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

In 64 we’re on vigilance orange for avalanches at present which means the roads up to many smaller resorts will probably be closed by the Gendarmes in the morning. Another metre of snow has fallen since yesterday which added to January’s already impressive falls means we’re wating for “the big one”.

Woken up to yet another dump of snow in Kirchdorf – it’s snowed 4 days out of 5. Steinplatte was excellent yesterday.

Only two decisions to make today – where to go and do I ski or hire a board 😉

The ski resort with the most snow at the moment is Cauteret.

Don’t come to whistler, haven’t had good snow since december!

I manage to do the ‘picking up a foreign bug’ thing too this year. Felt crap for the last two days but through sheer stubborness didn’t miss any lifts-open time. Coming home on Sunday I let it all wash over me and spent the day in a snotty stupor, to the extent that I managed to leave my jacket somewhere and not realise until getting off the plane at Gatwick.

Dumping hard in Slovakia.
Propaganda Snowboards just mentioned on facebook that they had a 40cm overnight fall in the town 😀

Fingers crossed it stays like that till the end of the month.
Not sure the new gondolas will cope though…

😉

Edukator – I do put it down to the alcohol a little. I exercise more when at home, but I’m on holiday so have the odd drink, though rarely to excess. I’ll have to wait until Jnr is a bit older until I’m stood outside with him drinking in my disco clothes – I’m going to get old disgracefully.

Graham – what’s happening there? The surely haven’t had that much snow! When we were in Arabba I noticed having to duck down to get my lift pass recognised, there was more than the usual snow underfoot so the turnstiles were lower than usual (and it’s not because I’m tall as I’m only 5′ 10).

I actually find it rather hard to drink a lot when on a skiing holiday. No idea why, possibly the cold, possibly the exertion. A pint or two at the end of the last run, perhaps a pastis before dinner and a glass of wine or two over dinner and I’m pooped! Must be getting old!

Rarely drink at lunchtime these days, either. Well, beyond sharing a carafe of rosé, that is…! 🙂

Until I discovered Bombardino I didn’t drink at lunchtime either, but any stop became Bombardino o’clock when we were away last time.

I’ll probably have 3-4 large beers a night max, maybe a couple more when we’re away for Christmas day.

I think that’s kind of Edukator’s point. Most of those amounts would seem a lot to your average français.

Great time skiing today in the Vercors, almost too much snow. Not bad considering I took Etienne to school and picked him up and managés just under 4 hours skiing.

I think the Brit drinking is quite tame compared with some nationalities.

My drinking was limited in Serre Che the other week. Nothing at lunch, a vin chaud or two après, then a couple of glasses of wine with dinner and bed by 8 or 9!!!

Off to Kreischberg with the lads in a couple of weeks though, so a different story will be told. Austrian apres is sooooooo much more fun! I am token girl and usually manage to keep up, but hopefully the fact that most of the boys are now dads will slow them down a bit.

Mugsy – the lit I worked with in Lyon used to down a bottle of wine each for lunch, but then that was maybe to numb the effects of having to work for who we did!

Ah but vin with a meal isn’t drinking.. it’s merely part of the eating experience…. 😆

My MIL always offers me a whisky as an aperitif, makes me laugh all the time and it’s become a legend between Mrs Mugsy and myself.
But we got all paranoid the other night and started to wonder if it really was that odd.

One thing’s for sure, after today’s skiing my lurgy that the whole family has had and has been lurking with me has fully stood up. Felt so grim when I got back home.

Decided my Bandit B2’s are dying. My first skis and 9 years old. They don’t seem as springy as they used to be, and the edges are constantly going out of tune. Thinking of getting some K2 wayback’s: anyone got them?

Off to the Dolomites for 5 days tomorrow! Decided today! 😀

Just taken a detour home to pick up a new pack (North Face Patrol 24, looks very well thought out) and turned a 6 mile ride home in the pissing rain into a 15 mile ride home in the pissing rain. I had a little tickly throat before, so fingers crossed I won’t succumb to any of that lurgy up there ^

Hooray for me, etc.

Next question: which board to take?

The fast as hell, stiff as hell, bit of a handful 176 Prior swallowtail (2001 vintage)

The 161 salomon freestyle board from 1998 that’s still in OK nick

The 164 rockered splitboard, despite the fact that I’m not going to be doing any touring. (it’s still awesome)

Can’t help with the board choice, but have fun Ned.

there’s a great chance we will, cheers!

Easy enough to take them all with bindings off innit? Then you have options depending on conditions. We took three boards and two sets of boots and bindings in one bag on our last trip.

I have a mate who has to stop for hot wine approximately every 45 minutes. I once had to wait at the top of a drag lift wondering what qas going on for about 20 minutes as he ‘needed’ one to get up the lift.

Graham – what’s happening there? The surely haven’t had that much snow!

Nah – it was taken during construction 😀
But it was doing the rounds on facebook with various people slagging off the Slovaks for building the lifts so low 🙄
See http://vas.cas.sk/clanok/7450/verejny-vysmech-na-facebooku-slovaci-sa-bavia-na-zaseknutej-milionovej-lanovke.html (or Google Translate if your Slovak is a bit rusty 😉 )

Until I discovered Bombardino I didn’t drink at lunchtime either, but any stop became Bombardino o’clock when we were away last time.

Ah yes. Bombardino. Tried them for the first time this year. Not unlike drinking hot alcoholic custard.

Also tried Campari and Soda this year (when in Rome Italy..)
Utterly vile. Tastes like parma violet sweets that grannies like, disolved in some dishwater.

On the subject of alcohol – on the group/family holiday we regularly get fairly trolleyed (in a responsible middle-class way) but normally only in apres bars and the free wine at dinner.

On the slopes it’s just the odd hot chocolate mit rum.
Though the skier in the group does carry two medicinal hip flasks: anyone that has a big stack or is flagging is offered a choice of brandy or Cointreau 😀

Very poor pinky-finger action there, Graham. Must try harder.

😉

Very poor pinky-finger action there, Graham. Must try harder.

This any better?

By the way Flashy, OT but you might enjoy this.

Liking your work there, sir, so very true!

And – Top pinky action!

The bus up the hill was cancelled due to too much snow on the road so I’m stcuk down on the plain. 🙁 The bus company says they reckon the early morning bus should make it though. 🙂

… and home is?

Scunthorpe.

Believe me, there was no snow in Scunny today 🙂
Hope there’s not too much on the hairpins up to AdH tomorrow afternoon…

Les Pyrénées. I feel stupid posting where home is on every post and hope people on the thread will remember if I mention the place from time to time. “Up the hill” is here. If those guys finish I can go bouldering tomorrow evening.

Ah yes Graham, I forgot the hip flask! Got bought one a couple of years ago and forgot to take it away with me every trip until the last one. Almost felt like a character on Eastenders having a bad day and necking neat vodka (except I had rum and wasn’t having a bad day).

Need to get faster to keep up with my 6 year old.

Going back to lessons with help, but what about a stiffer all-mountainish board? I currently ride a Volkl Coal.

Going to test a couple of all-mountain boards at the local Xscape, but it’s not really the same as a proper hill. What should I look out for when I test them?

Any thoughts on fast stable boards? I’ll be keeping the Volkl so I’ll still have a soft fun board.

Edit: 6 foot and 16 stone if that influences it. My view of flexi might not be other people’s.

Back after a great week in Kirchdorf. Not much in the village area itself but good stuff on Steinplatte and St Johann. I was absolutely gutted not to have got to Feiberbrunn but as it was the GF’s first time skiing we made the most of the hours available rather than the two buses it would have taken to get there.

Now left with a dilemma. I’ve skied the past two holidays but prior to that had a 2 year gap, before which I boarded for 6 years and before that skied for 30 odd years. The original reason I started boarding was because the ex-missus was slow and I got bored and although my new GF did very well on her first week, it’s going to take a while for her to get any real speed up. I don’t really mind a few slow runs as I can whip off into the off-piste light/reds/blacks and meet up at junctions etc. but what really brought it home was on the last day, one of the instructors took pity on me (he had been watching me patiently sticking with the GF most of the time and he ditched his private lesson pupil (who was knackered) at a bar and took me on a wicked powder run through the trees with some moderately steep/deep stuff.

This is where the dilemma kicks in, as although I enjoyed it (despite a couple of comedy moments) I couldn’t help feeling that it would have been better on a board, even though I’ve always felt that I was a much more competent skier than boarder. Seems that nowadays I’m not much more than barely competent at either 😐

Apologies for long ramble but there is a possibility I may get away again in April and I’m feeling that I should concentrate on one or the other so that my one or two weeks a year can maintain/improve the skill level.

Anyone else had to make a decision and if so, which did you choose? Equipment/cost is not an issue, as I still have all my gear for both.

igm: Just how fast is this 6 year old?? 😯

Isn’t the Coal a super-stiff race board? Volkl rate it as 9/10 for stiffness.

Woody: can’t comment on skiing but I’m very familiar with boarding in a mixed ability group.

We generally mess around a lot on the slow runs: practising butters, riding switch, dropping into piste-side slackcountry, carving etc (there were a lot of slow runs in The Dolomites).

We’ll normally split from the group at least once a day to go on a powder hunt and we’ll do the black home run while they get the gondy down.

Have to say though, my main solution is to book a second cheapo holiday sans family and beginners 😀 That way I can relax and cruise on the main holiday knowing I have some cheeky fun coming up.

Back from the Dolomites (Arabba). Excellent time again, as usual. Snow was pretty decent all week too.

Ended up a bit of a “see how many miles you can rack up” week, after clocking up 97km one day, then having to go back out and claim the 100km a day or so later. 310km skied / 500km total inc. lifts etc.

Had a play on a pair of Stöckli FIS race stock slaloms for a day – me likey 🙂 Nimbletastic skis that need to be skied properly – no sitting back unless you want them to throw you off (had a couple of “reminders” for lazy skiing, but survived). Think I prefer them to the retail spec Atomic and Salomon GS I tried before.

Mmmm @ Bombardino, but prefer Calimero personally (same thing, but with shot of espresso too).

Pics later.

Outdoor skiing again today in Ogden if anyone nearby fancies it. I can’t make it.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Another-World-Skiing-and-Snowboard-Centre/139343429452940?ref=ts&fref=ts

This is where the dilemma kicks in, as although I enjoyed it (despite a couple of comedy moments) I couldn’t help feeling that it would have been better on a board, even though I’ve always felt that I was a much more competent skier than boarder. Seems that nowadays I’m not much more than barely competent at either

I can ski pretty well but prefer boarding. Nothing in the world quite like gliding through fresh powder on a snowboard IMO.

Ended up a bit of a “see how many miles you can rack up” week, after clocking up 97km one day, then having to go back out and claim the 100km a day or so later

LOL – our biggest day was about 30km of piste (according to that skibeep website). We’re not a fast group 😀

Strangely that 100km day was largely in Alpe di Siusi / Seiseralm, which was almost like a langlauf fest. Lots and lots of poling, or at least it felt that way. No way were any of the red runs red – more like a perfect blue for teaching drills on.

Outdoor skiing again today in Ogden if anyone nearby fancies it

WEARDALE[/url] is open today apparently but I couldn’t summon up any enthusiasm to ski on lightly covered grass after a week of daily fresh powder 😀

Nothing in the world quite like gliding through fresh powder on a snowboard IMO.

Agreed

Our biggest day was 48.8 miles, although we didn’t set any targets Jnr and I were pretty disappointed that we didn’t manage to eeek out an extra 1.2 miles! and it was a our last day so we couldn’t better it.

Strangely that 100km day was largely in Alpe di Siusi / Seiseralm, which was almost like a langlauf fest. Lots and lots of poling, or at least it felt that way.

Yeah – they’re not quite so much fun on a board. 😀

Sometimes I quite like the challenge of approaching full-speed then running flat & straight on a long blue just to make it to the end (and then waiting nonchalantly at the end for those forced to do the Walk Of Shame)

But generally they are a pain. I wish the maps would identify them more clearly – blue seems to cover everything from flat narrow road to nursery slope to actually-quite-steep-in-places.

Sometimes I quite like the challenge of approaching full-speed then running flat & straight on a long blue just to make it to the end (and then waiting nonchalantly at the end for those forced to do the Walk Of Shame)

But generally they are a pain. I wish the maps would identify them more clearly – blue seems to cover everything from flat narrow road to nursery slope to actually-quite-steep-in-places.

Agreed, the map would be especially useful for poor visibility days where you can’t see that it flattens out, so you know to let it run a bit.