiots trying to scythe you down.

Sat. Flight at 1800 . Coach at 11.30 , so not enough time for a 1/2 day and it was blue skies all round. Traffic awful in the valley and took 4 hrs to get to Grenoble.
Plane delayed AGAIN , this time reverse thrust clamshells stuck in reverse. Unfortunalty we were airside , and in Grenoble there is next to nothing to do .
4 hours delay whilst a different aircraft is re-routed . Got to LGW at 11pm then home at 0100.

SkiFrance admit they have a bad reputation so are trying to improve all areas of service. Its not SF’s fault MOnarch planes break down , and they were just as good as Skiworld once we made it to resort. Although the cooked breakfast was tiny , and no porridge option.

Nice one STM.

I was on one of the Innsbruck Monarch flights (outbound). They weren’t stuck in Innsbruck, they were stuck in Friedrichshafen as that’s where we’d diverted to. It meant everyone who went to Innsbruck to fly home had to get to Friedrichshafen and as they were still stood freezing at a service station somewhere in between Innsbruck and Bregenz at 7pm those planes were going nowhere.

I was at least at the same service station sat on a warm bus waiting for other busses to turn up with people from other flights diverted. We ended up with an 11 hour transfer from Friedrichshafen to Arabba.

We’re in Arabba this week, for the first time. Today we did the Sella Ronda, which is the Italian Ski-Lift Appreciation Societies route linking all the major ski lifts in the Dolomites region with as little skiing as possible. Where you have to ski, they have used only mediocre pistes, so as not to distract from the Ski lifts.

Scenery was nice though.

Sellaronda, Dolomites, Italy by brf, on Flickr

Sellaronda, Dolomites, Italy by brf, on Flickr

Sellaronda, Dolomites, Italy by brf, on Flickr

Sellaronda, Dolomites, Italy by brf, on Flickr

Nice Footflaps. Did you do the orange or green route? I found the orange route marginally better.

Can never remember which way is Green and which is Orange, despite having done both numerous times.
Can see where you’re coming from regarding “Italian Ski-Lift Appreciation Societies”, though, especially the section from Corvara to Selva (chairlift that goes both ways, chairlift, short slide, gondola, 2 short runs and 2 chairs, then 1 actual proper piste [take the black, not the red, it’s not really black tbh])

Nice pics!

exactly 1 calendar month to go… can’t wait!

Aaaaaaah, what is it about photos of blue skies, mountains and snow that makes them just so completely, gob-smackingly, beautifully awesome?

Aaaaaaah, what is it about photos of blue skies, mountains and snow that makes them just so completely, gob-smackingly, beautifully awesome?

It would be because they are so completely, gob-smackingly, beautifully awesome?

HTH.

🙂

So is Clive Owen, but photographs of him don’t elicit quite the same feelings 😆

So is Clive Owen, but photographs of him don’t elicit quite the same feelings

You sure?

😉

Eeeewwwwwww! You meany!

Nice Footflaps. Did you do the orange or green route? I found the orange route marginally better.

Orange, apparently for true Lift Officionados, you have to do the Green route, we copped out and just did the Orange route.

Came across the weirdest thing on the slopes today as well:

Random Cow on the Dolomites Super-Ski area by brf, on Flickr

Where was that Footflaps?

The green route has the 3 lift no ski bit between Corvara and Selva, must say I was a tad surprised when I came to that bit.

Just had a great couple of days skiing at Oslo Winter Park. Took my daughter to introduce her to skiing and was really surprised at how good the runs were. Also a lot of jumps and swoops put in to make it more fun. Also floodlit and no queues which made it fun.

Not cheap but stayed in central Oslo and took the Metro 30 mins up into the hills. Bloody excellent place!

Been back a few days now from Valmorel. First time skiing so not much to compare too but had an amazing time there. Was wondering how much we would struggle on the slopes and we did at times but others was awesome.
Valmorel is a pretty little place with skiing to the door with a free bus up and down the mountain for some other areas.
I managed all the greens but some were tougher than others and some of the blues not so bad with some tough ones, bit of a mixed bag with my ski ability.
Weather wise we had it all wind rain, blue skies and snow! friday skiing was awesome powdery snow in places.
We drove there and id say thats definitely the way to go, was so easy really, didnt even need the snow chains and paid for underground parking, took everything we wanted and also stopped off for some shopping.
had some esf lessons which i think were reasonable at 55 euro for 1.5hrs for 2 people and english speaking. pass prices were ok i guess and equipment fine. they had issues with some of the lifts cutting out though which is the only real negative i can think off.
i’m a bit disappointed with my photos, they just dont tell the storey but i got the memories. i’ve got the skibug for sure.
I’m sure the place wouldnt suit all as was loads of families but had a nice little atmosphere and everyone was friendly and helpful.

Where was that Footflaps?

Somewhere near Belvedere, just off the Sella Ronda – you can’t see it until you go right up on the ridge just to the left of:

Sellaronda, Dolomites, Italy by brf, on Flickr

Normally you traverse under these mountains to the right, missing the cow / bull.

Why is it always the way that it snows just as you leave resort!?

Heading back home this morning but woken up to fresh snow and it’s still snowing here in Wengen!

At least I’m back two weeks today so fingers crossed it stays snowy!

Nice one footflaps. Off to Canazei in 3 weeks. First time in the Sella Ronda / Dolomites.
Looking forward to it even more after seeing your photos. 😀

Why is it always the way that it snows just as you leave resort!?

Not always the way! I remember getting to resort for a Christmas ski trip once. There wasn’t much snow at all in the village, and a bit up top. To a bar, where an old chap said, “Don’t worry, it’ll snow. Lots”.

It did. Massive dumps!

Loving the sunny Italian shots above!

Just thought I would add that I only have 7 weeks to go and only the transfers left to book and pay for.

Cool Footflaps, only really skied round there in passing. Need to go back so we can ski the other areas a bit more. We covered Arabba and Corvara/Pralongia a fair bit but only did the others on the Sella Ronda route.

Dobo – was it windy? Lifts are a bit stop starts when they’re being rocked by winds.

Was snowing this am, but brightened up later on and then clouded over by about 3pm.

On the way back to Arabba by brf, on Flickr

Sun comes out finally! by brf, on Flickr

Quiet pistes as daylight fades by brf, on Flickr

I love those quiet end of the day cruisers!

I still need a riding buddy for a 5 night break 14th – 19th of Jan.

I have been offered a studio in Chatel for the 5 nights for €45ppn including breakfast and dinner. Flights from Leeds aren’t too expensive.

31 Intermediate Snowboarder (Goofy) NS GSOH.

In Champagny for the week, got 3 days left, parts of today were amazing as there was about 10cm or so of fresh snow (depending on where you were), found some really nice un-tracked lines, I don’t know my way around at all though so didn’t take too many risks, stayed fairly close within eyesight of a chair lift.
Anyone else out here or know it well? Like to show me around?? I’ll be back out in the middle of Feb. 😀

Has anyone booked a very last minute ski holiday? I’m looking for one leaving this weekend but don’t really know where to start apart from crystal, inghams etc – and I’m sure there must be more interesting options!

Neilson, Igluski, Alpine Answers, Chaletline…..

Best calling them as sometimes the websites aren’t updated with the best deals. Also worth calling if you have any special arrangements.

During our lessons last week the instructor recommended that we get Jnr into a club for some race training. I don’t think that it was because the instructor saw him as some big talent, but more to push him and improve his skiing further.

Anyone have experience of race clubs at UK fridges? We’re close to MK and they have a club so whilst it’s a bit more inconvenient than village cricket club training, it’s not too much of a problem.

Are kids expected to have all their own kit? Jnr has clothing, but his feet are rapidly expanding and we only ski twice a year so he doesn’t have his own skis or boots. Whilst I don’t think he’ll want to ever stop messing in the snow (he’s mentioned snowboarding lessons so might move from skiing) – I do worry that he’ll get fed up with training 1-2 times a week and we’ll be stuck with a load of kit that won’t really be recreational skiing friendly.

Skiworld
SkiFrance
Ski Solutions
Ifyouski
Mark Warner
Usually its the flights that are the probleem

Erna Low if self driving

The solutions room a chalets direct if you are happy to organise travel yourself

More photos from the land of posh lifts and mediocre pistes:

Alpine Hut by brf, on Flickr

Liz working out where we are by brf, on Flickr

Dolomites Super Ski Area by brf, on Flickr

Dolomites Super Ski Area by brf, on Flickr

Dolomites Super Ski Area by brf, on Flickr

More photos from the land of posh lifts and mediocre pistes:

Can’t say your photos are putting me off much footflaps 😀
How is the off-piste / slackcountry? It certainly looks good.

The Dolomites is very picturesque, but piste wise it is really beginners territory, not a patch on a French resort where Reds & Blacks are actually steeper than Blues. Not done much off-piste as don’t really know the area. To be honest, I wouldn’t come back here skiing, back to French resorts for us.

Crying with laughter.

Crying with laughter!

You’re not wrong….sooo funny!

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85AHvpGTkdU[/video] Hope this works Wallop.

It reminds me of myself back in the day.

Thanks Bunnyhop! I can never remember how to embed.

Awesome video – just been hooting with laughter in the office.

That bloke with the beard and natty ski-suit was a total liability!

Superb video!

That was about the era of my first ski trip! Les Arcs 2000. In a green C&A onesie. Awwwwww, yeah!

I used to love watching the old Warren Miller films, where he would speed up the newbies getting off the chairlifts.
Lifties used to just pull the poor victim from the floor and throw their poles and skis after them.