J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Innsbrucker

:lol:

The videos really cheered me up! That was me two years ago. Now I pose as an expert...

In the last vid, I suspect these (possibly drunk) guys found if getting up was hard, coming down was even tougher. That's another problem with a schlep lift: if you change your mind at the top, you ain't taking the lift back down.

As an adult beginner I can say that learning to use lifts is one of the big basic skills. Learning it must be taken as seriously as the other basics, though that's the kind of thing you forget when you've been doing it for years.

I've mentioned a couple of tmes I ski in an anorak which does a very good job as ski jacket except it is a bit long and a T-bar easily gets caught under it, stopping me getting off but lifting me into the air at the top of a drag lift.

Second problem is that one day in my first year I was being sent up a kiddie slope on a 1-person drag lift. I keept falling off in the first 3 seconds. The other customers were mostly small children. The lift attended got pissed off. Problem was, I was sitting back. The lift attendent was shouting 'stay standing' and my GF was shouting 'stay loose / relaxed'. I could not both.... I think the first piece of advice was more useful, but being a bit relaxed and netural helps.

As for skis snaking, I worked out that with carvers one way of control that is by varying the weight distribution between the two, and let them use their natural tendency to turn.

When you really cannot ski at all, getting off is no easy matter. At first I would often hop off too soon at the top, and slide backwards. I definitely could not ski in reverese at first.

I must have been hiilarious to watch. I don't mind these lifts now, but that comes from practice & learning the hard way. Learning chair lifts also has a element of skill.

Austrian tv gets these reports, of course. Often seems to be chlidren who fall out of chair lifts, one did in January, fortunately survived & recovered. Adults were sitting beside her and no one seemed to know what happened.

There are new lifts with automatic safety bars.

As mentioned elsewhere on the board, I was caught with a T-bar lift hooked under my coat. Scary.

The other thing you sometimes hear about is the chair lift being switched off at night with someone still on it. The only case I can remember now is in the old cult Austria TV drama, Piefke Saga. But I am told it happens in real life sometimes.

I looked on youtube for the Bridget Jones II ski scene, which starts with a rather tame chair lift fall. Only found it in Spanish. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXGl5AiYLxQ If I could ski like that and not fall, I would think I was a pretty good skier..... if you don't agree, try it!

Early this month I visited a couple of resorts not geared to tourists, and probably not many have heard of, Kuhtai and Axamer Lizums, both quite high. Well under an hour from Innsbruck airport. Competitive prices. And I really like the fact pistes are not busy, it seems much safer. Axamer Lizums is a former olympic resort, the cafe at the top has fantastic architecture, advertising evening folk music sometimes, and a long blue as well as several reds. Kuhtai has a free kiddie lift also open to adults which would have helped me in my first days learning. In fact it was there I put skis on for the first time in my life, but just before the 2007 season, when everything was still closed.

There is accommodation in these resorts bang on the piste valley stations, but the downside is of course is the lack of a nice town to hang out in during the evenings. A few hotels and that's it. Or you could go back to Innsbruck at night (free bus / rented car). So if a nice resort town is imporant I could not recommend them.

The alternative of staying in Innsbruck and using the free buses to dot around the various resorts within an hour could be nice if you are not determined to spend the whole day on piste. I could not ski all day, I get tired and it would be dangerous. Probably you can do the same in Salzburg, stay in a very beautiful town and dot around resorts. Within an hour's drive of Ibk you have a wealth of resorts, some famous. Obergurgl is probably a good hour. One resort, Nordketter, has a cable car right into town from the valley station, starts beside Innsbruck's main concert hall, opposite the theatre. I never skied there, there is part for kids but it is mainly reds, and the top bit is for experts only.

Provocative thoughts, somewhat along lines of above post, coming up....

I rented skis once. Stopped a roadside kiosk on the road up to Sierra Nevada, Spain. The guy spoke no English. Had a room full of tat. And probably knew almost nothing about skis. I assume when you can talk to the hire shop guys in Austria, when they have a properly equipped workshop, and when they ski themselves, things are better. The skis did the job, and it was my fault I took a couple of nasty falls.

But at my level, as mentioned elsewhere about 150 hours skiing, I am sceptical whether I would notice the difference in equipment, really. Last week I went straight from my straightish 180cm old carvers to snowblades. Both are difficult to carve, both skid round ok, both slide sideways when you hit ice. The long skis cross more easily of course, and feel safer for schussing. But I rarely cross them (though it was hard at first), and rarely schuss.

It is a bit like hi-fi journalists and retailers, writing about all sorts of subtle sound poistioning and reveberations that no real classical concert-goer bothers with (and I do go to operas and concerts). Or a motorcylce journalist finding fine difference between a Honda 125 and a Suzuki 125, ok on the track one will be a tad quicker to accelarate, stop, corner etc. I have ridden bikes for a lving, OK one make of tyres holds better in the wet than another, but I think a lot of the reviewing is fantasy.

It is proved that assessments of wine are affected by how much you say the bottle cost. So yes there are bad skis and good skis, bad wine and good, but also a big element of fantasy, imagining one's good day or off day are down to some subtle difference in equipment, which in truth are not that relevant, unless you are racer looking for a fraction of a second.

Maybe the differences in skis, provided one has reasonable sitffness, sidecut, and length, and sharpish edges, are a lot of fantasy, fed by journalists and advertisers, in the heads of skiers who fancy themsleves as high level (with all respect to skiers, including some contributors here, who genuinely are at a high level, where different standards might apply). The really major differences and areas for improvement, are in our ski technique, not in some fancied difference in flavour from one intermediate carver to another, or between racing boots mostly used by recreational skiers.

On another point, if you are regular in the same hotel, why not chat up the host and try to get permission to leave your skis in his store room... I am in the lucky position of being able to keep my skis in Austria. Though I would not want to spend much on a pair, owing to fear of theft from outside a resort bar.

That is a great success :thumbup:

I have give-it-up moments. At start of this season I had forgotten even what I knew.

At this stage I would not do a class lesson. That kind of help on basics is surely well within the ability of any good skier to show. In a private lesson, if lucky the teacher could be more analytical than my GF, who is not keen on thinking too much. But there again if the teacher is one of partying young punks from England or Germany, staying in the 5-Euro per night ski-teacher hostel for the season, I worry he may have no deep teaching skills beyond a few standard exercises which I do anyway, and that would be a waste of Euro45 or whatever. Perhaps I am being unfair... My GF was born and brought up in a ski resort, walking to school carrying skis as a small child, so some level of skiing horse-sense is deeply ingrained.

I like to watch good skiers. Sometimes I watch the race-type skiers carving, but I think I learn more by watching the ski teachers leading other students, you see a lot at Seefeld which is a suitable resort for beginners.

Well, having been advised since starting the thread to get more modern skis, I have. Was lucky, someone near me advertised 2003 Crossmax 9 Pilot 170s for a nominal 'take it away' price. They could have got a fair bit more on ebay, but offering them this way was a nice thing to do, and I am grateful :) The one thing I have done to earn this good luck is spend way too much time looking for skis on ebay etc.

Yes I have done about 150 hours in odd afternoons, this is my third year. Spreading the ski time out helps, as I would be exhausted by a week of full ski days. Maybe will get a lesson or two.

Lessons from good skiing friends I know are not the same, though they do help. At the start it is nice to have someone who takes a lot of responsibility for safety. GF still does to some extent, I only saw her fall once, recently when she was checking whether the powder on the side of the piste was within my ability. Answer, 'no.'

That is encouraging, thanks. I would guess on a good day, my skiing looks somewhat similar to that.