J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by ise

The points made weren't terribly well informed. Particularly the background and skills of commercial clients on peaks like K2 or Everest and reasons why several teams found themselves exposed to the potential danger area where the serac collapse occurred.

Regulation and safety concerns are obviously matters for people actually involved in mountaineering rather than spectators.

I appreciate that most people haven't lost friends in the mountains or had friends experience serious injury so can't judge this but uninformed comment is inappropriate and can be offensive without meaning to.

Risk in mountains is an interesting topic in it's own right and lay view is interesting but current events with fatalities call for informed comment. If anyone is genuinely interested in the nature of risk I can recommend as a starting point the book "The Adventure Alternative" by Colin Mortlock ISBN 9781852840129.

I believe this thread should be locked, little is achieved by uninformed speculation and comment Anyone interested in the actual incident should read summitpost or alpinist newswire for updates.

bandit wrote:Not been to either of those. AFAIK ise has been to Adelboden :D

among other places, although we do live near there some of the time of course.

bandit wrote:I have read that Scweitzerdeutsch (sp) is not written down, as it's only a spoken language, making it even harder to learn.

it's written down, it's just that it's regional so newspapers and the like wouldn't tend to use it.

bandit wrote:I believe that many folks outside of Switzerland now have a better understanding of "how" Switzerland is governed since the right wing SVP came to power, and the structure of Swiss Federalism was explained. Most Swiss voters, voted for the SVP,

The SVP aren't in power and most people didn't vote for them. They've 62 seats out of a possible 200 in the federal parliament. That's the largest single grouping certainly but they're outnumbered. They gained about 29% of the vote so the other 71% of the country didn't vote for the SVP. This isn't a two (or three) party democracy like the UK, many parties represent the 71% of mainstream centre/centre-left opinion there's just that one on the far right which gives them that large block. Neither is it Italy and governemt posts and policy aren't dictated by the largest single block, that's why the SVP only have two federal council seats. In cantonal elections they got around 23% of the vote IIRC. Incidentally, the SVP are now, like most right wing parties, falling out with each other so they may well have peaked electorally. The Federal Council doesn't wield much power and has small budgets so it's not as important as a central government in other European countries.

bandit wrote:
Yes, there are doom mongers and miserable sods everywhere ;-) I still maintain that it has value for Rose, because there are a huge number of links within the site.

The misery is funny and the whining about how everything under the sun was better where ever they came from is pretty much standard for a particular type of ex-pat and is also funny. It's just that most or many of the posts on topics like employment or permits are just plain wrong, in fact a huge number don't even seem to understand how Switzerland is governed and regulated let alone get the detail right :roll: I've not really followed the links and my assumption they're of a similarly low quality could well be wrong. It's just the Internet in a microcosm, lot's of plausible looking information which turns out to be wrong )

As to if there's a better source, I'm not sure. Some of the federal sites are very good on their particular subject matter and often have translations into a couple of languages.

It's (just where you'd expect it to be) on the the Zermatt website :

http://www.zermatt.ch/e/in_general/

http://gemeinde.zermatt.ch/betriebe/e-bus/linie-winkelmatten.html

http://gemeinde.zermatt.ch/betriebe/e-bus/plan.html

etc etc

boardrider wrote:Hi,
I am planning a snowboarding vacation, and Zermatt is a possibility.
I'm trying to locate the Zermatt ski-bus map, so I could have accommodation within short walking distance of a ski-bus stop.
Googling didn't get me a link to this map.
Do any of you know where could I see the Zermatt ski-bus map on-line :?:
Thanks,
BR.

it's (just where you'd expect it to be) on the Zermatt web site :

http://www.zermatt.ch/e/in_general/

http://gemeinde.zermatt.ch/betriebe/e-bus/plan.html

http://gemeinde.zermatt.ch/betriebe/e-bus/linie-winkelmatten.html

etc etc

bandit wrote:Oooh, how exciting Rose. May I suggest a specialist forum which could answer lots of the little questions about relocating to Switzerland.

http://www.englishforum.ch/forum.php

I recommend searching the forum, before posting questions )

I really wouldn't bother, wildly inaccurate and all totally miserable, it's baffling why they don't all leave :) presumably they can't find the airport or something :roll: