J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Grizwald

Geds, It certainly looking great for my trip at the weekend heavy snow today and tomorrow and then easing up Friday then dry for the weekend.

I'm using Blacksheep for some guiding whilst the OH is getting lessons. I used them in Soll and they're excellent.

Off to Kitzbuhel on Saturday. Things are looking tasty with heavy snow today and tomorrow then easing off for the weekend. It's been 6 weeks since I last skied (not including a trip up to Gelncoe at the weekend) and it feel like ages. Won't be as painful coming back this time as only 4.5 weeks to wait until the highlight of this year-St Anton.

If it were me I'd ask around and see if you can find any ski buddies before you travel you can meet up with. If you're not bothered about improving your technique TO's and in resort companies will offer sort of on piste guiding days which are cheap or free, they won't teach you but rather take you to the best areas etc and hopefully you can make some ski friends that way.

If you weren't on a budget I'd get yourself signed up to some sort of technique based improving clinic.

As always advice is if you can wait then do. If you had to book now as previously mentioned a high altitude resort and some where with access to a glacier is your safest bet. I'd consider Tignes in France or Solden in Austria. There are many more, I've had really good late season skiing in resorts that top out at 2000m which had better conditions than Tignes the week before-this was mid April too and hopefully demonstrates the value of holding on if you can.

It's been years since I've skied in Kitzbühel but this will be remedied when I go a week on Saturday-please report back on your experience and any hints. Obvious answer is to find a guide; I'm going to try and meet up with a mate who's teaching in St Johan and plan to get a guide for another half/full day.

I was in Soll early this year and it was awesome, thing is with this much snow you can pretty much ski anywhere which makes resorts like Soll and Kitz which are best suited to Intermediates as challenging as you want to make it.

The Hahnenkamm area has some good off-piste skiing in the trees. The Kitzbüheler Horn is worthy of a half day visit and there's some good off piste to be found. From memory the better areas are up above Pass Thurn, due to the altitude and orientation he slopes there hold any powder better than anywhere else in the area.

To get guaranteed snow (at any time to be fair) you need somewhere that has a glacier, Solden, Hintertux, Kaprun etc but if that's all you had to ski on the areas are limited.

As Tony mention with Lech the Arlberg holds it's snow very well genrally until the end of April, I'd also put Ischgl into this category. Who knows how April will shape up this year the way things have started? You could in theory get very good conditions in one of the lower altitude resorts but is more of a gamble if you have to book now I wouldn't recommend it.

To be fair it could be asking a bit much for mainstream Europe-Austria, Italy, France. I've seen prices around the £200 mark for B&B for the above with flights then figure on £200 for a lift pass then anotehr £100 for gear so not a million miles off (so long as it's not half term).

Crystal have some good deals on at the mo: http://www.crystalski.co.uk/ski-deals/

An area with free nursery lifts for your Mrs could be the way to go-can she get time in an indoor slope when she goes? If she plans on getting essons in resort that could blow your budget-then again not advised to self teach with zero exeprience?!

Rossyhead, too long for me but mainly because I live 3hrs from my nearest airport in the UK so like to keep my in resort transfer to 2 hours or less if possible.

Dodge uk, doing a ski holiday on the cheap vs say a week in Ibiza etc is difficult as the lift tickets and hire costs are pretty much fixed but you get what you pay for by and large-what is your budget per person?

To give you an idea we're off to St Anton for my stag do the last week of March. We did an ealry booking so got 2 for 1 lift passes, catered chalet so breakfast 7 days, and evening meal 6. That came to £589 per person. For those hiring gear add another £100 on to that and for those with their own £35 ski carriage.

I don't expect beer included we'll get much change from £1000 a head. It's not cheap for a stag do but it's also a weeks holiday and I can't think of any other way I'd rather spend my last week of freedom! I could have probably got twice the numbers going if I choose a boozey weekend in Benidorm et el as it has excluded allot of non-skiers from coming.