J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by ise

Admin wrote:
AVALANCHE RISK - PLEASE READ

All this snow comes at a price. More than twenty skiers and climbers have lost their lives in avalanches since Christmas; in France, Italy, Scotland and Switzerland.

There is elevated risk in many areas, across Europe, and you should thoroughly assess local conditions before venturing off piste. The general Avalanche Risk Level is currently 3 (Considerable) for large areas of Switzerland and France presently, and may be higher locally. As always, never ski off piste alone and always go equipped.

If in doubt - take another route!

Enjoy the snow, and stay safe,

That's now at 4/5 for many of the main French ski stations :

http://france.meteofrance.com/france/montagne?51206.path=montagnebulletinavalanche

for those that don't read French the bulletin talks about the recent snow falling, or being blown by wind, onto slopes that were already unstable where previous layers hadn't had chance to consolidate as I had tried to warn about several times already.

4/5 is a pretty serious level, at this level avalanches can be spontaneous or require low triggers. The bulletin notes that weather will be improving but you'd not anticipate a significant reduction in risk for some days, the consolidation required is not purely at the surface, visible, layer.

Admin wrote:
If driving to The Alps at any point over the next week you should expect winter driving conditions; there is widespread snow and more is forecast. We strongly advise the use of winter tyres and chains are essential - pack them so you can get at them, and don't forget the gloves and the torch (Murphy's Law dictates that the very first time you use chains, it will be -20C and dark).

I think someone else mentioned this recently but don't neglect screen wash, you need loads of it and down to the lowest temperature you can get. I've gone through liters of the stuff in the last two days alone. In fact, I need to top it up again now :roll:

Badbark wrote:I'm going on my first skiing holiday this Saturday with my girlfriend and parents to Soll in Austria. My parents are both 65, slightly overweight and not sure if they want to try skiing or not. My mum also had key-hole surgery on her knee in October which makes her more apprehensive. I'm booked into a beginners ski school for 5 days and my parents are thinking about coming along for the first day and see how it works out. Is this advisable or is 65 to old to start skiing? Are they likely to injure themselves falling?

Any advice would be welcome.

If they want to try it then they should. If they're not sure then I'd certainly suggest considering some of the other activities you can do in winter in the alps, Austrian villages are pretty good for this. Things like snowshoeing, nordic walking or nordic skiing are all easy to learn and they can be out and about like pro's in a few hours. My father was out with us over Christmas, he's 73 and did some snow shoeing and winter walking which he enjoyed. If they've not been to the alps in the winter before they might find just being there is interesting enough without having to ski.

The local tourist office will probably have some non-ski activities on offer if you're looking for ideas. Personally, I don't ski every day, if there's the vaguest chance of it being busy then I do something else, typically snow shoeing which I enjoy a lot.

staying on topic, my oldest are some Asnes Sondre telemarks :

Innsbrucker wrote:Thanks for explanation, it is useful.

I picked combi boots because gf has Salomon combi boots (Ellipse 10.0) with bindings with heel release (Titanal 3), and is very happy with them, says they work fine for general purpose skiing and one-day touring

Mrs Ise has something similar, the newer Diamirs with some sort of Salomon boots I don't recall the name of. I don't think Salomon make any touring boots though, I guess for them the market's not big enough. Flexwise they've plenty that would work.

Innsbrucker wrote:Also she said there is not a lot of point in me getting expensive race boots without being far more advanced than I am, and that they might even be a problem and require a change in technique because every tiny movement would feed through to the skis.

You get different opinions on this though, I'm not entirely convinced by having stiff boots sometimes, on a flat groomed piste you don't need to be an expert to use them and they often make things easier, once you're in more varied terrain I find they can limit the amount you can flex your ankles which I don't find helpful personally. Most people want stiff boots though, I had to have my last pair of Garmonts specially imported as it's a new model they've decided not to carry here in Switzerland as most people want stiff boots even for touring nowadays apparently.

I know what she means about tiny movements though, years ago I got some Salomon Equipe 9.0's which were pretty stiff and I recall falling off a drag lift on the first time out, not concentrating I rolled my foot, caught the edge and fell over which was irritating :D

Innsbrucker wrote:Boots are Salomon Verse 7.0. The shop had none on display, but when I aksed for combi touring boots he pulled them out of the back and did a special price on the grounds they were 'last year's.' He explained that pure touring boots have 'give' at the ankle both forwards and backwards, but combi boots, with the switch in tourhing position, have give only backwards.

Touring boots have a bit more going on than that, vibram soles, crampon compatible amongst other things. Probably the biggest difference is the sole though, your boots will have a DIN ISO sole compatible with all DIN alpine bindings, a touring boot has a rockered sole and won't work properly in a DIN binding, the rocker prevents contact with the AFD so the release doesn't work. Hybrid bindings like Fritschi let you adjust the AFD enough to take either an alpine sole or a touring one.

A boot like the Salomon Verse 7.0 is pretty soft and would drop in a fritschi binding without problem, matched with the right ski it would be fairly reasonable to tour with compared to a ultra stiff race boot for example. In fact, IIRC, quite a well known back country skier from the US, Andrew Maclean, uses something similar but hacked around in some way I don't recall.

Hybrid touring and downhill boots do exist, like the Garmont Endorphin for example, they achieve this by having an interchangeable sole you can pop on and off. It's the other end of the spectrum typically though in that they're pretty much all very stiff. How that works depends on the skier and the skis, I use three sorts of Garmont boots, one pretty stiff and the other two pretty soft with three pairs of Black Diamond skis, two stiff and one soft, all different bindings but as much as I can switch boot and ski around you can feel huger differences in different combinations.

Salomon and others had a few softer or laced boots like that, and the flex is probably very comparable with the older touring boots, but they struggled to sell many I believe. Odd really, as it's not a bad idea.

Stewart Dowling wrote:Ise, what makes you think the reports on the above websites are anymore correct than the one I have shown?

I only can go by what I read and if it is factually incorrect then it is not my concern.

You can see the website I got the information from as I included the link to it.

I assume by your comment about Meteo France that there site doesnt seem to be working so why bother putting it down.

I am just jotting information down as I am excited about going on holiday and could careless whose information is correct or not.

France meteo is the official weather site for France, like the met office in the UK. Like in the UK there's some extreme weather so I assume they're having some problems with excess load on the server. The resort website has information from the lift company. I know they're correct, I've no idea where the other site is getting the information from, it could well they're taking information using some automatically system that accidentally picked the lowest forecast or they had some glitch.

The resort website is producing much better information, that they're making distinctions between different parts of the area is a really great idea that other areas could well learn from.

I realize you're not in a position to be able judge the accuracy of the report which was why I was trying to help you.

Stewart Dowling wrote:Avalanche risk changed from 3 to 2 so the base is stabling too which is good.

Stewart Dowling wrote:for all of us heading out this weekend, check out the snow report below: -

http://www.alpedhueznet.com/snow_report.php

I LIKE :wink:

I don't know where they're getting that from but it's incorrect, they may have some automated systems that's not working properly. The Meteo France reports are where you need to look or the stations own snow report. Both of which are showing risk 3/5 and above on most slopes with a couple of sub-areas at 2/5, your link presumably is picking this lower risk erroneously. Given the continued cold weather, wind and fresh snow it would be odd if the risk were low.

You can read the correct reports here :

http://pistehors.com/backcountry/wiki/Avalanches/Avalanche-Bulletin
http://www.meteofrance.com/FR/montagne/bulNeige.jsp?LIEUID=DEPT38 (if meteo France defrost their server)
http://www.alpedhuez.com/hiver/fr/28/14/ouverture-pistes---remontees.html#bulletin_meteo