J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Neiltoo

I also read BMI as body mass index :oops: and thought you were trying to work out what was the biggest size person you could get in your ski bag! )

Sorry to hear about your bad news.
Get Well Soon :D

Send me a pm with some details if you wish and I might be able to put you in touch with some one. As I didn't see your first post I'm not sure who you are trying to get in contact with. :D

mfc wrote:i had a problem whilst away that my boots got wet and didnt dry in the drying room ( work that 1 out).

When you say drying room?
Some chalets and hotels will have a room for storing skis and boots in, which they call a drying room. Sometimes it will be toasty warm when you come back from skiing and then the heating gets turned off at night (Daft, I know but it happens).

Any moisture in your boots will stay and may also freeze. You will then be lucky to get your feet to warm up at all the next day.
My boots don't leak except in really slushy conditions but I get some moisture from sweat/condensation. I've always kept my boots in my bedroom at night and this dries them out fine. I can see that if you have a lot of moisture in them then removing the inners will let them dry much quicker.

Boot driers/heaters also work well and are small enough not to take up much space in your luggage.

elgius wrote:carving ski's make intermediate skiers ski faster than their capabillity

isnt that the point of carving skis though?

I hope not! Learning to ski faster is great but surely skiing faster than you are capable of controling is dangerous! :D

In my case I eventually got compensation from the airline but I was working for a tour operator who booked a lot of flights with Varig. Without that connection I think I could still be waiting - 15 years later :(

Ian Wickham wrote: So my point is how many people out there have actually had their ski gear damaged or lost in transit ?. :)

The only time I have ever used a boot bag I checked it in and the airline lost it. It was on a Varig flight to Rio. The lost luggage staff struggled with the concept of what ski boots were!

In my experience, mastering the varied conditions found off piste is all about practice. This makes it all the more difficult for a 2 week a year skier because you can obviously only practice in the conditions you find.
Some conditions, spring snow, for example, require very little changes in technique from what you do on piste. Powder takes practice and is as much a psychological challenge as a technical one.
As said above, leaning back doesn't work - the reason that some people think it is necessary is because of what they think they see others doing. When you ski in deep snow your skis are not parallel to the ground. The tips float higher in the snow than the tails, so although you are balanced over your feet, in relation to the angle of the slope it can look as if you are 'leaning back'.
There are many more qualified here than me to give advice but broadly your weight should be more evenly spread over both skis in powder than when on the piste. This is more easily achieved if you keep fairly much to the fall line, the more you turn across the slope the harder to keep both skis equally weighted.
If you try to turn your skis with your shoulders on piste this will make life really hard in powder.
The more you practice in less than perfect conditions the better you will get, but be careful, as Ise has mentioned you don't have to go far off piste to get in trouble and don't ever assume that because you see someone else ski where you want to go that it is safe.