The STW Ski & Snowboard thread. The 2016-2017 season

Aging snowboard fans will be delighted to learn that they can now buy Daniel Franck monogrammed training and activity socks on Sport Pursuit.

@Digby – aye, leaves a big hole behind. 🙁

I’ve spent a lot of years in the mountains and only 2 weeks with Ralf and somehow his name seems to come up all the time in mountain stories!

Ned – no, just no

Bought my pass this week. I’m back on the Epic Local this year for some Vail resort based fun. I’ll be spending a few days in Utah, obviously Colorado and California this winter so the Epic made sense.

Anyone seen a good beacon / probe / shovel kit going?

@stevomcd – yeah … I knew him from the days when he did some of the Backcountry Intro courses with McNab when Neil was still an aspirant … hadn’t seen him for a couple of years as he was busy with the Heli-Ski outfit in Kamchatka, but you’re right … his name always comes up in stories. A real character … and a really sad loss! 🙁

Booked for Les Arcs again this year (21-28th Jan) as I had a great time last year and loves the area. Time to improve and get gooderer so I can handle any red.

Would be nice to see some fresh snow this time, I think I’ve caught a tan on my last 3 trips.

Roll on the winter, he says sitting in a hot office in central London waiting for the cooler wetter weather to arrive.

Howsyourdad,
Face west were good when we got our beacons. We got Barrydox Pulse FWIW. Brilliant.
Face west are very good for support and firmware updates, I have sent mine back for updates twice, no charge.
They have got good advice and comparison videos on their site too.
Saw a good website on shovel choice / comparison, linked from this thread last year I think..
Square / horizontal top, so your foot doesn’t slide off, was the advice I think.

Thanks will take a look

Yeah, 19 weeks to go 😆

+1 for Facewest – I’ve bought loads of backcountry kit from them over the years and never had anything but great service. And as TheDTs mentioned, if you buy your beacon from them, future firmware upgrades are covered.

We have Morzine booked for January, hopefully there will be snow this season unlike last time.

After the pain from last season’s snowboard boots I have just today bought my first pair of snowboard boots. Some nice ThirtyTwo Light JP Walker’s hopefully they will help bring me on a bit.

Having your own boots is A Good Thing.

The hire boots I had last season were terrible, I could barely go an hour without having to stop at a bar for a pint. A good excuse but I was so drunk by the end of the day I couldn’t even remember how to do my bindings up.

Less pain and heel lift should mean I can actually make a decent fist of it.

Each year our usual group considers Japan, and each year we play it safe elsewhere. Seems such a big trip and outside of comfort zone of European or North American resorts where only speaking English is generally no problem and you can understand signs and menus (or at least make a guess with French, German and Italian).

Been distracted from usual North America trips for last few years with cheap week in Europe on package deals, but want to get back to my favourite of Utah.

V excited for this season, I got a Bataleon Magic Carpet towards the end of last season and it was a revelation, so looking forward to riding it as much as possible this year. Here’s hoping for powder in the PDS every weekend 🙂

Ok next question, anyone have any experience of making their own splitboard using one of the kits ? Quite want to try splitting but can’t really get transceiver , probe shovel , new downhill bike and splitboard kit all in one year my wife would go mental….

Ho Ho just booking up for first time with our 4 year old, wife did a cast around for some prices and VIP offered us a week over new year for a bargain 10 grand ! Errr possibly not.

**taps fingers on desk waiting for easyjet April schedule to be released*

geoff – are you in the EasyJet flight club?

There’s not a whole lot of benefits BUT they have this one:

We promise passengers will always get the best price fares from easyJet. If on a rare occasion passengers find the same flight on easyjet.com at a lower price, we’ll give them the price difference towards their next flight. Our customer support team are on hand, so passengers can give them a call

I booked return flights to GVA for the family of 4 for Xmas, for £330 in July.

The return flight was recently a lot cheaper that at the time I booked, I phoned up Flight Club chappie, and he’s given me a £102 voucher off my next booking. Unfortunately its not an automatic system, you have to keep an eye on flight prices yourself. So once a month I just check each booking and keep a note of it in…..you guessed it….a spreadsheet 😀

Stoner – will investigate ta.

Edit – Membership is by invitation from easyJet.

🙁

Easy Jet Flight Club? 😆 😆

And a bit more… 😆

Anyway, anyone know anything about Goldwin? If I do get away this year, some new trews may be in order, and these look goooood!
http://www.goldwin-sports.com/products/mens/g31510.html

Big colours, all about right on the tech front. However, I know next to nothing about the brand!

A PSA of sorts. Sports Pursuit (I know I know) have a flash sale on smith Helmets and goggles, including the excellent IO7 googles with a brilliant field of vision , and the vantage helmet which is the best helmet I’ve had and gets great reviews

Unlike us to be organised but long weekend in Morzine booked an family hols in Les Gets as well. Woo hoo

When you in LG then? Half term for us.

11th March for Les Gets, Feb for Morzine.

End of Jan for a trip to the milky way area

Flights released and booked for early April – yeah 😀
Just need to find somewhere to stay now.

Good call on the SP Smith sale as well, new helmet that actually fits !

Worried about whether I can afford beer at Alpine prices and the £/€ exchange rate. 😕

geoffj – Member
Flights released and booked for early April – yeah
Just need to find somewhere to stay now.

If you fancy courchevel I know someone who has availability in a chalet in le Praz 1st week of April..http://nhm-ski.com/%5B/url%5D Great guys, fabulous food nice chalet. 5 min walk to the lifts

Worried about whether I can afford beer at Alpine prices and the £/€ exchange rate.

You only need 1 Kidney and skiing is more important than having 2!

Thanks Smokey Jo, but we are now sorted.

Any recommendations for family insurance with off piste cover?

TIA

I’ve always wanted to go and see Iran. Looks like another reason now!

i’d love to go to Iran with a snowboard/ splitboard. If anybody is thinking of going… MIM

Any recommendations for family insurance with off piste cover?

Skiing or Snowboarding?

Have a look at DogTag, Snowcard, or BMC if it’s for skiing (BMC have an additional ‘premium’ for snowboarding)

i’d love to go to Iran with a snowboard/ splitboard

So would I … but I can’t see me heading there anytime soon despite recent developments in international diplomacy etc. There are loads of other places that aren’t so politically volatile that I’d rather visit first.

Just used my Easyjet flight club voucher* to pay for a chunk of our Easter flights. I doubt there’s going to be much snow left between then 10th and 20th of April, but PDS is still a great place for a spring break.

* eat it, CFH 😉

So that’s 21-Dec to 31 Dec
4-Mar to 8-Mar
10-Apr to 20-Apr

and Mother has given Mrs Stoner and I the nod to head out on our own in Feb for 4 or 5 days as well. Sweet. 28 days. Not bad 😀

That chalet in Le Praz, Courcheval up there^ is very tempting and I love the concept but I’d prefer to be a bit more central to the 3 Vallées… Does anyone know of a similar setup (catered chalet where you don’t have to rent the whole thing) in Méribel or Val Thorens?

You can ski into Le Praz from Bouc Blanc in about 10-15 mins depending on how many irish coffees you had at the Bouc Blanc 🙂

In Le Praz there’s a couple of good bars and the Peuplier Hotel has a really nice chilled out lounge downstairs although the Apres is more quite a bit more civilised than 1850 or Meribel! Although drinking pints of Gin Slushie in the Sports Bar on a Thursday when they have live bands on can be quite fun too.

Not much choice for eating out but the food at the chalet is so good you wouldn’t want to