toby 1 – yes I really feel the cold and I don’t weigh much so that may have something to do with it.

Wallop – thanks.

Its snowing now in Meribel, however it’s very light and probably will only put down a couple of cm.

Been skiing with a local who’s a good friend. He’s 73 years young and just bloody fantastic on and off piste. It gives us oldies hope that we can still do this skiiing (snowboarding) lark for many years to come.

Hi Bunnyhop, I’m in Val Thorens, similar light snow. May go to Meribel tomorrow, if you see somebody on a monoski say hi!

Thanks Bunnyhop, just want to make sure my wife has all the right layering, that said she does have a regular ski coat and a cold weather ski coat so it should be fine. The -26 windchill in Tignes over the weekend is looking parky though!

As for skiing till you are older, I hope so I only started in my mid 30’s and I don’t plan stopping until I absolutely have to.

Octagenarians don’t stop skiing, they just all go to obergurgl 😉

unfortunately my nearly 70yr old neighbour is currently holed-up in a Tyrolean Hospital on a thoracic drain following 5x broken ribs.
Not quite sure what he’s done but am looking forward to the tall tales in the pub when he finally gets the all-clear to fly home. poor bugger.

I know this is going to draw a lot of fire, but following my new board investigations Im planning on getting one of these:

Carbon Gold

In the style of PX/O-O which has served me well in bikes, Pathron is a direct seller manufacturer. The board specs are good on paper but sure, there’s not a whole lot of info out there about it, but I fancy having a smash at it for £300. I was bidding on a hovercraft on ebay, but s/h went for £300 + delivery. I dont really care about resale value of a low profile brand. Ive got a shed full of PX & OO bikes to prove that 😉

Stoner – I hope your friend recovers quickly.

toby1 – I wear an ice breaker T. 2 x merino long sleeved tops. Thermal vest. fleece, puffer and finally a long jacket outer shell. Also mittens with fleece inners.

It’s been cold again today.
Plenty of fresh power and skiing has been fabulous. Conditions on and off piste are great.

Everybody coming out to the 3 Valleys next week is due for some heavy snow.

cheers BH. Txts seem to have hiom in good spirits and his insurance is doing right by him. He’ll be fine. Im more worried about what his wife will do to him. She’s had to fly out to mop his brow.

And it comes in 169W Stoner!

Result.

Indeed but I’m going 165w. I’m not quite 169w 😉

Day trip to Pila tomorrow. Looks good. Had a quality week so far in Cervenia. Place is great for boarding and all in the shadow of the Matterhorn 👌

Good stuff YoKaiser, glad you are enjoying it. Report back on Pila, I’ve wondered about a day trip there myself.

New skis time – Head Monsters anyone?
I’ve decided my existing monsters are too big for me, and as junior is now taller than me and needs some skis, I’m going to palm them off on him and order some new ones for me.
I’m looking at Monster 83s in 170 size in that lovely blue colour – anything else similar for a bit of a do it all ski?

Hey folks,

I’m a very cautious, beginner skier. I can parallel ski on blue runs and have had a week in Stubai, Austria two years ago, and Val d’Isere last year. I’m off to Italy’s Val di Fiemme three weeks today and am really looking forward to it. However, I went to the doc on Wednesday to ask him about what I thought was a bout of tendonitis in my achilles, only for him to point, say “Oooh, look at that!” and tell me I’ve actually partially torn the tendon.

It’s obviously sore to walk on, but not excruciatingly so as I’ve done the initial injury somewhere in the last 4-8 weeks and it’s basically manifested itself as an ache that I just put down to wear and tear in my late forties. When I told the doc I was going on a ski trip in 3 weeks time, he wasn’t the most helpful. “Yeah? Good luck with that!”, was pretty much all he said.

I’m figuring that my very slow and careful ski style, alongside the fact my foot and ankle will be pretty much immobilised in the ski boot, should let me get away with it. Has anyone else had this problem and survived to tell the tale?

 should let me get away with it.

You should see if your insurers need notifying of a pre-existing condition. If you’ve got an annual policy you might not have anything to declare, but if you’ve bought it recently it might be an issue.

I wouldn’t want it to “go” fully then find out I wasn’t insured at all…

As you say the foot is immobilised so should help rather than hinder. But in answer to your question….no, I’ve not had the problem myself!

What has the Doc said to do about helping the problem before you go? When I partially ruptured the tendon that attaches to the top of my kneecap, I eventually went to the Doc 6 weeks later and he prescribed Movelat gel to be rubbed hard into the area four times a day for 20mins a time. I didn’t manage to do that much for obvious reasons, but within a fortnight it was so much better!

Cheers, I’ll check the insurance ( I need to declare my type 1 diabetes anyway). As for the doc, he’s basically prescribed me rest, ice,raising it when possible, ibuprofen and referred me for physiotherapy, to be started at some point in the future.

I reckon it’ll be fine as well, just a wee bit nervous of injuring myself on a winter holiday after the ‘Bulgarian Incident of 2016’. Think I’m going to get one of those stuffed sausage compression socks, see if that’ll help it any. 🙂

You’d be nuts to ski on a duff achilles tendon IMO, the forward fall is one of the ways to rupture the tendon in the first place – if you can’t run comfortably on it I suggest skiing is asking for trouble. I had very ordinary case of achilles tendonitis and simply quit skiing till it got better. Whether with Head Raptor race boots (which are about as stiff as boots get) or with my X-C ski boots (free heel) it was uncomfortable and an obviously unnecessary risk. If you must then wind down the DIN release on that heel to 2/3 of what you’d normally use.

Conditions in Peisey (for X-C) and les Arcs (for rando and descent) have been excellent over the last week. An adequate snow cover that was topped up with light fall on Wednesday. Beautiful cold clear days. My only problem was getting the car open, while junior’s colleague in Tignes Val Claret had waxed up diesel and had to be taken down the hill to get going again.

Had one of the best days skiing yesterday, staying mainly in and around Meribel. The changeover day made the pistes quiet. Snow was in superb condition due to the temperature warming up a bit. It was about -17 on Friday.

Anyone going out this week is in for some heavy snowfall.

Mrs S and I nipping over on Friday lunchtime. Should be greeted by deep fresh, but viz over the weekend may be difficult. However thats where the PDS is great as there’s plenty of tree stuff to enjoy when the clouds are low. Looking forward to it anyway, will put some pics up next week.

Pics, for once I had a phone in my pocket:

Stoner – give us a report back on how the Pathron goes?

radness!

http://www.xgames.com/video/25860199/full-replay-wendy-snowboard-knuckle-huck

Earl, will do.

Unfortunately the 165w is out of stock, but in good ol brant/on-one style an email to Poland at the end of last week and the main man there says there’ll be a production run done tomorrow or Tuesday and listed on eBay straight away. It might not arrive in time for the weekend but I might get my hands on it early next week before the end of the short trip, and if not I’m back out in March so will certainly be riding it then.

Snowed a reasonable amount during the day yesterday, then tanked it down overnight as well in Tignes. Sitting around waiting for the lifts to open as they clear out the excess at the moment.

Visibility was low yesterday, but it great playing in the snow.

Today is looking lovely with blue skies and small amounts of cloud passing through. Hoping to get out there soon!

Snowed a fair bit in the Grand Massif but not the 48cm that was forecast. Plenty of fun to be had but despite cold temperatures it’s fairly heavy going. Still this is a first world problem ….

Hah, I’m with you sprootlet, just been out and bought some warmer gloves, I’m used to nothing more than a couple of degrees negative and a negligible windchill, today was not that. My hands have rarely been as cold, still easily resolved. Now how the hell do I get better at powder skiing, it was knee deep on the early runs this morning!

Oh, and it has honestly been an amazing day, so much fun.

Winds closed the higher lifts in PDS yesterday. Thought we were going to get stuck over the chatel side but they opened again at 3pm.

Dumped loads last night. Lapped fresh powder over the Swiss side all day as well as the wall which was in good condition.

Still snowing now but may have a couple of windy days this week so keeping an eye on that.

Well something a little different for me. Not a huge amount of fresh snow in the rockies recently. Sweajnr has joined the local Nancy Greene ski club and had his first attempt at skiing gates on Sunday.

View post on imgur.com

Loved skiing gates as a kid, wish I had started at that age. And on snow not plastic would have been better.

out to La Plagne on Sunday. everything looking great but i am a bit dubious about the cold… its quite early season for us, normally go out in March. but im not sure ive ever heard so much complaining about the temperatures before… Wondering whether i need to get some extra warm stuff, especially for the kids?

I’d keep an eye on the forecast temperatures Mahalo, it’s 8.25 am and our balcony is reading a temp of -9.6. Today is the last day before the snow starts tonight. If it says this cold them i would err on the side of extra warm as I have been freezing at times.

I’ve been using snow-forecast and it’s been fairly reliable.

Got to go, I have a hot date with a random man I’ve met to go and play in the powder….

Ive never skied gates. Id love to have a go 🙁

Sproot report back on conditions. Esp viz. Hoping most of the disruptive weather has passed through the PDS/Grand Massif by the weekend, but expecting a few cloudy/snowy days.

Stoner – are you NW based? Chill Factore do good race training on Tues evenings. Price has gone up but may well be some better deals in summer. Hour of drills, hour of gates…

Also off to La Plagne on Sunday – not been to the area for about 20 years, since my mate ran a chalet in a little village under the La Plagne / Les Arcs cable car (that wasn’t even built then!).

The grim North? V unlikely 😉

I’ll just sneak onto the closed race pistes next time I’m out in the PDS. A cheeky shimmy.

PDS is the grim north. 😉

Snow is due to start tonight then continue to a greater and lesser extent to Sunday.
Having said that the snow is **** brilliant – squeaky on piste and fluffy as a fluffy thing in the off.
Visibility today has been fantastic but it is starting to close in a little now ((4pm).
The links might be an issue as the wind is due to increase but we’ll see how it goes.
The English schoolgirls champs are on in Flaine at the moment …..

And good news from Poland! Batch of 165w run and one with my name on it is hopefully on it’s way to my mates in France. Whether it arrives by the time I leave on Tuesday we’ll see. If I’m really lucky perhaps it will be there when I arrive on friday

Off to Sainte Foy on Friday night, driving there through the night while the kids kip, it’s going to be great. New coats, trousers, gloves, goggles and thermals, but otherwise nothing new 😉 kids should be parallel turning on reds by the end of the week, can’t wait to ski with them again!
All mountain ski tryout time as well, was trying to play off piste on a pair or ballistic semi race style carvers last time, will be so much fun in the fluffy stuff!

Looks like you should be in for some fresh stuff over the weekend tinybits.

Current piste conditions are lovely, although as mentioned above the temperature is pretty fresh!