The STW Ski & Snowboard thread. The 2014-2015 season

ratswithwings: wow, never seen the Tux glacier in full-on summer mode!

I have something of a love/hate relationship with the place. Cool place to ride & great park, but I only ever go there for exams (which I don’t always pass….)

Going to Chamrousse in the first week in January.
Feeling a bit conflicted though.
Got a good deal on Groupon for the accommodation with SnowTrex, but it means that we will be taking 7yo Miss TTP out of school for a week (bad parent I know).

Now to look for new goggles and helmets. Any recommendations?
There are some Dragon NFX goggles on SportPursuit that seem to be a good price 2013/24 model for £64.80.

Already been walking around the house in full boarding gear.
Come on snow.

Might do the ol’ Crystal Ski to Les Deux Alps. Pretty basic, but the snow’s just as cold as everywhere else!

We went there last March as a family. We stayed in the big Neilson hotel which is right on the piste, next to one of the bunny runs. It was great for the kids as Neilson did kids clubs etc and there was good tuition available too.

BUT I would say the resort was pretty limited for experienced adults. We were snowboarding and felt like we’d covered a lot of the interesting stuff by day four. Probably didn’t help that it was absolutely scorchio while we were there so it was a bit of a slushfest at the bottom and there was no real off-piste left.

That said we enjoyed it, it was a nice place, the food was good (if pricey), it was t-shirt weather, didn’t feel ridiculously busy, good bars etc in town.

If you go then make sure you ride in Vallee Blanche too – which is the mini-resort the opposite side from the main one. It was much quieter, had good food and a couple of fun runs including a nice little in-bounds (controlled/”safeish”/sidecountry) off-piste between the black and red from the top.

Just booked my three day avalanche course in feb as a precurser (is that a word?) to my splitboarding course in March. Can’t wait.

Never been to skeikampen but have been to lillehammer and hafjell lots. it’s fantastic. Very very expensive mind

CFH- Just on the off chance we’re sat in the same airport lounge, when you heading out? I have a Lake Tahoe trip in early October (definitely no snow but maybe some bikes).

igm – there maybe snow. There has already been some in Canada and the weather men out in North America are forecasting a lot of snow from October onward.
Typical, when I can’t go 🙁

This thread is torture

GrahamS – Thanks a lot. I actually went to LdA three years ago on my first ever ski trip (I came to it quite late).

I absolutely loved skiing, so have great memories of my first time – even when my mate dumped me and the top of a red run and shot off! I really liked the little ski-cross course they had near the top as well.

To be honest not sure I’ll get away this year – I’ll just live vicariously through this thread. More pictures please!

but I only ever go there for exams (which I don’t always pass….)

will you be trying again next season stevomcd?

Serious preparation for the season going on here. A new sink and mitigeur, induction hob, 30mA differential thing and some wiring replaced, bunks repaired. While working I came across cupboard full of skis, boots boards etc. but shut it quickly as I didn’t want to get distracted filling holes in skis rather than walls. I ran up and down the pistes when the clouds lifted briefly so the quads won’t burn too much on the first descents.

Igm, LHR to SEA on the 12th, so in T5 First lounge earlier in the day. Will be in the BA lounge at SEA late afternoon waiting for the transfer.

Digby – yeah, will be. Hopefully won’t get injured in the run-up this time!

Still trying to decide where to go for Christmas 😐

Manchester to Chicago and I’ll be coming back on the 10th/11th Fri/Sat so I won’t even be able to wave as we pass.

I envy your west coast flight – you’ll be able to get a proper night’s sleep on the way back.

Missus has just had the 12 week scan so double whammy for me. I get a kid in April and she can’t go boarding in February so I get a lads ski holiday instead! Spent one day in Tignes/val so trying to convince the lads to go there for a week so I can explore it a bit more.

Right then you ‘orrible lot. I’ve been meaning to share a few pics to this thread so here’s a teaser

Want some more??

p.s. That was Broken River Bowl last Sunday. We had 20 cm on friday night. With the wind blowing it in, it was a sea of velvet smooth poweder. I wasn’t up there early enough to get first tracks but there’s enough for everyone to get some fresh. Saturday night we had another 5 cm smoothing it out a bot mor for another day smashing around. Note the rope tow on the far right – that sorts the men form the boys, the boys from the babies and the babies from the snowboarders 😀

All booked for Les Gets for Christmas.
Really excited.
Haven’t been skiing in 15 years.

Les Gets?

Burger at K2 then, tarte aux myrtilles at Le Veux Chene saucisson frite at the bottom of Belle Mouille and views from the bar halfway down Tulipe (it’s on the right and you can be past it before you see it if you’re not looking out for it).

And melted cheese everywhere.

Oh yes and you can ski and snowboard.

Thanks, was just gonna ask about places to go.
Wife and kids have never skied before.

Les Gets is good then. Good variety of beginner to intermediate stuff with nice steady progression between them. ral village too. The two bars I mentioned on runs are on reds though, but the bars round the rim of the bowl (which makes it sound like a toilet) are accessible via blues.

A number of decent non-ESF schools. We use 360 for our boys.

cchris2lou +1 – where to go with wife and three young kids for first trip?
Oh, and when’s best?

When?
Low season if you can – perhaps early to mid-March. Weather is a little warmer for young’uns by then but snow cover should be OK.

Where?
Loads of good places. Les Gets tends to be families with parents who can ski and children who are learning. Much less intimidating for beginners than say Avoiriaz that has a lot of teenage and 20 something groups learning to ski.
That said the other nice thing about somewhere like Les Gets is that away from the simpler slopes you just don’t see ski schools. Families yes, but with children who can ski.
Three valleys wasn’t child friendly in the same way (by my reckoning), Andorra was full of late teens,early 20s learning which isn’t great around learner children.

Thanks.

We are flying to Geneva so Les Gets is not too far either.
I was worried about lack of snow at Christmas but people we rent flat said in 20 years they had it, it only happened once.

growing up in france I have been to loads of different resorts, mainly 3 valleys and Tignes,val d isere.

What about Chatel??
Italy??
Thanks for any other pointers

Les Gets is really good for a first trip, we did year 1 & 2 with our kids there. you can get to some good stuff and back for lunch to pick them up after ski school or if you go the whole nanny thing you can get to Avoriaz and do all that during the day.

if you get powder go straight to Mont Chery though. SO FUN.

EDIT year 3 we went to Briancon / Serre Che which was also great and I actually prefer the mountain – tonnes of trees – although we had 6 powder days so that worked out pretty well while the kids were in ski school.

boxelder _ I suggest Italy, though somewhere with a quick transfer, so that rules out Livigno.
Maybe try Folgarida in Italy. Nice food, small resort, very friendly.
Or Passo Tonale, same as above.

Will get looking. We don’t really ski either – wife did years ago and I’ve done a weeks snowboarding, so don’t especially need ‘escapes’

Who’s been to Whistler? What locations are better for good value without being a silly distance form the lifts? (at this stage we’re not bothered about preference to either Blackcombe or Whistler)

We’ll be in Canadia for about 2 weeks in January – it would be rude not to.

Creekside probably has more budget accommodation than the main Whistler resort and you can still access the ski hill via the Creekside Gondola.

Cheers Digby – I’ll check out the accom over there

Some stunning images here commissioned by Mammut to mark 150 years since the first ascent of the Matterhorn.

link

Dunno if anyone else has seen the news, but it’s been confirmed that J.P. Auclair and Andreas Fransson died on Sunday while climbing a peak in Patagonia. Properly sad news. full story[/url]

If you’re not familiar with JPs work, here’s the street scene from All I Can.

Very news about Auclair & Fransson – JPs work was incredible.

Also incredibly sad news about Liz Daley 🙁

Link[/url]

Stevo. Soz for late reply. Yeah great car park and obviously some great places for biking.

Need to read up on wild camping in the Zillertal and we might go for a couple of months in the future.

So, if a snowboard distributor send you a shop’s stock of snowboards instead of sending them to the shop, what would you do?

Hypothetically of course.

Also I may have hypothetically recieved the a list of the trade prices for those hypothetical snowboards too.

19 boards

If they weren’t signed for and any are in the 160 W Region PM Me 😀

Id call and say heeeeeey you want your 18 boards bacck and see if you can snag one for you as a gesture

They weren’t signed for by me… And there’s a Jones Mountain Twin 161…

I’ve emailed the guy that I think ordered them – but he hasn’t replied.

The markup on a board is pretty meaty – perhaps unsurprisingly.

About £4.5k worth of boards trade or £8k list.

Sadly not enough to emigrate on.

I’m trying to think of things they might send me as a gesture of goodwill, but I can’t think of anything I need/want.

They’re a ski/snowboard/bmx shop.

Suggestions?

No suggestions?