ICE - how common?

Tony_H wrote:I went out for a walk to the pub in December. The weather had been really called, and rain fell as snow and then froze. Much to my amazement, I came across patches of ice on my walk. It was quite dangerous. I guess its quite common in certain conditions.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Dear Karma,

I can't wait to see what you have in store for these two lunks.

Please can you arrange for it to be filmed in HD and put on YouTube?

Cheers
Em

Here is some info regarding ice if your not too sure...... Lifted from some site.

Ice
In hard-packed snow it is essential your skis are fully tuned. The passage of skiers can scrape the soft snow from lower slopes – especially those served by artificial snow cannons – leaving large patches of ice.
Experienced skiers will manage to make their edges hold. For others, my best advice is not to turn on the ice at all, but to ski on to the powdered snow beyond.

Hard packed snow is regularly mistaken for ice. Genuine ice is actually quite rare!
Go glacier skiing in August and you'll discover the difference!

That was the point of the thread Dorset Boy. With all the talk of ice, how to ski on it etc I wondered how much of it was 'proper' and how much just hard packed snow. Sort the wheat from the chaff so to speak. For me at my level of ability it makes hell of a difference. I can manage hard pack. If I were to encounter a whole piste of solid ice (as has been mentioned) I would be horrified. From the comments so far (although yours offers a different view), it seems I've been really lucky to date in not having to deal with proper ice to any real extent. My aim was to find out if this was just good fortune, or pretty much the norm.

When I spent my seasons out in the alps, 'punters' would regularly complain about icy slopes and icy patches. However they were mistaken about 98% of the time, and were actually moaning about very hard pack that is difficult to get an edge on.

Best to ski over such patches (and those rare icy ones)and turn on the softer stuff the other side.

The largest patch of genuine ice I've seen in the mountains was in Flaine in January where there was clear a leak in some pipework and water was freezing across the slope - that you could have put in your G&T!

Our village was also an ice rink over christmas!

bandit wrote:

As for the ice, anywhere that gets lots of skier traffic is prone to getting a glaze.

Snowboarders side slipping can make any pitch slippery.

Places that catch the sun, which encourages a bit of a melt and a refreeze also.

Cannon made snow can set like rock, it's like skiing tarmac, falling over not advisable :roll:

Theres the patronising answer this thread warranted. Complete with the warning about falling over.

If you don't like the thread stop posting on it. How dare you repeatedly post retarded comments in order to steamroll any conversation that other J2skiers may be able to have. Starting a thread on here shouldn't have to pass your imaginary standards before it's allowed to happen without you chipping in constantly. Do you realise that in this single thread alone you've probably deterred many less well known J2skiers from posting legitimate questions on this forum in case you deem them insignificant and behave like a complete penis?

It's bang out of order. Get you head out of your backside and go back to your bobble hats. Clearly in your world that's far more important than learning about piste conditions and hazards. Close the door on your way out.