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

Snow at MK… Jnr skis there 1/2 times a week for training. Snow condition fluctuates massively. If they’re having trouble keeping the place cold then it’s awful (for SL training). If everything is working fine (which it has been recently) then it just depends on the time of the day and how busy it is – early morning = fine usually.

Doing a day beginner course starts around 9:30am and will probably finish around 10am when I break my wrists!
As a mid forties old fart, I’m really looking forward to it but at the same time wondering if these things should be left for the young :-).

I’m 46. Read the last couple of pages and you’ll see that other than being a board rider (feet on ground to max six inches of air style) I’m in a similar boat.
To be honest you’ll have a lot of the forward pressure, weight on the outside foot style stuff from riding a bike.
Certainly that’s what I’ve observed in kids and I’m hoping it transfers to the middle aged.

Excellent work on learning something new. the more silver surfers the better1

Apologies I know you are only mid forties!

in other news, does anyone have any experience of cross country skis with the new skins on ? A colleague at work really rates them but I’ve only been XC skiing 18 months

Skins are for ski mountaineering and trekking surely, not XC – no?
XC is wax or fish scale patterns in the ski base.

(About to have my ignorance confirmed)

you ignorant fool!

ha that’s what I thought but apparently in around 2014 atomic released xc skis with inbuilt skins in the base. Apparently they are really good for those like me can’t be arsed to wax the skis but find wax free skis a bit shit, i.e bad glide. All the other manufacturers do them now and they are getting very popular.

Not quite as fast as a waxed up pair of skis, but very very good for those that like a bimble

The Valluga 2, St Anton, is it any good on a board and worth hiring a guide for? Or, is it just a thrashed out mogul field most of the time?

The Kitsteinhorn was pretty good last week, loads more snow since too from about 1600m up. They had to close the Bikepark at Leogang early.

There is a nice vid doing the rounds on FB at the moment (I can’t work out how to link)
It’s a tribute to JP Auclair and his Rosland Street Scene in All I can..
Have a search for North Face and JP Auclair and you’ll probably find it.

This the one?

JP Auclair RIP

#TriviaFans

From memory the ‘All I Can’ segment was filmed in Trail near Rossland (you can see the smelting factory in Trail in a few of the shots)

‘Imagination’ is filmed in nearby ‘Nelson’ (where the Steve Martin film Roxanne was also shot). Home to a number of American hippies who settled there to avoid the Vietnam War)

Thats the one Digby, Cheers.
If you need some more trivia, the only reason Vancouver has a stock market is due to the smelter and Iron ore mine..(Or so I was told) The latter being the source of the name of the nearby ski hill of Red Mountain.
Nelson seems a bit like a Mountainous Glastonbury, the place not the festival.
Lots of crystals, weed and beards.

And a pretty good brewery, some excellent mountain biking, and Mt Baldface, where Craig Kelly laid his hat, so I’m guessing the skiing there isn’t too bad either.

Baldface . Boner alert

And a pretty good brewery

Yeah – quite fond of Nelson Brewery’s ‘Faceplant’ Winter Ale

a bit like a Mountainous Glastonbury, the place not the festival

Yeah – otherwise it would be Hunter Wellies; Birkenstocks; denim shorts cut-off just a bit too short; and loads of “gap-year-yah!” types 🙂

Flaine any good for a long weekend? I’m looking at resort/towns within approx 90mins of Geneva to take my wife for our joint 40th in March. We are off to Morzine with the kids in February so fancy some ‘luxury’ away from the kids, not Chamonix or PDS. Looking at the map Flaine caught my eye. Any other recommendations? Thanks

Flaine as a resort is a really ugly mess, but its basically one big bowl. I wouldn’t call it luxurious

If you’re going in March the world is your oyster!

Luxury? Megeve? Courmayeur?

Edit – Verbier?

Ok, I’ll give Flaine a miss…I’ll check out the other 3

Flaine flava here

Alastair Philip Wiper finds “noble failure” at Breuer’s Modernist Flaine ski resort

Lovely…

Well my back garden looks like this…

Which meant it was time to put the bikes away and get out the skis…

Mt Norquay is apparently open today with bragging rights as first resort open for Winter in Canada although it appears to be one lift and two runs. The other resorts local to the rockies will all probably be open weekends starting soon. Rock skies very much the order of the day though as literally no base….

Banff right? I had a day of icey death at Mt Norquay several years ago. Great little place though!

We’ve had our little girl out on the XC skis just yesterday

Calgary and yes Norquay can be icy death (as in fact can most of the rockies at times). Tried to get Sweajnr out on his skis in the garden following his excellent basement practice but was told the snow was “too slippy 🙄 ” Will try again this evening or tomorrow.

Mt Norquay is apparently open today with bragging rights as first resort open for Winter in Canada

Yeah – I got an email yesterday saying that Nakiska (Closest resort to Calgary) was opening this weekend.

East Kootenays have had a good dusting but it don’t mean diddly as a lot can happen between now and the end of Dec/start of Jan …and yes Fernie I’m looking at you in the rain …

We had a bloody fabulous day at Norquay a few years ago. knee deep powder, falling snow and about 20 people on the entire hill. Pigs in shit…

Is anyone else already watching the webcams and snow forecasts with excitement?!

I’m off the Les Arc over bah-humbugmass and there’s already snow on the Col with 19cm forecast for Sunday night. Hope temps stay down and a repeat of last year isn’t in store! (It absolutely dumped and they decided to open early and we went and it all melted the week before 😥 )

Dan, cormayeur is a nice place for a bit or a cheeky break.
We found it very friendly, the bars all put on a great apres buffet to encourage you to hang about for a couple, it worked! The mountain restaurants were better than most I have been too also.
It’s a nice town and has a touch of bling.
Skiing is good too, was very quiet when we went.
Not the most convenient access from the village but with no kids in tow should be fine.

I ran up Cairngorm last Sunday AM and it was snowing in the tops. Winter tyres in car, excuses all lined up for WFH days where home is Glenshee for that specific day !

Flaine is ugly but the skiing is great and it is only 60 mins from GVA. The linked resorts are prettier, Morrillon, Samoens and les Carroz, but lower. If its early in March one of the lower resorts will be fine, if its later then go to Flaine (we’ll be there from 17th March).
Hotel Totem in Flaine looked quite posh as did Hotel Milk in Carroz, I seem to remember there’s an indepedant catered chalet in Morrilon which was flexible and looked good.
It does not have a buzzing night life though…..but we’re too old for that now!

I’m also too old for buzzing nightlife, but the cobbled streets and atmosphere of Courmayeur sound exactly what I was after. Will probably book this resort staying at the Grand Hotel Mont Blanc unless someone on here says it’s crap….. thanks for all the info

I’ve been to Cormayeur. It wasn’t the best conditions at the time which affects ones view, but wasn’t blown away by it. However I’m sure you can have a great weekend there. There are other areas close by which are available on the same pass that we enjoyed.

Did a long weekend in Flaine last weekend. Not as ugly as I remembered from 80s. Skiing by lunchtime on day 1 and full day on final day. Perfect weekend.

I’ve ridden in Courmayeur regularly for over a decade now – usually when based in Chamonix as the conditions on the Italian side have often been better, but have also done a weeks holiday there for the past couple of years.

It’s a nice little resort thankfully devoid of of too much apres nonsense, it’s frequently very quiet midweek and although it isn’t a massive ski area, there is quite a bit of variety with some wide open runs and some trees on the Val Veny side (good when the visablity is low)

There are also plenty of opportunities to head into the backcountry off the Yula & Arp lifts, or off the Helbronner on the other side of the valley.

Oh – and the coffee is great!

Courmayeur – Italian Espresso – 1.20 Euro
Grand Montets – French Brown Gritty ‘Coffee’ – 5 Euro

Any suggestions for little resorts near Innsbruck? Some of my favourite places to ski are those little tiny Austrian gems with about 50km of piste. Turracher Höhe is a great example of this. I quite fancy spending a week in Innsbruck and then heading out to a different resort each day. Ideally no more than an hour each way.

Great skiing in flaine but as posted, very brutalist architecture. Courmayeur is great, I’ve done a long weekend and as couple of full weeks there, very likely to go again this year as we’re hoping to meet a non-skiing relative, it’s a great location for non-skiers too

What is Courmayeur like for beginners?

Wallop, good I would have thought.

What is Courmayeur like for beginners?

Pretty good actually – it has everything from a ‘magic carpet’ to avoid having to use any lifts for those for whom it’s a first time on the slopes to big wide open slopes for linking those first turns.

Plus like many Vallee D’aosta resorts, outside of Italian school holidays they can be pretty quiet mid-week which means nervous first timers heading up a bit higher don’t have to worry quite as much about heavy traffic.

Depending on the lift pass purchased you can also ski/ride at La Thuile and Pila etc.

A word of caution though as I know there are lots on hear that like to head off-piste – some of the lift accessed off-piste around Courmayeur is not to be taken lightly. Whilst I was in Courmayeur in March earlier this year there was a tragic avalanche accident just off the Gabba lift with 3 killed and 5 injured.

Sounds good. My beginner in-laws fancy a week in Italy and they probably wouldn’t mind a couple of days off the slopes. Just a question of whether there’ll be enough there for me and the other half (adventurous piste skiers!).

Just a question of whether there’ll be enough there for me and the other half

As I said I’ve been riding in Courmayeur for years and never got bored even when riding ‘inbounds’ with the missus.

But I guess it depends what kind of piste skiing you enjoy. If you like to just tick off all the runs in the resort and clock up some mileage (km?) then you will quickly tick off all the runs (conditions permitting)

If, however you like to find a couple of runs that are in good condition and do laps getting you’re groove on then there is quite a lot of opportunity.

You could also hire a guide and go up the new Skyway to access the vallee blanche from the Helbronner side. Not especially technical (unless you do a ‘variant’ off the tourist route) but the views are stunning!