J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by ise

Geoff Smith wrote: From these data it is clear that there is a higher probability of getting more snow at higher levels. This does not preclude the possibility, of course, of the reverse happening from time to time.

I'd be especially careful of that comparison, you need to take account of how much snow is required to open a slope particularly for early season. Some high level stations are pretty good at PR and exploiting that confusion. Slopes round here take a few cm to be skiable as it's alpine meadow, up at Zinal it take a lot of snow to make a slope skiable at least one metre more in fact. We've had a couple of winters this century where that's played out.

A lot of Austrian ski resorts are on the low side, but it's their location and not altitude that's responsible for snow.

bandit wrote:
Your Megarides have a cleated boot sole, so walking should be easier than with an Alpine DIN sole. Additionally as you are using a pin binding with the Megarides, your kit is far less susceptible to the issues raised on this thread :D

Like most ski-mountaineering boots they've also got rocker soles. In fact most rigid mountaineering boots are the same otherwise the lack of flex is just too much when you're walking.

ellistine wrote:Yeah, that's kind of what I was expecting. We can always keep our fingers crossed though can't we - and our toes as we're actually staying in Tignes Les Boisses which is even lower than Tignes itself.

I suppose the one advantage of it being winter season rather than summer/autumn is that the pistes may stay open to later than 2pm.

Either way it will certainly beat the 110m dryslope I've been using all summer!

good point, and better still you don't need to get up at too early hopefully.

bandit wrote:

Since you ask.....

They work by providing a temporary non slippery boot sole surface on which to walk.

a good thing, like I said I think most alpine norm' soles are awful and quite dangerous.

bandit wrote:They work by preventing endless amounts of grit and dirt from being ground into the sole of the boot chewing up the smooth plastic. That grit then being transferred onto the binding, also plastic, wrecking 2 smooth sufaces, which will create friction and slow down binding release.
No, I don't have any research papers showing the effects, it's OCS (just in case you wanted a linky)
:D
Anyway, it's all right for you, your boots have replaceable soles :lol:

OCS = Obsessive-compulsive syndrome ? :D

I'd not thought about grit transfer to the binding but stamping round in some snow ought to fix that shouldn't it?

Still, even anecdotally do you know anyone where the wear at toe and heel has become so bad that the binding won't compensate? I'm not sure I do. Bindings need checking/adjusting from time to time anyway so it's not too onerous.

My soles are interchangeable on the Endorphins, the Megrides aren't but I'll bet the boot is knackered before the the sole is.

Geoff Smith wrote:Jonesy,

A lot of ski resorts in Austria are on the low side. These days it is best to aim high to be on the safe side. I have enjoyed Solden, Obergurgl, St Anton and Obertauen all of which have high, good and reasonably extensive skiing.

I'm sure there's no mileage in kicking off that whole one country versus another thing but it must be said that this old chestnut that Austrian ski stations are low and don't get snow should really be consigned to the trash bin of urban (mountain) myths.

The Arctic is 0m above sea level and they get plenty of snow :D

For that matter high altitude ski stations often have problems with snow as well so the safe rule about going high turns out not to be too safe sometimes.

ellistine wrote:I'm booked up for what I assumed was just glacier skiing in Tignes this November. Looking at various articles on the net it seems that Tignes infact opens for it's winter season on the 1st of October.

Does anybody know how much of the area might we expect to be open in mid November?

It's funny, I was content with just skiing on the glacier, now I want to ski to the hotel door!

You can sometimes ski down to Val Claret. Otherwise it's just the glacier. They're a bit naughty with this, they claim the area's open and charge the full amount for a pass but only the glacier is ever open and the rest doesn't open until the full espace Killy domain does. Not surprising in October of course but a bit cheeky by December.

I can tell you now there's no way on 1st October that anything other than the glacier will be open :D You might be able to ski down but it's unlikely and even less likely the run will be actually open.

Isn't that a bit like elephant repellent (below)? In what way do they work? I can see some wear and tear is prevented but would have definitely been a problem?

A guy's at the doctor's office in the waiting room. Occasionally he takes a small bottle out of his pocket and pours a small amount of liquid into his hand, and flings it a round the room as he yells something incomprehensible very loud. After several episodes of this people were starting to watch him and the receptionist says to the guy "Excuse me, sir, is everything all right?" The guy replies "Sure, I'm just keeping the elephants away", to which the receptionist replies, "But, there aren't any elephants around here." The guy looks up to her and says, "See, it works."

Jonesy wrote:I hav'nt been skiing in Europe before, but after reading posts on the forum Austria sounds like a great place to go over France & Italy.

It's rumoured that we have skiing here in Switzerland as well :D

There's plenty of good skiing in Austria as well though. St Anton is the inevitable suggestion although, equally inevitably, it struggles to live up to the reputation.

When we lived in southern Germany my favourite places were Lech, Stuben, the Stubai and Obergurgl.