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

Have to say Graham, having videoed myself at 40-ish mph I was disappointed at how slow it looked when I watched back!

Looks like the course flows quite a bit more than the Vancouver course with all those rectangular blocks all over the place. Good job they have those flags on the crests nightmare to spot in bad light (although I guess the racers know the course like the back of their hand by race time).

Yeah I guess if the rider is smooth (or the image is stabilised) then it doesn’t help either.

The Ski Sunday piste-cams always seem to catch the speed quite well – but I guess they splice in a lot of third-person viewpoints too.

Looks pretty fast to me!

I have one short vid of me on holiday (taken by GF) where I felt I was going a bit quick but actually looks like I’m barely moving down a slight gradient 😳

Well after a silly amount of prevarication I’ve blown my beans on a week in Chamonix.

First ski trip to Scotland and the weather gods have been very generous. No wind, zero cloud and not too chilly. Off to Glencoe today so hopefully it’ll be the same over there.

When you going Al?

Two more sleeps and it looks like it might be snowing again in Morzine. Whoop Whoop!

One more sleep for me…

…well.. one sleep till I get the train down to Brum, stay the night at the airport hotel, get up at silly o’clock, fly to Bratislava, then get a train to Liptovský Mikuláš, then a minibus to the chalet…

..but by Sunday morning I’ll be on the snow 😀

Oooh controversy as the French ban British ski reps:

Taking le piste: French win court battle to ban British ski reps

Bit more info here: http://www.planetski.eu/news/4683

Warning: May not contain a viewpoint free from bias!

Sunday morning on the Snow for me too.

The downside is that I have to get up at 2am on Saturday to get everybody and everything to the airport for 4am. 🙁 but

Thumbs up for lastminute.com

After having a ‘polite’ word with them about selling a ski holiday where the resort closes the day after I arrive, they have come back to me with………

……….a brand new apartment in Flaine, ski in/out to the door with swimming pool, sauna, gym etc. for the same price!!!. Woooohooooo 😀

Alpe d’Huez a week ago for us – bloody marvellous snow (as they say in the provinces, “POW, baby”). Not sure the resort’ll become a favourite but the snow made it fantastic

PS, If I understood the French geezer correctly, the route that the megavalanche goes down is for grannies 😉

Just sat in the bar at Gatwick, waiting for our delayed flight to Salzburg….

Result there Woody – enjoy 🙂

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21557838
Sad news.
It somehow looks like the girl was standing up. The safety bar was down, so she must have gone over the top.
In all my many years of skiing I’ve never come across this before.
RIP.

Fab pics of scotland. Just booked a holiday there!! Should be hitting Aviemore and The Lecht. Looks like the snowline isnt too low as we’re thinking about taking our bikes aswell.

Any good trails near to avimore/lecht area?

Just had a fantastic sledging session opposite our chalet in Morzine. My first time sledding ever and I loved it. Bring on the first day of skiing tomorrow

Great result woody, but if its the brand new appts the pools not ready, lol get back onto last-minute selling a holiday without a pool!!!!

http://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/monday-morning-debrief-15/
K2s? Nasty!

…and the legs shouldn’t ache after a week in Cervinia. It’s all pretty easy stuff, although good fun to have a blast on as they’re all really long runs.

The photo looks like it was taken from the terrace of the hotel we stayed in last Christmas too.

Couple of Pictures from Chatel the week before last – I know pictures of chalets are boring – but is was chocolate-box perfect. Couldn’t grumble about conditions at all 🙂

2 things I have learnt this week are. Its really hard to ski with a bad ankle, so much so I got really angry with it yesterday. And in the absence of proper snow boots 5:10s are brilliant on ice. I’m the only one who hasn’t fallen over on ice in the village in our group.

I’m the only one who hasn’t fallen over on ice in the village in our group.

OOOOHHH, that’s bold! 😀 How long have you got left there?

Good luck I Ache. One of the challenges for me in Arabba was walking round the bend in ski boots every morning without sliding into the middle of the road, the camber was most tricky. It was only a 50 metre walk to the slopes!

Off to St Anton next week. Is it possible to ski from St Anton to Lech without dropping down in to Stuben to get the bus? I heard a rumour (somewhere) that its possible to hire a guide who will take you? Any advice?

Is it possible to ski from St Anton to Lech without dropping down in to Stuben to get the bus?

Think there’s a bus from St Christoph – that might save you 5 minutes 😉

🙄

Just been looking up snow heads and guide prices. Might be better just getting the bus.
😯

cobrakai
Im off on Sat to StAnton . Staying in Flirsch in a b&b then driving up each morning .
Should be different to our usual ‘ All I have to do is be at Gatwick at 0600 and Skiworld will do the rest’ type of holiday.
No new snow forcast though 🙁

Got some work mates going out on Sat as well. Think there’s about 12 of them staying in St Anton. If you see them, you’ll know. I’m going to Innsbruck on Wed then travelling up next sat. If there’s no new snow by then i’ll stick to on piste.

Me and 2 mates are staying in Apartment Flunger which isnt too far from the town centre.

You are right Flashy, I think a lot of K2 skis look nasty! I liked the look of last seasons Obsethed, not a big fan of any of this years models though.

And how anyone could accidentally fall off a chair lift is beyond me!!

Yep, it’s a shame, as they ski so well, but just look so terrible!
I mean, look at them!

These are lovely though!

exactly! Old school K2 colour scheme, much nicer. The guy I was in the dolomites with bought his 2nd choice board because he couldn’t stand the graphics on the K2 he wanted most.

K2 Rictors ftw.

Can’t see the graphics once they’re under the snow 😉

So many ski (and tea tray) companies are making such stupid graphic choices it puts people off buying their stuff.

The people who actually buy skis, or boards, are people who go often enough to merit the purchase, therefore they are people who earn a decent few pennies. Therefore, I think they’re people who are likely to buy “nice” things.

So, fave graphics/imagery of the year? For me, it’s these;

Or this thing of loveliness;

or this even more lovely, IMHO

I’m with you on the Arbor stuff. Jones snowboards look quite nice too.

Those Gentemsticks are lovely. They were the first things I went to look for when I got the Snow and Rock 40% off email.

It wasn’t a devastating surprise to find they were still full price!

The names they have too, like comeback, gotback, flashback… etc 🙄

.

I last skied 20 years ago. I spent many winter weekends between the ages of say 13 and 18 skiing on Whakapapa in NZ, a not too technical when you’re on the piste mountain. I vaguely recall that I could ski anywhere on the piste in a controlled but perhaps not always stylish or fast way. It transpires that next month we are heading on a family holiday to Val d’Isere with friends.

I have started (tonight) a stretching program, and will start concept 2ing tomorrow for endurance. Can anyone offer any helpful hints or advice? Our chalet looks ace, but I don’t want to do a Howard Hughes! I’ll be taking lessons, but if anyone knows the mountain it’d be lovely to have a bit of a plan – up this lift, ski run A, repeat till lunch, go here, relax kind of thing!

Cheers (in a very apprehensive manner!)!

Hi Markie,
After lessons on first day, take olympic up to the top of the face and from there ski down the blue to the bottom of fontaine froid chair. There is a green and a blue run to get the legs in then back up F froide chair and ski the blues or reds to la Daille, if there are beginners you can take Borsat express up to a long green run down. Getting back is either ski to La Daille and bus it back along the road, ski the face (superb olympic black run) or catch the olympic back down. I strongly recommend against doing the blue Santons (if its open), can get really busy and you end up pushing for ages.
Chocolate stops… the creperie does great chocolate as does the patisserie on the main road, none of that surgery crap you get on the mountain…..