The STW Ski & Snowboard thread. The 2017-2018 season

Thanks Bluebird 🙂

this been on yet. love the yearning for turning series.

Just sorting gear for a trip to Glenshee tomorrow for me and Junior 2. Decided on the Wedze rock hoppers rather than risk my Sunday best, although conditions look to be improving all the time. Fingers crossed for a better season than last year.

Looks stunning for tomorrow

Anyone been to Montgenevre? Any good? In particular for snowboarders?

(It wouldn’t be my first choice but I’ve been offered a cheap spot in a friends trip)

We went to claviere which is just over the Italian border and part of the area pass.
It seemed fine for boarding, not the most attractive place though, but if you are getting it cheap then no reason not to

Getting excited now, month to go. Just discovered that XC60s need special snow chains as the regular ones that wrap round the inside of the wheel risk cutting the brake lines. Didn’t see that coming 🙁

Other than that any recommendations for insurance? Used to use my breakdown insurance but don’t have that at the moment. Carre Neige seems ok price wise but doesn’t really do third party cover

Not sure about insurance but there is a big thread about snow chains on snow heads. Concencus is the Thule ones are much much easier to fit at the side of the road in a snow storm..

There’s a brief discussion on insurance on the previous page.

I just tend to do a search on travelsupermarket and pick a cheapish policy with a decent defacto rating which covers me for offpiste. Paid about £38 for both us at Christmas.

nice vid jam bo, that’s a ‘trench digger’ snowboard I think, there is one for sale second hand near me…

Monday morning at work, can see snow on the tops. Not jealous of these folk at all…

[that may update, but rest assured, bluebird skies looking across Rannoch Moor as of 1100. Looks great]

Was rubbish* yesterday

Actually, whilst the sun shone, the pistes were very thin in places and the lifts were rammed.
Some lift queues were 30+ minutes until they eventually opened Butcharts and Carn Aosda T-Bars.
It’s hard to understand how these couldn’t have been opened first thing, as there was no new snow during the morning.

I was at the Coe on Saturday, very nice snow and amazing visibility but bloody hell it was busy! Great that it’s baltic now though with more snow forecast.

LOADS of snow in the tarentaise at the moment. Espace Killy is more or less on lockdown – no skiing at all, no cars between the villages overnight, people advised to stay at home and don’t even walk around. When you see the pics in this facebook post you will understand why

At the crown, that slab that broke away was over 3m thick. The avalanche over Piste L that goes down to Laisinant reached the new chairlift and some of the trees are balanced on the lift cables. Quite worrying times

Zermatt is cut off at the moment, 13,00 tourists are stuck there. An avalanche blocked the service road a few days ago and now they’ve stopped the train from Täsch for safety reasons as they have a category 5 avalanche alert…

Link (in French)

It is looking a bit bonkers out there at the moment.
The accumulation on some of the buildings looks crazy.
As are some of people out there

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FHenrysAvalancheTalk%2Fphotos%2Fa.559236574130888.1073741827.144067082314508%2F1515303288524207%2F%3Ftype%3D3&width=500&#8243; width=”500″ height=”514″ style=”border:none;overflow:hidden” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true”></iframe>

I just tend to do a search on travelsupermarket and pick a cheapish policy with a decent defacto rating which covers me for offpiste

But do check the small print as you might find that you are actually covered for very little … for example one of the biggest costs can be ‘repatriation’.

I’ve used ‘Snow Card’ and BMC for a number of years. BMC is very comprehensive (especially if you need SAR) but penalises with higher premiums if you are a snowboarder.

Snow Card is very flexible depending on your needs/destinations with sliding scales with their online quote for the amount of cover you want for various items etc.

Thankfully I haven’t had to claim with either so I can’t comment, but I do remember reading the small print on a long haul flight a few years ago to discover that the online discount insurance I’d bought was probably as much use as the sick bag in the seat pocket in front of me!

Duane – I’ve ski Montgenervre a few times. It’s the French end of the Milky way. Snowboarding will be great if both sides of the resort are open.
Plenty of miles to get in if you cross the border.

Anyone been to Montgenevre? Any good? In particular for snowboarders?

Skied there and really liked it, with the Italian side it’s a good area. Can’t comment on snow boarding though.

Only thing that’s annoying about the snowcard is if you’re doing mostly resort skiing, but do a day or two of touring where there might be some tricky bits and it’s a good idea to bring ropes and crampons, you can’t bump up 2 levels for one day. It costs a fortune to get a high level of cover for a two week trip, and when you’re punting around on the pistes and in between most of the time, it’s a high proce to pay for the right cover for 1 or 2 days where you might be exposed to the extra risk (well balanced by being away from wannabe racers/vin chaud pissheads, IMO!)

Tangent ahoy: Snowcard and BMC used to be underwritten by the same company, Fortis a few years ago. Just been online and found that BMC’s insurance has flitted round a few different Lloyd’s syndicates in the past few years, now Antares. Not a great sign. Fortis are still behind snowcard, but changed name to Ageas.

Further to the above that no-one else is interested in, it looks like a couple of the guys from ProSight moved to Antares, so BMC probably moved with them.

BMC’s insurance has flitted round a few different Lloyd’s syndicates in the past few years

I’m interested Ned! 😉

I can’t find the link at the moment and you may already know the backstory, but a few of years ago a couple of climbers got off route in a bad storm in Italy and called for rescue. One was with AAC who paid out straight away. The other was with BMC whose underwriter tried to wriggle out on a technicality (they hadn’t been declared missing)

In a nutshell there was a big fuss over on ukclimbing.com with the BMC understandable concerned so from memory they paid up and changed underwriter.

I know what you mean about the Snowcard levels.

Thankfully my trips tend to be either cruising the groomers with the missus and staying inbounds, or clenching my buttocks following McNab …

This year though I had to go for ‘Extreme Adventure’ which makes me sound more ‘Radical’ than I am … 🙂

Edit … found it:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=585185

Didn’t the BMC also have an issue with a celebrity and Antarctic? I’m afraid that’s as far as my recollection goes and it could be complete heresy but I seem to remember a jump in premiums with a rumour around that….

The cut-off villages and impressive quantities of snow have been on the news tonight. Phones aren’t working in some areas but most roads have been opened this evening. One Brit missing in Tignes. It’ll be a while before off-piste is anything less than suicidal, the snow is very heavy.

Didn’t the BMC also have an issue with a celebrity and Antarctic?

Aye … it was rumoured to be TV’s own Bear Grylls … his rescue was said to have pretty much have wiped out BMC’s coffers …

Whether or not it was his actual claim that bumped up the premiums I have no idea for sure butt he BMC did say this about the increase in their cover:

“> Secondly, we’ve had several particularly large claims: a £210,000 bill for a rescue from Antarctica, a number of high-cost snowboarding claims from the USA and some big hits from accidents on cruise ships. These claims weren’t from our core members going climbing, hill walking or mountaineering, so we’ve addressed the issue by introducing a detailed questionnaire for polar region cover and increasing the policy loading on snowboarding from 35% to 50%.”

Just came across this and thought it might interest some. If your interested in historical piste maps that is…

http://www.skipass.com/news/157205-histoire-imagee-du-plan-des-piste.html

Aye … it was rumoured to be TV’s own Bear Grylls … his rescue was said to have pretty much have wiped out BMC’s coffers ..

those 5* hotels don’t come cheap.

The Mash has a bijou article on skiing today. 😀

Thanks for the insurance info – will take a look at snowcard
Was about to press buy on a set of snowchains from amazon then had to go pick up my daughter. When I came back they had gone up 100EUR :(. Might wait a few days and see if they drop back down. Bloomin demand pricing

edit: and snowcard – I wonder why they bump snowboarding up a level from skiing – even including the on-off piste bit. Weird

Leffeboy, check the classifieds on Snowheads, most get sold before they get used!

Great idea. I’ve tried all of the local ebay type things locally and in France but classifieds sounds better

Long weekend from Scotland via GVA. Which resorts are easiest to get to on public transport? Chamonx looks like just over an hour to drive, but 3 hrs+ on public transport, so are there any resorts nearby with better public service transport? I guess a private transfer is also an option, but would prefer not to if possible. What you got?

@oldtennisshoes try Champery, Leysin or Villars. Train to Aigle/Bex and change there. Really easy and all possible in just over 2hrs from airport station to bottom of first lift.

@oldtennisshoes. There are loads of different transfer companies running out of Geneva now that you can book individual places on and that work really well. I did a short break to Chamonix a while back and the transfers were really easy, even with significant delays to my flight out there.

Thanks folks, I’ll have a look at those suggestions.

Verbier? (£££££!)

Hi Old, St Gervais lovely little town, offers miles of pistes for all standards, plenty of accommodation.
Ouibus.com, 4 buses a day from Geneva airport , about 1hr 10 mins transfer 19 Euro each way per person.
Mates flying in solo on shorter trips use it to tie in with us as we are always large numbers on private transfers. They say its easy to book and easy to use.

Can anyone give me any advice regarding Borovets?

Specifically for a first overseas family ski holiday. Two kids, 4 and 7. The 7yo already skis top-bottom at Cairngorm, but is still plough-turning. The Mrs and I are both experienced skiers. 4yo will want a crack at skiing, but will no-way manage all day.

The ski school looks excellent value, just worried that the skiing for the adults is a little limited.

Trout,
Go steady if you or the family need the loo!
EDIT NSFW

Aldi ski specials out yesterday