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

Bluebird, pizza at the Orso Bianco and steak at The Village.

In a fit of being prepared, I’m using some time off to pack all our kit into one of my DaKine Split rollers. It’s really reassuring to be using such nice luggage, with lots of features and compartments to separate everything. I’m so pleased I didn’t go for a budget :cough: Animal :cough: roller. 😀

(Glad you’ve enjoyed Montana O’Flashearty…back when I had a real job, I managed a week in Crested Butte on the company credit card as a result of a 3 week project in Dallas turning into a three month one. It was a blast!)

While we’re on luggage – the douchebag ski/snowboard bag is ace. does exactly what I’ve always wanted a bag to do. pricey, but 50% off shop soiled plus buthdy voucher and I couldn’t say no!

CFH – hadn’t twigged that it had been so long. must be amazing to be back on skis, and in such a great part of the world, too. 🙂

Ooooh keep sending these wonderful photos please. It’s keeping me sane and aiming to ski next season.

Have fun everyone.

Three days of falling/drifting snow has left some excellent conditions in Coire Cas today.

The Lecht was also superb today 🙂

It’s snowing hard outside the office today!

What’s the chances of the only day I can ski this week involving 70mph winds?

Glenshee was sparkling this morning. The bloody snow clagged in just after lunch though.
Might head back up tomorrow.

Some more piccies from today:

If anyone’s interested – these were all taken with my Fuji XF1 compact. Great little camera for the £100 it cost me.

Lovely. You have a great eye grum.
Out of interest how much post work have you done on those?

Cheers Graham (oh and CFH from earlier!) – I’ve done a bit of processing in LR but it’s a pretty quick job. I shot in RAW and I have a standard preset I apply that adds clarity, lifts shadows and pushes down the blacks. Then I tweak exposure and sometimes crop etc. With some of them I’ve applied graduated filters over the sky.

At some point I might post some before/after shots and a bit more detail about my processing but probably not on this thread. 🙂

I’d be interested to see that grum – but yeah, maybe a different thread.

(I got into Nikon’s CaptureNX for a while, but they’ve dropped support for it (gits) so I may need to look at Lightroom sometime soon)

I would be very interested in that, grum! I do like your photos.

Great shots!
Where abouts are you staying?

How has this video been shot? Is it a drone?

They haven’t half got some bad technique too!

Helmet mounted pivoting gimbal thingy. Looks like one of those 70s reading lamps

Edit: think it’s called a gospin

Ah I see, I bet that’s fun when you do a head plant!

It’s on a gert propellor thing fixed to his helmet.

I wonder if the French police will ever let on about schuey’s crash and the involvement of his helmet cam. There’s loads of rumours going around within the ski/boarding community that the gopro was a key factor.

Why? Did the go pro make him crash?

Thanks nedrapier – not sure if I should reveal my secrets but it’s really nothing clever/fancy!

colp – staying at the Salzburgerhof hotel in Dienten with my brother, my mum and her husband. My other brother and his kids are staying elsewhere in the resort. It’s a great hotel – the desert buffet is astonishing. 🙂

I’ve not really skied in about 20 years – it’s like riding a bike though (awaits dissing of my technique). 😛

I still maintain on normal hard-ish pistes skiing is more fun than snowboarding, but then I’m not that into doing loads of little tricks like butters and spins and stuff which I guess makes the piste more enjoyable.

I’ve had great fun here on skis just doing really big fast carving turns down wide, relatively empty pistes.

We did have a bit of powder too and I’ve been practising my off-piste ski technique which is getting a lot better. I still don’t reckon that will ever be as good fun as snowboarding in powder though.

Grum – why do you feel it can’t be as good off piste?

Skiing off piste is effortless once you get it right. I used to race and spend my life on hard packed pistes. After stopping ski racing I spent a long time skiing off piste, to the point that it is actually easier skiing off piste than on.

Do you feel that off piste is hard work?

Do you feel that off piste is hard work?

No, I used to though – still is occasionally but mainly on inconsistent snow. I enjoy skiing off piste now and am constantly seeking out bits of powder like I do on a snowboard. There just hasn’t been masses of it to go around this week so I’ve been enjoying trying to carve fast on the piste.

I’ve got to the point where on nice powder it feels pretty effortless – it’s still not as good as snowboarding on powder though!

Admittedly I’ve not tried it on those really big, fat skis – the skis I hired are pretty standard piste skis I think.

Why? Did the go pro make him crash?

Supposedly the mount went through the helmet.

I doubt this is actually correct, I could foresee a gopro mount making a helmet shell deform in an undesirable way during an impact though

There’s a nice off piste route we call the “field of dreams” in Dienten.
You cut across the drag lift by Burglalm and head out across the fields, end up at the lower end of Dienten with a 10 minute walk back up to the 2-man lift base. It’s awesome with fresh powder.
I’m back out there in 2 weeks, can’t wait!

Does anyone know where I can get some new legs?

Boot packing in to untracked powder fields this afternoon after a morning smashing between the pistes in floaty pow. Don’t want to leave this place.

A propos of nothing, does anyone else sometimes feel an intense hatred for someone they’ve never actually met? 😉

FFS…heading out tomorrow for a three nighter Boys trip near Garmisch and forecast is shite!

😥

I’m off to Arc 2000 on Sunday. Forecast looks interesting… lots of snow without much let-up! Thankfully there are trees further down the mountain!

So the Canada roadtrip for the big 4-0 is over. That’s not only my age, but also turned out to be a statistic: 4 resorts – 0 powder. The west of Canada is being hosed by the jetstream, so less snow than usual (which is now turning into a drought) and unseasonably warm temps to start the season. All the locals and season workers are walking around with a haunted look in their eyes. Tourists rolled out the ‘well we could be in the office’ cliches, while some Australians we spoke to were just glad it wasn’t raining – they had four days of skiing in the rain in Fernie. Heli and Cat ski operations are cancelling trips, and smaller resorts have closed down.

Of the resorts we visited, conditions at Revelstoke were absolute dogshit, think late season Morzine slush and moguls, but frozen solid. Lake Louise and Sunshine OK, luckily a dusting of snow in Kicking Horse, so one good day’s skiing there, then bulletproof with patches of sheet ice on the bottom of the mountain the next.

Anyway, still had a good time, lovely scenery and the guide managed to get me into some boot deep powder on the last day.

Blame Canada.

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Big sale just kicked off at the Westbeach site. 🙂 Gee2DaEss, t-shirts are reduced. 🙂

A propos of nothing, does anyone else sometimes feel an intense hatred for someone they’ve never actually met?

Every time I open the thread

torsoinalake, that’s a shame you didn’t get better conditions.

Revelstoke and Kicking Horse are not places I’d want to ride when the conditions are bad. We spent a week in Kicking horse a few seasons back and conditions were terrible – an unusually dry season and bear size moguls everywhere. On the flip side we had a few days in Reve last season when it was dumping and the place was fantastic.

We had a couple of weeks in Japan (Niseko) at the start of Feb, like everywhere else it’s not having it’s best season, but even so it was great. If it’s like that during a so-so season I can’t wait to go back and experience conditions during a good one.

One week till Whistler. By the sounds of it we’ll be spending most of the trip in the bar 🙁

whatnobeer: you still out there? What you doing with your days?

2.5 hours left at work for me, it can’t go quickly enough! Snow cams at Alpe D’Huez look suitably inviting 8)

One week till Whistler. By the sounds of it we’ll be spending most of the trip in the bar
whatnobeer: you still out there? What you doing with your days?
POSTED 49 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

Take bikes? Mate of mine who lives in whistler appear to have been riding Squamish a bit recently.

they had four days of skiing in the rain in Fernie. Heli and Cat ski operations are cancelling trips, and smaller resorts have closed down

Yep … 3 weeks in Fernie was supposed to be Part 1 of ‘My Last Big Blow-Out on the Snow’ as I’m not getting any younger. Has a great time but the conditions were not the ‘All-time-epic’ I was expecting (or become used to in B.C.!!)

Really felt for the locals and the independent retailers. A friend who normally works for one of the Cat-Ski operations has been fishing recently since there’s no work and no ice in the rivers!!

Part 2 begins this weekend with 3 weeks in the [European] Alps … fingers crossed for some good conditions – I’m a bit reluctant to look too closely at the forecast though! 😆

Take bikes?

Unfortunately the two guys I’m going with both have blown shoulders (too much climbing) so bikes are out. (Not really into big mountain or DH anyway).

I’d quite like to go snowmobiling as that is always fun but same issue. 🙁

Yep … 3 weeks in Fernie was supposed to be Part 1 of ‘My Last Big Blow-Out on the Snow’ as I’m not getting any younger

Phew. I thought I was the one that had jinxed it.

bluebird, I thought both Reveljoke and KH had the potential to be fantastic, if only there was more/fresh snow.