The STW Ski & Snowboard thread. The 2018-2019 season

Other news, back from a great few days touring from the Franz Senn Hutte near stubai. Tougher than I expected in terms of fitness, but it is funny how your legs find some more energy when faced with a great bit of powder. Good mixed group of six plus the guide. Went with Mountain Tracks (owned by SCGB).

Meanwhile, in Serre Che…

You were waiting for it? Here it is! Pierre Vaultier is taking us with him on this perfect line! ???❗️@redbull @RedBullFrance pic.twitter.com/nZPt7O3G63

— ☀️Serre Chevalier Vallée Briançon? (@SerreChe_EN) March 7, 2019

Nice. Trying to work out where in Serre Che that is?? Would like to see a time lapse of the build..

I think it’s the valley between Cucumelle and Yret.

Today was raining at the bottom in Samoens with some snow and poor visibility at the top above Flaine.
Snow was great high up, slushy below mid station.
This week has been a bit hit and miss with too many people, an error on our part not realising its the Paris half term. Children and ski schools at every turn and queues at the lifts. However today (changeover) was superb even with the rain.
No queues, very few people on piste and some good snow to be found.
Snow is being washed away with the rain lower down but there’s lots of it high above.
Temperatures have been mild for this time of the year, so let’s hope it gets a bit colder in the next few days for others.

too many people, an error on our part not realising its the Paris half term. Children and ski schools at every turn and queues at the lifts

Yeah, we got that too. Did our first “boys’” trip four years ago, leaving 6th March – and have done 1st Sat in March ever since. Seems this year, we got caught out going too early in March and crossed with one of the French zones’ winter break. And, as far as we could make out, Belgium’s too. We’ll wind it back to Sat 7th March (which is the 1st Sat anyway, but will keep a closer eye on it in future) next year – the last French break finishes on 8th March. Noticeably busier at lifts this year for sure. I blame Stoner.

Snowheads forum always has a useful table of all the European s tool holidays for the next season.

Stool holidays are long breaks they have from pooing, the weirdos.

Back in Flaine for the rest of the season, drive down was busier than Jan and the rain for the last 3 hours of the drive made it tough going.
Our chalet is at 1700m and disappointing it’s raining outside. Good news it’s due to turn colder and snow with a foot due later this week.
Can’t wait to try my new skis (Nordica Santa Ana 93) – will let the ladies of STW know how I find them when I finally get to use them (I bought them start of Jan but they didn’t arrive in time)

Anyone who’s out to the Grand massif feel free to contact us if they fancy trying to arrange a meet up. That even includes boarders, yes, you Cameron !

Bon ski tout la monde

Ha. yes Sprootlet we couldn’t have avoided each other better if we tried to!

Jealous you are there for all of the spring. Conditions seem to have been variable but at least the cover is good and should last. I am waiting to make a last minute call on an end of season week. Would like to make it for the telemark weekend at Morillon start April.

Enjoy your new skis.

Doz

DD I too blame Stoner :o)

Yes we have the full list from ‘snowheads’ for all the kiddie holidays but this was left out, will not be making that mistake again. You couldn’t make a turn without nearly squashing a wee thing. It was embarrassing as most of them were better skiers than I was.

Sprootlet – there is plenty of snow high up above Flaine. Let’s hope they keep the gondola running if there are high winds. We missed a day due to the mountain being closed last Mon. Made up for it yesterday though.

Good food to be had at Cafe/restaurant ‘1967’ next to the yogurt pots. Half the price of the mountain restaurants.

Bunnyhop, picked this up from about-france.com. Shows the winter holiday dates for next year (though I assume, like us, you’ll be more “on it” next year).
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EDIT: Probably obvious, but they’re the three zones left to right.

Interested to know if anyone else has experienced altitude sickness (‘Acute Mountain Sickness’) on a normal ski holiday. My friend had it last week at La Rosière. On the first day of skiing, we did two runs from about 2400m down to 2000m, then up to 2800m. On the way up the lift he said he was feeling a bit unwell, on the run down he rapidly became exhausted and had to stop, with dizziness, nausea, numbness in both arms and rapid breathing. I was initially concerned he might be having a heart attack, but he had no chest pain, his pulse was normal and both arms were affected not just the left one. He declined an asprin because he was nauseous and I didn’t push it (I would have if he’d had chest pain).

We descended as fast as he was able to and once down to about 2100m he lay down for a while, feeling better, and after getting back to the chalet at 1850m the symptoms went entirely. A web search confirmed that the three principal triggers are rapid increase in altitude to above 2400m, physical activity and dehydration (all present). He rested that day and drank lots of water, skied a bit on the lower lifts the next and was skiing normally on the third day.

Apparently it’s quite common when going straight from sea level to over 2400m but I’ve never seen it happen before.

It happens, have had people I’m teaching like that in V D’I in the past. Generally main thing is dehydration at altitude which seems to be trigger for it. Unusual but not a problem, i’ve got a heart murmur at altitude bizarrely – found it during my medical.

I’ve had mild symptoms when staying quite high. But, I was also coming down with a virus so hard to nail down the exact cause.

Heading to Avoriaz on Thursday for the weekend. Looks like some new snow might be arriving up top, which will be welcome!

DD – thanks that’s helpful.

Re altitude sickness, I’ve only experienced it in the rockies (Breckenridge), where you really do need to drink a lot.

Quick question snow folks: wax/base cleaner.

Do you bother with a snow/wax-specific base cleaner like Datawax?

I’ve got a 2 boards and 2 pairs of skis that are manky and sticky after a week in a snowdome with a coolant leak. I was planning just to use some bike degreaser / chain-cleaner as I have plenty kicking about.

If it was me I’d just do a hot wax clean (i.e. wax and scrape when still warm), then re-wax and scrape as normal (when fully cold). I’d not use anything like chain cleaner as you don’t want any residue left in there when you do come to wax. The base is porous and specific cleaners are designed to evaporate off – not sure if chain cleaner would do the same. I’ve got some Toko wax cleaner but tend to only use it on areas I’m going to repair, although I admit I’ve never spent a week skiing on coolant 😉

Dashed +1

Even using specific wax cleaning products is a subject of debate in Canada (some people do, some people don’t).  I use them on the grip zones of nordic kit but try to avoid using them on glide zones.

The base is porous and specific cleaners are designed to evaporate off – not sure if chain cleaner would do the same.

My thinking was that most base cleaners just seem to be degreaser and evaporant. Bike degreasers tend to be water-soluble so I was just going to rinse it down after degreasing.

Don’t think a hot wax clean will do the job as the bases are seriously sticky, but I’ll give it a go.

In which case I’d be tempted by getting a specific ski base cleaner if it isn’t total hassle…

One other (crazy perhaps) idea would be to use the same method as getting skin wax off the base.. namely newspaper and using the wax iron on a low temperature.  However not having done this ever personally as it seemed like an opportunity to get everything wrong I’m not sure if that’s a great idea or the worst ever….

Not sure a wax is gonna help Gee. 😛

The Coolant is just going to be water based / glycol so not particularly troublesome to clean off. A bit of warm soapy water should be sufficient.
A bit of IPA on a cloth and a wipe won’t do any harm to the bases I wouldn’t think though.
Dry out properly before waxing.

I clean wax off the scraper with water from the kettle – I can’t see that boiling water will do any harm to the base, it’s cooler than the iron.

Just back from Belle Plagne with Esprit. Great set-up from the Esprit team as usual, how they find so many young adults with boundless enthusiasm for looking after kids still surprises me! La Plagne is a good resort, plenty to go at, even though we never made it over to Les Arcs. Had some snow to freshen it up, plus some blue skies. Took an off-piste guided session with Oxygene on the Weds afternoon – way out of my comfort zone to start with, up to the glacier and down the back, with some “challenging” approach work, screaming at myself to turn on the steep slopes! A great experience though, and one that I would do again. Plenty of in-between piste off-piste action in La Plagne, so the session has made me keep an eye out for that more than ever.

But my word, the queues. The queues. Queuemageddon! I have never, ever experienced anything like it. At times coming down to Bellecotte it was impossible to see where one queue ended and another began, such was the seething mass of humanity. Some of the runs on some days were chaos. Luckily, with Esprit, it’s Sunday to Sunday, the Saturday was absolute bliss in comparison. Will need to study the holiday guide and judge the week bettter for next year. Will study the links above^^

Good to hear you had a good time iwluap. Yeah, as per discussion above, it seems a few of the 1st-Saturday-in-March crowd were caught out with one of the Zones’ winter holiday stretching till end of first week in March. Dates for 2020 are in the table above – Sat/Sun 7/8 March are the days to go next year – which of course is still the first full weekend in March, but last French winter holiday finishes 8th March.

Top tip for those of you whose holidays coincide with the parisiens: head the sunny side of the Lauteret. We’ve just spent the week in Vars and there were only queues at the major pinch points.

So I’m looking for some snowheads help… none of their email addresses seem to work for contacting admin etc…. which is pretty shocking to be honest and almost makes we want to give up trying.

I can’t login and I’m wondering and not sure why.  When I try to reset password it tells me user ID and e-mail incorrect – I know my e-mail so I’m assuming I’ve forgotten my userID.  The last thread I contributed to was this one

https://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=141727

If someone could message me what my forum ID is that’d be much appreciated (it’s a variant on the one I use here if not identical)

@Swearman
Had the same issue, couldn’t get anywhere, ended up creating a new login / account (Thick As)

Thanks – yeah it’s very frustrating to be honest….

Swearman22 is the profile name BTW

@sweaman2, I’ve PMed you, I can help

BTW Admin is notoriously bad for replying, especially in season, and especially when he’s running trips – this week is the Off Piste Bash based in Serre Chevalier so he’ll be herding about 60 snowheads plus assorted guides and instructors

Back in Flaine and despite the first day being unrelenting rain (there’s nothing more depressing in a ski resort) it has been great since with much colder temperatures and a reasonable amount of snow with a big bump forecast tomorrow.
Snow is the best in the Flaine bowl with Samoens feeling a little sticky lower down. Haven’t been too far into the Grand Massif as I have been sampling the powder locally.
Hoping to have a lesson with Serge soon if he’s not busy then we’re having a day with Diane who often teaches the ski club GB crowd. I’m really looking forward to that.
My new skis – took a bit of getting used to but today has just been fantastic. A ski popped off a couple of times but I’m getting used to that – child sized feet and adult bindings are not a match made in heaven
All in all its great to be back !

Out in Colorado for 8 days of splitboarding backcountry adventure, 470 avalanches in the first 9 days of March have killed that plan, level 5 avalanche risk everywhere.

Stay safe out there everyone, especially as things start to warm up, no amount of fresh tracks are worth dying for, and all the safety kit in the world won’t help if you get caught in a big one.

we had a lot of rain there last week. downloaded to Vercland towards the end of the week as it was like skiing over soup after 1pm, and it was getting bloody thin towards the bottom.

Piste of the week was Calcedoine, absolutely perfect corduroy groomer with slightly softend snow and no tracks. I had to go back up the drag and do it again it was so nice

Hi, Anyone know what the conditions are like in the Grand Massif at the moment? Seen some forecast that say there’s been snow, others say its warm.

Supplementary question, which site has the most reliable snow reports

Cheers

snow-forecast.com
Seem relatively reliable.

In local news, it looks like this will be the only weekend that all the Scottish resorts will be open.
Got ahead of the curve and had an afternoon at Glenshee today.
A real mixed bag wind, snow, sunshine with the usual natural hazards.

Making an early start for Glencoe tomorrow then Nevis Range on Sunday!

Was considering glenshee tomorrow, but the forecast is mixed and it’s likely to be mobbed. If it hangs around into the week, I might take a cheeky half day.