[Closed] The STW Ski & Snowboard thread. The 2016-2017 season

wants to go somewhere a bit more 'villagy', can anybody recommend a good beginner/intermediate French/Italian snowboard resort that will tick the box?

Serre Chevalier, innit. 🙂

Cervinia is not as pretty

That's a bit of an understatement. It's grim.

can anybody recommend a good beginner/intermediate French/Italian snowboard resort that will tick the box?

Not sure if it's particularly snowboard friendly but La Thuile meets your other criteria.

I was in La Thuile several years ago. It's not a bad resort for boarders but the best snow when I was there was in La Rosière over the border but there's the drag lift from hell to get back into Italy...

wants to go somewhere a bit more 'villagy', can anybody recommend a good beginner/intermediate French/Italian snowboard resort that will tick the box?

So a cheeky 5 days in Sestriere booked for January. 😀

Cervinia is not as pretty but it's a pretty good place to gain confidence, it has some super wide cruisey pistes. Links with Zermatt, so again lots to ride.

This ^

Spin - Member
Cervinia is not as pretty
[u]That's a bit of an understatement. It's grim.
[/u]

That's a little bit harsh IMHO

Check out Maria Alm in Austria. 150km of piste and nowhere you need to take your board off.
No drag lifts that you need to use.
All the linked villages very pretty.

[img] [/img]

Cormayeur, nice town,easy transfer, not so easy onto the slopes but that's what you get with the older towns in my experience.
Zermatt is a great town, plus you get trains not cold chairlifts.

Liked that a LOT! Some great "real world" skiing. The sort of stuff that I like to do, just done a whole lot better! A nice change from all the loony tunes huckfest and cliff drop stuff, just back to the basics of having fun across the whole hill.

The groomer sections were delicious.

As a matter of interest Captain, would you be able to do all the descents in that video, albeit not quite like Marcus? How many skiers on this Forum could do all of those descents with a degree of confidence/speed?

Im just interested in the skiing ability of my fellow forumites! FWIW, having 25 years away from skiing and only getting back into it at the age of 50,(five years ago) I am limited by the thought of doing myself a serious injury and stick mostly to pistes and the odd rummage through the nasty stuff. However that bit is restricted to a 5-10m couple of turns then pause to 'gather ones thoughts'!

I'd say I could do most, but probably not all! Camera affects how steep stuff looks etc.

Oh, and the bits that I could ski, I'd be nowhere near as smooth or fast!

Anyone riding NOW bindings on their snowboards? Anyone care to comment? Notice a real difference?
Why I am using so many question marks?

I would say about 95% I would ski, the tight rocky lines I would avoid.
i would not be skiing any of it as fast or be getting as much air as the chap in the film.
The conditions in that film look a bit rubbish, thats the beauty of it in my mind.
He is nailing each turn even though the snow is tracked and wind blown with pockets of soft snow surrounded with harder snow.
The mark of a really good skier. Able to make the most out of the conditions and terrain on the day and make it look easy. Part of the making it look easy is in the edit, but that takes nothing away from the skiers talent

@andykirk yes have tried older Now bindings , comfortable in the sense of reduced 'chatter' but the heel cup was too narrow, so I noticed them. Much like a good referee in the football, the good ones are the ones that you don't notice.
Felt slower to initiate turns too on jumps but I imagine that could be nice in powder.

Don't know what the newer ones are like mind. I doubt I would move away from Unions or Rome

Got some NOWs. Prefer Flow.

Make me an offer. Boxed rarely used.

You get different elastomers to reduce chatter or increase response.

Geoff - from the previous page and for future reference. It doesn't normally take 3 hours to get from Turin airport to Serre Che. 1h 45-ish I would guess. Although I suppose if you are on a Tour Ops transfer coach and had to drop somewhere on the Milky Way first (not Claviere/Montgenevre as you pass through them) then it might I suppose.

Thanks Hammerite, that's useful to know. The January trip is very much cheap and cheerful, but Thomson and Jet2 fly direct to Turin in the winter from Scotland, so it will open up options for next year.

Apologies if this has been done, but I've just come across The Horn on Redbull TV. Documentary series on search and rescue around the Matterhorn.
https://www.redbull.tv/video/AP-1N849GEKD2111/the-crevasse

I suppose another disclaimer on the journey time would be weather conditions. You have to go over a mountain pass to get the Serre Che.

Mods delete if not appropriate. - could report to classifieds here if better.

I have a pair of Salomon Optima EXP 9.0 which need to go. Happy to do an STW special and post to a forum-ite. Never fitted me properly as I bought the wrong size 😳

https://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/salomon-optima-exp-90-ski-boots-size-34027-with-recco-tags/1195121787

Cheers for the Snowbird vid! I do like a vid that has "just turns" in it.

Here's one of my favourite "bad" conditions clips:

as the title suggests, it contains an s word and an f word. and I think a few more f words if you're swedish.

Have been discussing with MrsMomo this morning, I am slowly coming to the conclusion that we will not be skiing this season (she is taking more convincing!) due to the planned arrival of MiniMomo in January. she is still optimistic that we may get a week at Easter if conditions hold.

Good luck making the right decision! Impossible to know how you're going to feel about leaving mini for a week till you get there, so forget about it till March and see how you feel, see what the snow's like. If you're good to go, pick something last minute where it's good.

I've done the other thing - just booked accommodation well in advance - Lyngen Alps for a week's touring in early March. It's a pretty strong group, but I've not skied with them before, so it will be interesting to see how the group works and what we get up to.

Booked week #1
7th Jan to Risoul , France .
£349 with Rocketski , flight , transfer , HB accom.
Its basic school trip, no thrills hotel, in a small-ish resort.
At that price though , as long as there is some snow and hot water at the end of the day, I can deal with basic .

Blimey that is Cheap! 😯

Suspect there may be some cheap deals this year

Lyngen Alps for a week's touring in early March

are you in a lodge or on a boat nedrapier?

We're going a bit more low-rent than that, Digby! Airbnb place near Svensby.

Got a £50 snow and rock voucher through the post yesterday, was a prize draw with SkiTotal, who we booked a holiday with 🙂

http://www.skitotal.com/snowandrock/

Looks fantastic nedrapier - toured on the Eastern side of that peninsular (accessed via boat).
A wonderful place - hoping to go back at some point myself!

It's a pretty special place, isn't it? This'll be my 4th time there. I keep going back with people who've seen pics from the previous year and want some!

PSA Glisshop.co.uk with 17% off their already fantastic prices.
Just bought new skis for the kids.

https://www.glisshop.co.uk

singletrackmind - Member

Booked week #1
7th Jan to Risoul , France .
£349 with Rocketski , flight , transfer , HB accom.
Its basic school trip, no thrills hotel, in a small-ish resort.
At that price though , as long as there is some snow and hot water at the end of the day, I can deal with basic .

Same week with them for me but going to Le Corbier. Something daft like £500 including carriage and pass. Praying for snow already.

Geoffj, that site has just led me to drooling over these....

[img] [/img]

Haven't heard of Fusta skis before. Pretty, though!

Captain I'm sure your French is better than mine
http://www.fusta.fr/la-marque-lentreprise/

Looks quite boutique 8)

Yep, beaucoup de bling!

Hmm thanks for that, now I'm drooling too...

They would go well with my snowboard wood obsession... 🙂

I'd need to get better at skiing before I could just justify those prices..

[img] http://www.angrysnowboarder.com/wp-content/uploads/the_flagship.jp g" target="_blank">http://www.angrysnowboarder.com/wp-content/uploads/the_flagship.jp g"/> [/img]

Can't let a snowboard wood obsession go by without a mention of Swell Panik:

[img] [/img]

One day...

http://www.swellpanik.com/snowboards-splitboards-monoskis/twinzer/

So, has anyone on here got wood?

🙂

Oh, and these?

[img] [/img]

Drool.

Powderjet shapeshifter split

[img] ?v=1459986245[/img]

Arbor Clovis

[img] [/img]

This is like an evening in with Ron Swanson.

Season started yesterday for us, the Salzburg Super season pass started from mid October this year so we got up onto the Kitsteinhorn yesterday and today, going again tomorrow.
Only a few pistes open at the moment but it's cold enough to run the cannons so I suspect a few more will open shortly.
The ones open are in pretty good condition and the sun was out today a lot of the time.
Only got a couple of pics but here's one of my lad at the end of the day heading down to the Alpine Centre (approx 2400m)

[img] [/img]

Nice Colp!

Well as we just got married a few weeks ago and next years overseas trip will be to Lake Garda for summer honeymoon there'll be no snowboard holiday next year...

which allowed me to justify buying this... 😀
[img] [/img]

Screw you Natural Retreats!! 😈

Hoping for lots of local snow on the Cairngorms

*does snow dance*

Anyone going to the snow show at Battersea? Anyone been?

Got free tickets for today and I'm not sure yet...

If we are talking gear pron, I have a pair of these which need to get out again...

[img] http://www.skipass.com/guide-matos/ski/2012/whitedot/the-redeemer.html [/img]

Nice, Swavis!

I would really like a Milligram split, but lottery wins aside, there's no justifying it. I'll keep hauling my Venture around, and try not to think about the fact that it's 750g per foot heavier than it needs to be.

Very nice Colp. I was offered a trip to Kaprun in Nov and just realised thats where you are.

[url= http://www.zellamsee-kaprun.com/en/service/webcams ]webcam[/url]

Wow, that Miligram is nice!
I managed to pick up the K2 with skins for £500 from Ekosport, bargain! Last one in 161, I think there's a 155 left.

Good work! Wife has a K2 Panorama from a couple of years ago bought for similar, end of season. She really likes it. Word of warning though - if you're tired and not thinking 100%, it's [i]possible[/i] to put the skins on the wrong board halves and go quite some way before realising there's something wrong. Because you're hooking into the holes rather than over the top of the board, or dangling tail clip straps, you don't get the same visual clues. I think she went nearly 1km on the flat before she hit a slope and realised something was very wrong.

If anyone stumbles upon a split bargain let me know!

Cheers for that ned, I'll keep that in mind 🙂

164 K2 ultra with skins for £480 at the theboardbasement.com

I should have some used gen 2 Spark Ignitions for sale, too. With Mr Chomps and all the bits

Skis out this weekend... Chill Factore on Sunday!
Les Gets at Feb Half term with me and my two boys - can't wait and maybe a trip to a mates place for a long weekend in the southern Alps 🙂
Need to try to remember all from last years one to one lesson.

Stoats - just spent the day at the ski show. Currently traversing London weighed down by mustard and hot sauce bottles.

For lovers of wood check out PFD skis and DOUK boards who I saw at the show. Both UK made.

I enjoyed the show, but a strange mix of companies. Some bug retailers, some smaller. Lots of tourist offices, none of the big manufacturers or their distributors. Lots of very small niche/family businesses and a few random product startups who you think "who would buy that?" There was a stand for an app called Snoww, which for all intents and purposes is Strava for skiers, the developer who we spoke to actually said "I took a lot of inspiration from Strava." No mate, you've ripped it off!

Last time we went it was at the NEC a good 6-7 years ago, although the Battersea show is smaller I think it was a bit better.

It was a beauty of a day up there today, bit busy as the Germans arrived for half term, but the snow was lovely.
A couple of shots of my little fella in the park and my friend Thom.

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

Took it easy as I'm still recovering from a big off in Leogang bike park a couple of weeks ago.

There were a couple of lovely Jones boards outside the bar today, both wood finish, one was a split with carbon highbacks.
There was also a private party of swingers in the main umbrella bar getting increasingly naked throughout the day.
Austria is both fantastic and bizarre.

Colp is that kaprun?

Thanks for the tip on the K2 but it's too big . I'm 185cm and biggest board in the quiver is 161

Yeah, it's the Kaprun glacier. We have a place about 30 mins away in the Hochkoenig ski region.

99percentchimp - how old your boys and which half term weeek did you get? We're taking a very competent 10 year old and a learning 6 (by then) year old to Les Gets in the second (cheap!-er) half term week.
If yours are 20 then you're on your own, enjoy, but if they're similar ages our elder one loves having people to ski with (possibly see you at lessons - 360 - too)

hyd1, I wouldn't count it out because of that. There's an argument for going a little longer on a split, you'll be skinning and riding with a pack, so you'll be a bit heavier - board length is more about weight than height anyway, and the general idea is to be finding soft snow, so more float is better.

3cms isn't much of a difference, and the rocker profile is going to make much more of a impact on how it rides than the a few cms of length.

Thanks but I ride 156/7 normally , don't like longer boards in general, float doesn't just come from length and I won't necessarily be riding champagne pow every time I use it but ta!

igm - Member
99percentchimp - how old your boys and which half term week did you get? We're taking a very competent 10 year old and a learning 6 (by then) year old to Les Gets in the second (cheap!-er) half term week.
If yours are 20 then you're on your own, enjoy, but if they're similar ages our elder one loves having people to ski with (possibly see you at lessons - 360 - too)

Same week, we're there on the 18th - check the prices for the week before 😯

What padded ski/board bags are folk using?
It will be my first time taking my own skis this year and I'm pondering one of these: http://eu.dakine.com/p/ski/gear-bags/board-bags/fall-line-double-190cm-ski-bag-17w

I like the idea of wheels.

Wheels are good in airports but can be a pain in resort if the paths aren't cleared very well. There is a temptation with the coffin style bags to fill them which can push them well over weight.
I have a Dakine Low Roller board bag, looks remarkably similar to the one you've linked to, I'm guessing that the internal straps are the only difference (and the length) have only done a couple of trips with it so far but still looks like new.

We have the Dakine roller bags and they are great. Also have an old one without wheels and it is a PIA getting through airports. For a single set of skis with nothing else in the bag the old style single ski bags are OK but I'm sold on the wheeled ones now I have one.
Other makes are Douche bags but they can be eye wateringly expensive although they are really well put together.

Can't recommend Douchebags enough. I picked one up half price, due to a cut in the fabric in the shop. S&R gave me a goretex patch for it, and £100 quid off. Couldn't say no! Solves my main gripe with coffin bags - always a bit too long, so they dangle and smack the bags of your legs, and stuff inside rattles around. I've got a few different sized boards, so going as small as possible doesn't work. It packs down super small, too.

If I lost it, I'd struggle to justify £200 for one, though. Probably stitch a couple of daisy chains to a much cheaper bag and attempt to bodge something similar.

Nitro doppleganger split any thoughts my sideways standing buddies?

[img] [/img]

geoff - wheels are definitely handy for almost everywhere. And if the resort's snowy, you're either dragging the bag or carrying it, so you're not losing by having wheels. Watch for dog tods, though!

Don't go longer than you're likely to need - see above.

And as per momo - always use a set of scales when you're packing! Bathroom or luggage. Easy to turn up with a bag that's too heavy and get stung for it.

I know nothing, hyd1, except for what's in here - they reckoned it was pretty good.

http://www.splitboarding.eu/en/splitboard-news/splitboard-test-first-impression-2015-16

I use a Dakine Fall Line Double. Really good bag. I put in two lots of skis and sticks and a few pieces of clothing to give extra cushioning and am always within the weight limit.

That said we also have a Decathlon wheeled bag out of one of their discount bins (a big bin at that!). It's not far off the quality of the Dakine one. Can't remember if we've managed to get two lots of skis in there or not. https://www.decathlon.co.uk/easy2travel-skis-bag-id_8316459.html

Thanks all, I've ordered a couple off face west as they have them for £85 each.

Fantastic thanks nedrapier. Found one for 300euros ex demo so might well go for it

Good work! with skins and hardware?

i was at the battersea show. douk snowboards look awesome. love my yes pyl still so no NEED for another......

We have 2 options. Due childcare and shift patterns we have to do Sunday 5/2/17 to Sunday. Theres St anton via innsbruck or courcheval via chambers.

I want St anton, the wife courcheval (her friends there). Child care, catering and price are broadly similar.

My question. Is chambery bad on a Sunday? I'm hearing some horror stories.

Chambery is FAR better on Sunday than Saturday. Saturday is AWFUL.

Just checked out DOUK snowboards...

I wonder if the Jones lawyers are gonna be calling ? That mountain emblem is pretty similar even if it is on the topsheet...

[img] http://www.angrysnowboarder.com/wp-content/uploads/the_flagship.jp g" target="_blank">http://www.angrysnowboarder.com/wp-content/uploads/the_flagship.jp g"/> [/img]

That's awfully similar.....