ICE - how common?

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

I did not write it with the intention of being patronising. I wrote it with the intention of providing examples of why pistes get icy patches regardless of the weather.

As for this:

Complete with the warning about falling over.

A Swiss Romande Newspaper recently quoted a Sion Hospital A&E statement that this season they were seeing skier injuries more like traffic accidents, and in particular motorcycle accidents.

EmmaEvs wrote: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.

Hear, hear. I think we need to decide if this is a place for Tony to headline his views, add unconstructive criticism, add rolling eyes smilies regularly below the posts of others or a place where everyone can discuss whatever interests them about skiing. The old saying 'If you've got nothing nice (or constructive) to say' really comes into its own on this thread.

I've moderated online forums myself and know that hounding people with mockery of their posts does put members off. With a little consideration things can be worded much better for all concerned. Banter has it's place, constant posting on a thread to put it down does not.

Mekka wrote:

EmmaEvs wrote: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.

Hear, hear. I think we need to decide if this is a place for Tony to headline his views, add unconstructive criticism, add rolling eyes smilies regularly below the posts of others or a place where everyone can discuss whatever interests them about skiing. The old saying 'If you've got nothing nice (or constructive) to say' really comes into its own on this thread.

I've moderated online forums myself and know that hounding people with mockery of their posts does put members off. With a little consideration things can be worded much better for all concerned. Banter has it's place, constant posting on a thread to put it down does not.

I will add my support to both the above.

I've watched the nicest people virtually hounded off the forum. Good on you having the guts to say it!

I've certainly learned quite a bit from reading this thread. As a relatively new skier, I have been in groups with more experiencded people than me complaining about how "icy" the pistes were, when I thought to myself "seems more like hard packed snow to me. But they're more experienced, so they must be right". Now after reading this, it seems that the hard-packed surface is far more common than true ice, and, like one or two others, the times I have encountered real ice are very few and far between ... but memorable ! If I've seen a patch coming up I've tended to "freeze" (pun intended) and just hope to glide over it intact without any lateral movement or change in my body posture - waiting for the nice white stuff to re-appear in a few metres.

Billip I'm guilty of using the word ice when I should say hard packed snow. I know the difference, it's just pure laziness on my part. 'Hard packed snow' takes longer to say. :lol:

Top rant EmmsEvsmmEmEvs (another vowel please Carol), GPWM. 8)

All further contributions to this Topic to be on-topic please (or they'll be vaped).

Ice can easily catch out the un-wary (or even the wary for that matter). Given the cold and dry conditions that have prevailed in a number of European resorts (particularly France and the Western half of The Alps), it's certainly something worth learning about.

The absolute worst ice I've ever encountered was in Serre Chevalier; top half of the mountain was great skiing but the cannons on the lowest sections of the Blues into Monetier had done a good job of creating the hardest boiler-plate ice we'd seen away from the blue of a glacier. Our entire group (6 of us I think) went down and slid quite some way - once up we gave up on the piste and took to the trees instead; it was way safer (more fun too).

So definitely approach cannoned snow with caution until you know what it's like!

And if you find yourself on it, relax, stay balanced and focus on the next patch of grippy snow you can see.

If we are giving examples of the worst ice we have encountered, mine was in St Anton. A long blue (17?) which ran down to Alpe Rauz and was a continuation of a red from Schindler Spitz. The conditions while we were there were pretty decent and the pistes were not particularly hard packed, so we were carving some god turns. However, half way down the blue, theres a valley which opens up and blows a gale across it, and this had served to whip all surface snow off it and leave the piste like a sheet of glass. First time down, none of the 8 in our group saw or expected it, and it felt just like hitting ice at speed in a car - no control and something of a shock!
We found the best thing to do was to maintain our speed over it (100m or so) and then hit the brakes once we had hit the softer piste surface the other side.
It was the shock of hitting it rather than anything that caused the problem.

[Off Topic stuff removed - use PMs please - Adders]

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