The STW Ski & Snowboard thread. The 2013-2014 season

@GrahamS that video has me in tears plus a bit of gagging in sympathy !

On the avalanche pic you can see how steep the slope is top left. As an aside I did an off piste day which included a session of avalanche work it was quite scary how bad we were at finding a burried transceiver and also how heavy and block like the “avalanche rubble” is.

It’s also positive you are getting a transceiver, I’ve quite a lot of friends with them. I don’t as I only do “genuine” off psite with a guide if we are venturing far and they provide them. I know what people have posted above but the truth is the vast majority of people skiing off psite don’t carry a transceiver especially when “in bounds”. You can manage the risks by understanding the conditions and terrain and getting advice.

@grum nice photos.

Shame you didn’t enjoy your day Stevomcd. What did you think of Fernie though?

Fernie was great, loved it! The snow was terrible when we were there (February 03? 04?). Really bad – rocks and dirt showing through the pistes, but still had a good time, and it did eventually dump during the last couple of days of a 2-week trip.

May have been as you describe at FWA, i.e. they were matching the terrain to the group, but I didn’t get the impression that they had much steeper stuff to offer. The snow was pretty poor, which didn’t help, but if it had been deep, I think (as a snowboarder) it would have been a struggle not to get stuck at times!

Dezmond is probably in a bus en route to resort right now, so could feasably get an extra afternoon as payback for 0500 check in .
Huh! I should be so lucky. Arrived at resort 12hours after check-in! Delays due to fog at Innsbruck, then some numpty losing his duty free and having to make a police report, while we all sat on the coach. Not a great start and I’m knackered from it.
No decent snow here for boarding yet, so not sure what I need to do to not get a bit bored with slicing my way down hard pistes… any tips? (hire some skis is not outside the realms of possibility!)

Cheers folks – pretty impressed with the little thing (and more importantly it looks cool too). Never had a properly decent compact before. Sony RX100 II looks like a winner but it’s pretty expensive.

any tips? (hire some skis is not outside the realms of possibility!)

That’s what I did – actually quite fun once you get over how much the boots hurt in comparison.

ny tips? (hire some skis is not outside the realms of possibility!)

Snow over at Lech was a bit better than St Anton last week.

A friend of ours ended up hiring skis and getting private lessons at a cost of around £300 all in for 3 hours on the Thursday after getting a sore leg from boarding. Might be worth a shout getting in on some group lessons in the morning on skis and boarding in the afternoon?

Delays due to fog at Innsbruck

that happens, and seems to be UK flights don’t have pilots qualified to land there in fog (or something).
Was in Innsbruck once waiting for flight in from Manchester, then got text to say they’d been diverted to Munich due to fog. Well it had been foggy, and planes landing all morning (Lufthansa/Austrian, etc.). Flight arrived 4 hours later after doing the short hop from Munich.

Was definitely foggy all weekend.

@GrahamS – btw – sterling exchange rate with Canadian dollar is looking favourable at the moment … you might only have to sell a body part rather than a whole child! 😉

you might only have to sell a body part rather than a whole child!

It could be a child’s face! 😀

I had a great time at Fernie Wilderness Adventures. It certainly wasn’t “steep” but I don’t remember expecting “steep”, or being disappointed by what we got. We were spending the season in Fernie. The snow might have been perfect for that area, maybe 8” of fluff with more consolidated powder underneath. My 70kg laden on a 168cm will have helped too.

I don’t know if the same is the case now, but if you’re in Fernie for a while, you could get on the day visitor waiting list for Island Lake Lodge. If they’ve got a spare spot, and you’re next on the list, they let you know, you turn up at the parking lot sodding early and get scooped up by snowcat or skidoo and taken up to the Lodge. We got a spot fairly late in the season, the light was a bit flat, and the snow a bit wet, but the terrain was incredible.

Wherever you are, I’d say what makes the difference is your approach and your attitude. Sometimes you can’t help how you are, especially if your expectations were sky high and you’re a bit disappointed, but if you can put your happy face on and get your shred on, you’ll have a good time. If you’re happy where you are, if you’re feeling the snow, feeling your edges, if you’ve got your mind hungry for reading and using the terrain for goodfeelingtimes, you’ll have fun no matter what the conditions.

“Expectations reduce joy.” – some Indian lady my wife used to work with. Very true.

Have we done this?

Forecast looking good for tonight & tomorrow 🙂

Ned, that’s some super sketchy stuff there! Their bases must be mullered!

All the same guy I think. Impressive, hey? I think “the right skis” in this case means “your oldest skis”!

Have we done this?

That’s some serious terrain. Not much room for error.

if you can put your happy face on and get your shred on, you’ll have a good time.

Exactly nedrapier! 🙂 Well said – kindof like Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘If’ … but with a waxed-base … 😉

Just a nice hot chocolate at the edge of the piste makes me happy 🙂

Bunnyhop, for me it’s the first lift coffee from Sandrine in Chantemerle. Little kiosk just by the main lift station. Everyone gathering around in the morning, a really positive atmosphere of folks looking forward to their day on the hill.

A nice double espresso while I do up my boots and then, allez, c’est partie!

😀

Whenever I go to Kreischberg with my boy chums, they always insist on going to this lovely wurst bar over on the far side of the resort. Always at 11.00am. And it’s lovely, always has happy locals getting on the cocktails. 😆

Flashy – I can appreciate all of the above, however coffee is not my thing. Do like people watching though first thing in the morning.

More scaremongering nonsense?

http://unofficialnetworks.com/swiss-alps-sees-deadliest-start-ski-season-15-years-127776/

Some ridiculous urban jibbing etc going on here – can’t do a direct link:

http://vitaminl.tv/video/2145

On the Fernie conversation, it’s the only place I’ve ever skied where it was warmer stood still than it was skiing. The added wind chill from moving was painful. If you have the cash and your heading that way, try Snowwater it has the option of heli and backup with cat if the weather is too bad for the chopper. Some great varied terrain, not flat..

Bunnyhop,she does a great chocolat chaud as well!

grum, thank you for that! Not laughed so much at a ski/snow film since G.N.A.R.!

So much, funny, inventive, jaw-dropping stuff in there.

Thanks again!

Grum, that was a great vid, thanks! Some really fun and inventive stuff.

im hoping to get another week in boarding somewhere this winter 🙂

@GrahamS that video has me in tears plus a bit of gagging in sympathy !

Me too. So grim. Can’t stop laughing.

Ah Jedi you are hooked 🙂

We’re off to one of the fridges asap to see if I can hold a stick, if so, then watch out peeps I’m coming to a piste near you very soon.

Flashy – have you tried Italian hot chocolate, ’tis more like delicious gloop?

I had a good search for a video I had on the avi topic but i seem to have exorcised it ! It was taken on a heli day (we were doing a photo shoot for some clothing from memory) near Mt Potts. We’d been out bombing in the morning but there was a cracking line which just needed skied. I knew the risks, i expected it to be a 50/50 call on whether it would let go but the layers meant it shouldn;t be too bad. As it turned out it did, i had made two turns though and then did a 0-70kmh powder 11 with a big brown line up the back. Very stupid (esp given what i was doing for a job) but quite exciting, the vid was from the heli and it gives you a very clear view of the acceleration and carnage.
For whoever it was that was surprised about the avi debris being hard – it’s like concrete usually as the friction melts it then it refreezes plus there is often very little air in it. I’ve broken shovels a few times.

More scaremongering nonsense?

its an unusually high number people of dying that way though isn’t it, why is that nonsense? not trolling, just curious why the deaths and warnings are being rubbished on here but being dealt with seriously elsewhere.

i’ll be at mk tmrw 🙂

More scaremongering nonsense?

almost every year gets flagged up as “most deadly start to the season for X years”.
i don’t believe that each year is progressively more deadly, so must be the way they select and report statistics.

Nedrapier – showed my 7 year old your video. He watched it for a minute and said “I think their a bit better than me. I’d do the skiing but not the jumps”

I suspect he fancies a go.

grum, thank you for that! Not laughed so much at a ski/snow film since G.N.A.R.!

So much, funny, inventive, jaw-dropping stuff in there.

Parenthetically, CASI posted that same video on their FB page with the question: “Does this help or hurt snowboarding as a whole?…Discuss.”

Personally I thought it was exactly as others have said i.e. funny, creative and hugely entertaining, but sadly, I can see why it might fuel the ‘haterz’ argument about snowboard ‘punks’ …

[btw – I’m guessing the CASI question is directed at the first part of the video with the ‘Youth Gone Wild’ soundtrack rather than the Nico ‘Jazz Fags’ Müller soul-riding part…]

@jedi you’re hooked ! Early March always offers good value and typically decent snow. I cannot say how spring boarding is (could be a bit damp for boarding if it does get warm) but the longer days and sunshine of later in March are wonderful on skis. Also the normally hard/semi frozen pistes of early morning are a great excuse for a lie in.

Tonight BBC4 21:00 looks like it might be worth a look:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03l5lvh

cheers digby – that got really good feedback when it was on BBC scotland but I didn;t catch it on iplayer