J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by andymol2

Short term she may well be fine so long as her knee is stable. Will it remain so as she gets older is another matter as her leg strength diminishes with age?
Whilst ACL reconstructions have become relatively commonplace in sports injuries, there are some sportsmen/women who have been able to continue at top level without repairing them. One of the Underwood brothers, apparently played for much of his rugby career without ACLs. probably an exception.

The evidence for ACL reconstructions reducing long term arthritis is strongest where the knee is unstable, if it's stable then the current research doesn't suggest reconstruction makes a big impact on long term arthritis.

However some of the long term complications may not be felt until 20 or 30 years down the line so a stable knee in a fit 20 year old may not be quite the same in a few years so I'm sure she'll opt for repair sooner or later!

Yes, but she want's to put it off so she can ski over new year. It will take 9 months for the repair to be at full strength and if she doesn't ski this winter, she'll not be able to go for the next 2 years after that until she's done her finals because she won't have time off in the ski season.

Whether the consultant agrees with her plan is a different matter!

Ranchero_1979 wrote:I think one thing to remember that ACL surgery is reconstruction not repair. If your ACL is ruptured yes you can do physio but you still do not have an ACL.

You do - they replace the ligament with a piece of hamstring tendon (or patellar tendon or donor achilles tendon) which is much the same in terms of make up. In time that develops a blood supply and generally functions much the same as the original. (unlike the early days of carbon fibre reconstructions)

You technically don't have your original ACL but within a week or two of injury is little more than soggy frayed string attaches at either end with nothing in the middle.

Any way my elder daughter has now followed her Mum's example and done her ACL skiing although if the amount of bony bruising on the scan is any clue as to her speed when she wiped out she's lucky to have ski'd off the mountain under her own steam and carried on for another 4 days!

I guess there will always be differences between on off piste ski's if only due to the different widths that reflect what they are intended to be used on.

Will there be evolution of ski's - probably but I doubt that we are in an era where that is likely to be rapid and until the next revolution they are likely to get more similar.

France is a strange place. Go to the Southwest and they are very friendly. Northeast (including the Alps) and they don't even like themselves and couldn't give a toss what others think! It's just a shame their bit of the Alps couldn't be taken over by the Italians and Austrians

Courmayeur is small but nice and at times very very quiet on the pistes that is. The town is lovely.
Sauze gives access to a much larger ski area and should be fine in January. The area has a huge amount of snow making these days and is not the rowdy resort it once was. Sestriere gives access to the same areas as Sauze but is a bit more purpose built!
I've been to Madonna de Campiglio in the autumn but not the ski season and it is a nice place.

I have to say I quite like Morzine as a Town, yes there are a lot of expats from all over Europe but that applies to many ski resorts, however you can still speak French!
It is still a Town rather than a purpose built resort in the way Avoriaz is so is geared up for more than just the ski season.
Have ski'd down to Chatel but I wasn't staying there to comment meaningfully.

If you look at the piste map Morzine is more at the heart of the Portes Du Soleil in terms of being able to cover the area, with Chatel being more peripheral.

Competition is limited in many resorts - there are only a limited number of restaurants in particular areas of the mountains and many are working at capacity or near capacity so there is no business case for them to drop their prices so free market rules don't apply. It's only when large numbers of skiers simply stop eating and drinking on the mountain that prices might fall or opt not to go to that resort at all that the owners have to look at whether they offer value for money.

The Swiss have been clobbered by their currency climbing relative to the Euro and we Brits have been hit by our governments policy of trying to devalue the Pound.