J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Wanderer

The new Penkan lift in Mayrhofen is another interesting lift. It is a cross between a gondola and a cable car :shock:. It is like a cable car but there are several cabins on it (like a gondola) so you do not have the built in waiting times that afflicts your typical cable car. It seemed to be coping very well with the crowds when we were there a couple of weeks ago :thumbup:

Overall, the lifts in the Zillertal area are very good. My only complaint would be about the short chair on the Hintertux from the bottom of run 3 up to Sommerberg. This is a reminder of the old days with an uncomfortable seat and comes at you very fast - you can get a nasty bang on the backs of your calves if not careful :evil:. They really should prioritise this one for replacement.

Of course, being a glacier, you also have several T-bars on the Hintertux but that is pretty standard and unavoidable given the movement of the glacier :roll:.

Oops, I may have done it again :oops:.

Driving down from Munich to Mayrhofen last week, a red light flashed in front of me (near Kufstein) and I am concerned that this may have been a speed camera. I know that normally you see a bright white light flash from behind so this was unusual. Does anybody know if the Austrian's use a different form of camera?

Form some reason, the speed limit on the motorway on the Austrian side, according to the overhead gantries was 100kph while my TomTom was indicating 130kph. The roads were dry and clear so it was not clear to my why the lower limit was in place. In any event, this left me a little confused and obviously, I preferred to believe my seriously out of date Tomtom :roll: so it is possible that I might have been doing a little more than the 100kph indicated on the signs :hunf:.

Got back from a long weekend in Mayrhofen on Monday evening after heading out on Thursday.

It was my first time in Mayrhofen and I was really looking forward to it after all the positive reviews read on here. The new Penken Cablecar/gondola seems very efficient and we did not encounter any queue at all at it despite hitting it at peak time on Friday am. We ended up only skiing in Mayrhofen for one day and 3 days on the Hintertux - given the high temperatures, we wanted to stay high - we had a car so it was not much trouble to get up there. Hintertux was very good with super snow.

Skied most of the Penken area on Friday and enjoyed it. Conditions were mixed with South facing slopes turning slushy very early due to the high temperatures.

Saturday, the forecast was for rain up to about 2000m :evil: so we decided to head up to Hintertux. We knew there was a real risk of terrible visibility but at least it would probably be snow rather than rain. The day was a bit frustrating as it was horrible at the top with a howling gale and little or no visibility :evil:. It was decent enough from mid-mountain to the Sommerberg area even though the snow did turn to rain every now and then. The conditions limited what we could do and we ended repeating runs 3 and 17 a good few times :roll:. We finished with the long valley run (twice). The top section of this was in good shape but the last section was extremely slushy :x .

Sunday started in a similar vein but not as bad. We again headed up to Hintertux and had a mixed morning with very brief flashes of sunshine but lots of fog as well. We adjourned for an early lunch hoping that it would improve and thankfully, our wishes came true and we had a super afternoon skiing 8).

Monday was to be fine but very warm so yet another trip up the valley and we had a fabulous day's skiing before it was time to head for the airport for a late flight home :mrgreen:. When we got back down to Mayrhofen, the temp in the town was 18c :shock:.

Didn't really hit the apres-ski too much. Tried to get into the Scotland Yard pub on Paddy's Night but literally could not get in as the place was jammed :shock:. Ended up in a more civilized Coup for a couple of quiet beers instead. Food was generally good but had a really superb meal in the restaurant in the Gasthof Neue Post - not cheap but excellent quality :mrgreen:.

Enjoyed my trip but not sure that I would be in a rush to head back - IMHO, there are better resorts :roll:.

SwingBeep wrote:The sole thickness for alpine ski boot is covered by ISO 5355: Alpine ski-boots -- Requirements and test methods. The thickness at the front is supposed to be 19 mm ± 1mm and 30 mm ± 1 mm at the heel.
It might be relevant for renters, as the hire shops are supposed to check the boots and bindings in accordance with yet another standard ISO 13993: Rental ski shop practice -- Sampling and inspection of complete and incomplete alpine ski-binding-boot systems in rental applications, but they seldom do.

I think it stands to reason that a loose fitting boot or a boot that's slopping about in the binding due to worn soles won't release in the same way that a well fitting new boot will.

Swingbeep - you are a veritable skiing encyclopedia :thumbup:

Well I did manage to tick both of these boxes on my recent trip -).

The Marmolada does take quite an effort to get to from the southern end of the Sella Ronda. However, we still got there comfortably by lunchtime. There are 3 cable cars required to get to the top. There was a longish queue for the bottom one but the others are queue free and pretty well coordinated so once you get one the first one, it is pretty much non-stop to the top. The views from the top are truly wonderful and from there it is a very long, steepish but wide red down. Once down from there is was pretty long trek home again but easily doable in a day provided the weather does not close in on you. It was worth doing but I probably wouldn't bother repeating. If you are hungry, the restaurant is at the top of the 2nd cable car not the very top.

The trip to Lagazoui was even longer but again we got there in time for an early lunch. The views are spectacular but I was a bit disappointed with the run down. It was a relatively narrow path for long stretches and icy in places. Despite this it was still good. The horse tow out is a real novelty but a bit of a faff loading up.

Our trip was not without incident however. My daughter had a minor fall just before we got to the top and had a bit of a wobble. With the administration of lots of sugar and a leisurely lunch break, she recovered but we had lost a fair bit of time. Combined with some awful signage on the way home meant that we missed our last connections and only got as far as Arabba. Had a couple of beers there before our expensive taxi ride home.

Glad to have made the trip but, again, would not probably not bother repeating - certainly not from the Val di Fassa area.

bedrock barney wrote:Done. Question regarding skiing in 50 years time is interesting. With current trends, I imagine the industry will have been decimated and will have become a rich person's sport...

There ends my cheery Monday morning post!

I expect to be dead by then so will probably have given up skiing :oops: . The OECD actually did a serious study of this and concluded that resorts below 2000m would probably no longer be able to operate. However, a concern about skiing seems somewhat crass compared with the wider ramifications. If the global warming predictions are correct and the progression continues over that period, skiing will be the least of the world's problems. Even an average 2 degrees increase in global temperatures would wipe out or displace a large proportion of the world's population. For example, most of Bangladesh would be under water while even the likes of East Anglia could find itself uninhabitable :shock:.

Here is a link to the OECD Study http://www.oecd.org/env/cc/climatechangeintheeuropeanalpsadaptingwintertourismandnaturalhazardsmanagement.htm. The full Study has to be bought but there is an Executive Summary available from this page.

I am assuming you would be planning on hiring a car. If so, you can reduce the cost of accommodation significantly by staying in one of the satellite villages and driving to slopes ( or use ski bus). This is perfectly feasible and does not take very long to get to slopes. For St Anton, you could look at the likes of Pettneu or Klosterle. Of course if you do this, you will miss out on legendary St Anton apres ski.

Very hard to beat St Anton area and it should still have plenty of snow at end March. Now fully connected to Lech so a huge area. An easy journey from Menningen.