J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by ise

CrazyJ wrote:Hi all,

We'll be driving from Innsbruck to Salzburg Nov 4th. I was hoping to catch a few hours of skiing on the way. Are there any ski areas/resorts roughly on the way that fit the following criteria:

- Quick and easy to get rentals and hit the slopes within an hour
- Easily accessible with summer tires on car
- Cheap, ~$40/person for rentals and skiing for 4 hours, probably afternoon

Thanks in advance!

Near Innsbruck is the Stubai glacier, it's probably the nearest to the route. Winter tyres should not be needed although it's hard to say for 100% sure obviously. A rental car would probably have them on anyway probably. It's too early for any resort to be fully open so it'll have to be glaciers.

http://www.stubaier-gletscher.com/index.php?lang=en

bennyboy wrote:I've never skied in Switzerland :( , but I really want to soon. I have heard that Lenzerheide and Flims/Laax are good. What is your opinion on them?

Btw Ise, stunning pics from that latest Zermatt trip, it looks absolutely incredible!!! Thanks for sharing :D

Thanks, I missed the best one, we climbed the east ridge which isn't the normal route and as we were moving roped together I couldn't grab the camera and get a good shot which would have been this :

http://www.summitpost.org/view_object.php?object_id=124043

I'm going to climb it and ski it in the winter so I'll try again :D

My opinion of Lenzerheide and Flims/Laax is that they're too far from my house and I've never been, sorry :oops: So many mountains, so little time :D

bandit wrote:

ellistine wrote:
We were thinking about visiting Hintertux this summer but perhaps Zermatt may be a better option. One of our party is a non skier which makes the short summer skiing a nice option. How far away are the summer pistes from the hotels generally?

For Zermatt, the cable car, runs up from the village in several stages and takes around 40 minutes. Add on to that time, the distance from your hotel or apt. I will be staying in one around 3-5 minutes walk away. As Zermatt is car free, many of the hotels transport guests using electric taxis.
There is access for non skiers to the highest point, as the journey is by cable car. Naturally the resort has many activities on offer during the summer.
http://bergbahnen.zermatt.ch/e/peaks/

My impression is that right now we've better snow in Switzerland than the Austrian glaciers but that could change overnight :D

It's quite a big town really so getting around is something to think about although the bus is pretty good, either a couple of francs or on the lift pass. I certainly try not to use the taxis which are fairly pricey. I think the hotels often charge for the taxi as well.

There's a great pizza place opposite the KL lift as well if you stay near there.

Tourists can go up, in fact climbers and tourists outnumber skiers in the summer. It's worth remembering it's a glacier at the top for tourists, it's very, very dangerous and they absolutely should not wander off the tracks as a guy did last time I was there :

http://snowslider.net/2007/07/29/breithorn-4164m-zermatt/

That's a good excursion, some kit required though which can be rented locally although you need boots rigid enough to take a crampon.

Best way to Zermatt is on the train though from the airport, renting a car isn't a good idea to pay to park it for week.

Geoff Smith wrote:Ise said:

"Verbier, Nendaz... and the PdS ( less naff than France but still naff).

Rather a sweeping generalisation, by inference, methinks, about France. In my experience there are many French resorts that are far from being unstylish or outmoded ( or 'naff' in the current jargon) . Switzerland, by and large, is a great place to ski. I have had good holidays there in five resorts I have also very much enjoyed skiing in several locations in France.

I think that it is a pity that , on this list, there is a tendency on the part of some subscribers to do down some countries as far as the quality of skiing, or of ski resorts, is concerned. My experience tells me that there are, of course, pros and cons for particular resorts anywhere in the world but that generalisations about countries need to be treated with considerable caution.

Keep smiling,

Geoff Smith

I think it's a pity there's a tendency on your behalf to fall guilty of exactly what you're accusing me of. I was referring to the PdS which is naff no matter what side of the border you're skiing.

Before you criticise me regarding comments on ski stations I'd be sure you've read them, understood them and considered I might have visited rather more of them than you have either in France or Switzerland. Even more, I'd be 100% sure you're not doing exactly what you accuse others of. That hobby horse got saddled up rather too quickly.

I happen to choose to live and ski in Switzerland, I've lived in France skied there, worked there, owned properties in French ski stations, I've lived in Southern Germany and skied each weekend in Austria. Uninformed I'm not.

crikey ! that's a bit of a tall order.

You can try my blog for various stations :

http://snowslider.net/switzerland/

There's no scenic way out of Wengen though, that's just what that area's like, in fact it's quite built up in places compared to other valleys. You need to leave early as the road can be horrifically busy (by Swiss standards), part of the reason I don't go actually. Maybe Wengen is a case in point though, it's really nice and I see the attraction but I don't like it, there's way nicer places in that area. I find the skiing is indifferent and it's just too busy, Adelboden/Lenk is much nicer.

Where's this 12km piste supposed to be? Do you mean 22km ? At Zermatt?

Was the article this one ? : http://www.skiclub.co.uk/skiclub/news/story.asp?intStoryID=4916 not surprising no one goes to Switzerland with that sort of rubbish, there's a bit more to the country than Verbier, which is another station most locals refuse to go to :D

What you will find is the standard of accommodation is higher here, more spacious and just cleaner. Providing you avoid some places, Verbier, Haute Nendaz (a complete and utter toilet) and the PdS (less naff than France but still naff).

Zermatt though is something else, the town's a little busy maybe but the terrain is fantastic. Where it wins so much over Wengen/Grindelwald is that the skiing radiates from the town, for example in Wengen it's a pain to get to Grindelwald First or from Grindelwald to the Schilthorn.

Maybe the thing to do is to do it like the locals, I don't mean some ski bums but normal people who live and work here. That's small ski stations, ski touring, snow shoeing sometimes.

The real reason UK skiers don't come here is that the UK tour companies don't want them to. There's not the amount of cheap accommodation they need to make their economics work. In this respect you can say the same about Italy, Austria and a lot of France even.

2005/06 I was largely skiing in Gstaad as I had a season pass there and we were in a limbo of having no mountain place. I'd done a week training course there so a season pass was a good deal and it's local for me. That's a great area, lot's of tree lined skiing, real chocolate box stuff. Hard to pick the best, maybe these days:

http://snowslider.net/2006/03/12/2006-03-12-chateau-doex/
http://snowslider.net/2005/12/14/2005-12-14-gstaad/

Riding the chair this weekend at Horneggli I was thinking how fantastic that winter had been.

2006/07 we finished building the chalet in Zinal. This is rubbish by UK standards, half a dozen lifts, half of them are drags, about a dozen runs and a visiting skier could "do" it in a morning easily (some mornings I do actually). Or, it's this :

http://snowslider.net/2007/04/06/grimentz-col-de-torrent/
http://snowslider.net/2007/04/11/vallon-de-rechy/
http://snowslider.net/2007/03/31/zinal-12/

And this is a big place, near my home it's much smaller, so small they don't really bother with piste markers or other skiers really :

http://snowslider.net/2005/02/20/la-berra-la-roche-20-february-2005/
http://snowslider.net/2006/03/14/2006-03-14-charmey/

If there's one thing to consider it's that comparing ski stations on their size might be a mistake. If I can spend the whole season in the Anniviers then it really ought to be enough for a weeks holiday. Public transport's excellent, get to an airport and using a train or bus is quite practical. Ringing the tourist office and booking is easy, I doubt there's one in all of Switzerland that doesn't speak English.

Most of all, in the real Switzerland good service is a way of life not an afterthought.

Plenty of opportunities to test skis in Tignes. In fact, there's the Atomic boot testing thing going on :

http://www.j2ski.com/ski-chat-forum/posts/list/2181.page

I believe they'll have some test ski stock there as well IIRC.

& Sport Express also in Germany whom I forgot.

It depends a bit where you're going on holiday and if there's going to be some good stores with a good range of stock to try and buy. Do you know where you're going yet?

One option would be to try some stuff while you're away and then buy it on your return over the Internet. Three good suppliers are :

Telemark Pyrenees . good off piste or all mountain supplier
Ski-Bilek - major mass market brands
Sport Conrad - major mass market brands

If you waited until the end of season of course there would be some deals although there's still an amount of last years kit around as well.

Salomon/Atomic have ski selectors on their websites so you pick stuff there.

I agree though that 154 sounds a bit short though. There's plenty of good skis around though so it's not hard to get something reasonable.