J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Hoop

bandit wrote:
If you or your friends lose control,hit another skier and injure them on French ski slopes, it is likely that a Gendarme will be called and statements taken. 3 years ago I was invited to press charges for assault after a woman crashed into me on a French ski slope.

That seems nuts. It's an inherently dangerous sport, and that could quite feasibly happen to anyone purely accidentally.

Happy days :mrgreen:

Ian Wickham wrote:Hoop, like most forums, read the replies and make your own decisions, these guys are only trying to give you advice based on their experiences, it is completely up to you if you take the advice. Happy holidays 8)

Of course. I'm not suggesting that people are being knowingly or deliberately unhelpful.

On a lighter note...I see you're in Norwich. Do you ski at Trowse at all?

Thanks for the link. Good advice there.

On the point of chains...what are the roads around Chamonix likely to be like end of January? I'd expect the roads around a town to be salted, or whetever, but having never been to the alps, I'm not 100% sure. Am I likely to need chains in that area?

ldavies wrote:Hoop,
AS PER DAVE MAC AND TONY H,
your friends will not have a holiday if they don't book lessons. simple. it's a false economy to not have lessons. and what happens if/when someone falls and hurts themselves because they have no idea what they're doing? what if they career into someone else on the piste because THEY can't stop?
having taught children to ski under the watchfulness of the ski school in N, i can tell you it takes me two and a half days from complete beginner stage to get children on the lift system.
please show your friends selected posts on this, no, all the posts, so that they can at least make an informed decision. good luck- you'll need it! L.

Re: false ecomomy...I fully agree, and am doing my utmost to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.

Re: the second point. I'm sure you're not suggesting that people having lessons never fall and hurt themselves? Obviously, lessons enable you to learn faster, in turn reducing the likelihood of a nasty fall as time progresses, but the reality is that anyone can have a fall and hurt themselves, whether in a lesson or not. Even experienced skiers have nasty accidents all the time. My friend's father was the president (or something like that) of Norfolk Ski Club and had a horrendous injury recently from a seemingly inocuous piece of skiing.

Was somebody on here not asking for advice the other day as their wife had had a fall on her first lesson and broken her wrist?

steverandomno wrote:Not discounting the good advice others have given on this thread, but in defence of Hoop: I think they had booked this holiday a long time ago when money wasn't as much of a concern as it is now.

Let's face it; getting a group of friends to come to a decision on what pub to meet at is difficult enough, never mind choosing the right resort. If it is a group of blokes then they almost definately thought they would all be candidates for the winter X games after day 2, so Chamonix being more advenced probably did not feature in the beer enhanced decision making process.

It sounds like he has done the right thing in stressing that lessons are an invaluable investment and should not be left up to a mate to pass on his bad habits. But they are having non of it.

So he is in an akward position. The way I see it is that he has three choices:
1 - refuse to teach them and give them all the information they need to book some lessons. This is not going to make him popular.
2 - pay for them to have lessons so he can sod off and enjoy some skiing. A popular choice but why should he pay for them. (I suggest this investment can be recooped as a stealth beer tax over the duration of the holiday)
3 - try to "tell them what to do and work it out for themselves" (which sounds a lot like trying to teach them) In agreement with everything others have said, this is a very bad option.

If you are going to take option 3, then make sure you go to the Le Tour area of Chamonix. The wide open and less steep lower slopes there will be much less crowded. They will stand a better chance of being able to learn something.

My advice is to go with option 2 if you can afford it. You mates might see how serious you are if you are forced to stump up your own cash.

Good luck.

With the greatest respect to all who have posted opinions on my predicament (and they are greatly appreciated), this is the only post that I feel pays any heed to the situation.

Simply saying that (and I'm paraphrasing here) "instruction is ESSENTIAL, your friends need their head read etc etc" doesn't really help me solve what is proving to be a difficult and stressful problem.

With regards to the choice of resort...most literature that I read, and advice taken from various sources (websites, friends) suggested that Chamonix had enough skiing of all levels to cater for my group. I know that a lot of the skiing in Chamonix can be considered advanced, but there is surely enough to sate my desire to ski and my friends' desire to learn. Maybe another resort would have been better, but it's booked...and has been since early August when we weren't so concerned by money. Again, telling me "what we could have won" by booking in Mayrhofen isn't helpful. All it does is make me feel worse about a situation that I already feel responsible for having created.

I've emailed a recommended ski instructors company (Evolution 2), and will hopefully convince them all (my friends) that at least a couple of 2 or 3 hour private lessons at just over 10E per hour are a good idea, but at some point we're going to be skiing without an instructor (does anybody have lessons all day, every day for a whole weeks holiday?!), and I would have liked to be able to help them along. Now I just feel like I'm going to get someone killed if I try.

I'm Scottish after all

I'm sure there's some scots about that wouldn't like that too much, but I've never found one yet!!! My boss is exactly the same...tight, Scottish and proud!

I'm not gonna get too hung up on it. We'll have a good week no matter what, but I just want to help them make the most of whatever we do, as it was me who persuaded everyone to go in the first place.

Looking at some prices, private lessons for 5 people will work out to 23 euros for a 2 hour lesson. Doesn't seem too bad to me, but I'll still have to convince the others.

Brucie wrote:I am really just wondering why your beginner friends want to learn to ski in one of the more advanced areas of the alps?
There are countless other more suitable places to learn, and there is also the ski in ski out issue.

It seems like a good compromise. there are beginner's ski areas at the bottom of most of the resorts, and places like Domaine de Balme and Brevent/Flegere seem OK for when the beginners progress a little.

Add that to the fact that we can do the whole week in a private apartment including lift pass for around £500pp and it doesn't seem too bad.

Ski in/ski out not an issue for us. We've got a car and will be able to find our way around.

And if they are, as you put it, 'plain tight', why go to the most expensive place!!!

I may have been a little harsh when I said that, but the financial situation has worsened a LOT since we booked. Given that fact, my friends are reluctant to part with more money than strictly necessary.

I haven't really found booking in Chamonix particularly more expensive than other places. Also, the girls aren't going to want to ski all week, so we wanted to go somewhere where they could find other entertainment while us boys are on the mountain.