J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Innsbrucker

I am just back from Austria. On Saturday I met an Austrian young lady who turned three last year.

MUM: Do you take lessons?
ME: No.
MUM: You should. She skis well now.
ME: I have been practicing for three years.
MUM: Yes but a teacher can give exercises. She has to ski backwards, and ski on one foot in both directions, for example.

Sounds like she is ahead of me in her first season.... maybe I should forget about private ski lessons at this level, and just join the kindergarten :(

I have been criticised here for not having lessons, with some justice. But I have rarely skied without supervision from a friend who has been skiing for 40 years. Learning from videos and books alone is unrealistic.

And like supervising a learner driver, you need someone to be responsible for safety, given that at first you are not able to predict or judge snow conditions, steepness, traffic etc. You need someone to push you a bit, but at other times to say, 'Don't ski here, the snow is too difficult / it is too steep / you are too tired.'

I can orient myself most of the time. I started this thread because it is steep slopes, black and above (which are new to me this year), where it all falls apart, I need to learn new tricks for this situation. But it does mean progress is being made :D

There are a lot of drag lifts in the places in I have been around Innsbruck, especially the less touristy places. Some resorts have these new moving bands for real beginners, but also a few small low drag lifts designed for tots.

Elsewhere on this forum I and others have said what an excellent place Seefeld is as a family resort. The smarter and more popular side is Rosshuette, with a very long blue run, fun park, a fair amount of red piste, very little black and nothing steeper. I have not had to do much waiting around there. At Rosshuette you can easily avoid the drag lifts, the cable car goes nearly to the top and there is a blue run all the way down. Several modern and easy to use chair lifts. The other side of the small and charming town is Gscwandkopf, with older lifts but still good skiing and nice huts. If you are intrested do a search on this forum for more.

On the advice on falling thread I started I did a brief review of Nordkette. It is actually fantastic, and a lot of kids were out Sunday, but not likely to be suitable for your needs for various reasons. I just mention it in case others are looking at this thread for options in Austria, or just somewhere to go if staying one night in Innsbruck.

ir12daveor, your piste looks steep!

Your point about being a mind game resonates with me. The reason I fell on the shorter but similarly steep diamond run on the same day was I lost my nerve. GF told me to ski it, I said 'no way,' tried regardless of anticipating failure, and immediately fell. But after that I did get down it without another spill, because I had to. Actually it made the black piste right beside it look easy, which (along with a large beer) led to the opposite problem, overconfidence, and the fall which I started the thread with.

None of Seegrube / Nordkette gets pisted, and snow cannons are banned to protect the water purity. It is generally avoided by tourists for various reasons, so it does not need to have good snow consistently. On a good day, especially with a bit of fresh powder (which Sunday was on the top half, until 3pm) it is fantastic skiing, I dare say second to none, and fantastic scenery. Very popular with boarders and freeriders, as there is a special park for that. But no decent blue run.

gadgetgirl, I am not sure I get the point about turning the skis downhill. When sliding, I imagine you mean sliding sideways on ice? No one ever told me about turning skis downhill. But normally that has not caused me to fall. What has is crossing skis, catching the tail of the uphill ski in snow (especially where it is soft or bumpy), and losing balance owing to leaning back.

Not great. I can get down almost any piste, even one that steep, with a low chance of falling provided it is not icy (but maybe not that steep AND that long). That day I did fall on a very steep (but much shorter) diamond slope, then picked myself up and skied down it without another fall. My style is not great esepcially on a black or harder piste, but generally I have reached a level where I am safe on skis most of the time on any black piste with reasonable snow.

If the snow is not good my chances of getting down that slope safely would be pretty poor, which is why GF (who tries to assess what I am capable of, and has skied this slope herself in the past) offered to ski it first alone to check whether snow condition was such as would make it do-able.

It is admittedly too hard for me. But I look on the chances of getting down it slowly without falling as an aim which is realistically in sight, probably not before next year now. I could be wrong, of course...

OK. Just that knowing that after 3 years skiing round here, I will soon have to face up to the long and and ultra-steep gullies at Nordkette, barely a mile from where I sit. The route on the right of the top station is even steeper than the one in the picture: I am afraid I bottled out on Sunday, though there were a few skiers up there. You are right, I was not thinking about falling there. I was more planning on having something constructive to think about during the several minutes of sliding down, if I did happen to fall :P

It is actually the bit behind the building in the picture which worries me most, it is about the steepest part, but the biggest problem is not the absolute gradient but that it is steep for such a long stretch.

:lol: