J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by skifun

Thanks bandit.

We're not off-piste ski-iers (at least not intentionally) - so sounds like Le Tour would be perfect, especially as it means hitting the slopes earlier on Saturday and hopefully in sunshine.

We're driving down tomorrow, staying overnight and hitting the slopes on Saturday en route to a chalet in the Aosta valley (not in a resort, but with access to Courmayeur, La Thuile and Pila)

According to the forecast, Chamonix will be sunniest on Saturday - would you ski there or carry on to Courmayeur where the weather isn't likely to be so good? Which is the easiest to just jump out of the car and buy a lift pass? (We'll get an Aosta valley pass if Courmayeur, but a day/afternoon one if Chamonix).

We're a family of four - 2 adults, 2 teens. Reasonable intermediates but will be looking to get our ski legs back rather than go for anything ambitious on the first day.

thank you - can't wait wherever we go!

I did a weekend independently last season with a friend.

I used Airmiles to find an aiport I could "afford" and which had convenient flight times- it happened to be Munich. We flew out from Heathrow Thursday evening and back late Sun evening, so had three full days ski-ing.

After advice from others on the Austria forum, we actually chose Garmisch in Germany, which was great - found a good value b&b, hired skis locally and away to go.

In the past, I have driven down with friends, sharing costs and the driving, staying at Brides-les-Bain and taking the long gondola to Meribel; and have also gone there with a cheap and cheerful company called Ski Weekends which includes 2 overnights on a coach - it was fine, but I'm too old for sleeping on coaches now :(

Thanks for all the advice about good places to drive to in Italy for Feb half term.

Ideally we'd wanted ski-in, ski-out, but a very good value, spacious chalet is available in La Salle
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&source=hp&q=la+salle+aosta&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=La+Salle+Aosta,+Italy&gl=uk&ei=cVHgSvraI8ev4Qbh6OEW&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CAoQ8gEwAA

It would save us about £1,000 on the overall holiday, so quite attractive - as is not shoe-horning our warring teenage girls into an Alpine resort shoebox.

The owner reckons it's about 25 mins from La Thuile, 15 from Courmayeur.

Would anyone have any advice? Would this really be the case at Feb half term? (It's half term in Italy too), and we're finding lots of places already booked up.

Also, would parking be ok when we arrive at the resorts? Parking cost isn't too much of an issue, availability and hassle factor is.

Thanks. Sauze has definite appeal - hubby and I went there pre-kids and had a ball - I'm sure our daughters would enjoy it.
I've love to return to the Dolomites - it was the first place I ski-ed on a school trip, aged 14 - but the drive from Cardiff is a bit daunting to be honest

Hi all,

We'd love to drive to Italy next February half term - there are four of us, two parents and our teenage daughters.

Any recommendations of a good resort with a range of accommodation? Ideally ski-in, ski-out.

A big consideration is for the girls to go somewhere where there'll be others of the same age - they get very bored with us oldies all the time :cry:

And we're experienced ski-iers, so tuition isn't a major factor, although we might book a few private lessons to brush up.

We returned early today - had a great time, fantastic snow.

Our hotel was this one - [http://www.hotel-garni-alpspitz.de/winter/winter.html] - in Grainau which is just outside the main area of Garmisch. The hotel was comfortable, if a little dated, with no restaurant, but an excellent breakfast and coffee and cake between 3.30 and 5.30pm plus a very nice sauna/fitness area. You'd need a car if you stayed here.

It snowed on Friday and Saturday. We went up to the Zugspitz the first day, which was a mistake because it was so snowy and windy and rather bleak up there. So we drove down to Hausberg and ski-ied below the treeline instead, which was much better and very pretty.

Good points - excellent for confident intermediates as there are plenty of red and black runs. We did the Kandahar - which will be the 2011 World Cup run - on the last day when the sun came out a bit although the snow was still excellent. I wouldn't want to tackle it if the snow conditions weren't so good as it was still icy in places and I would think it would get very mogulled. There's an alternative lovely long red run instead (no 4 on the piste map).

We had a group ski lesson for three hours - more as a way of learning to navigate the runs. The instructors were very pleasant with excellent English, but still rather of the "plant the pole, extend and bend ze knees" school of tuition rather than explaining the benefits of using your carving skis properly. (There's nothing I haven't been told by instructors before, it's just getting my brain and my legs to do it that's the problem )).

It was easy to get there from Munich airport - allow two hours if it's snowing - although we did hit a bit of traffic on the way back as weekenders headed back. There's also a train directly from Munich airport in the winter season.

It was cheaper than the French Alps, but definitely less sophisticated - not quite as good for people-watching! Garmisch itself was very quiet. We ate an excellent Italian restaurant in the centre on Saturday, and a rather spooky restaurant in Grainau full of the owners' dolls on Friday - it was called Liesl Puppen (Liesl's Dolls) - the food was good again, and plentiful, but weird to have all these naff-looking dolls staring at you.

The "happy ski card" lift pass covers other resorts like Mittenwald - ideal if you have a car, but also accessible by train.

Bad points - I wouldn't recommend the resort for early intermediates as there aren't many blue runs.

And I would imagine there could be bad lift queues in very peak season as the cable cars are extremely slow, although the gondolas are a good alternative.

The piste grading is on the easy side - either that or my ski-ing has improved :-). Some of the reds would be blues in France I would think, and we hit some sections where you needed to pole along on a red run.

All in all a great long weekend break which didn't cost a fortune. I'd definitely go there again if I wasn't looking to run up lots of ski-ing miles and perhaps only had a short time to get away.

I've had what sounds exactly like the same problem.

After trying a number of boots (currently Nordica), I saw an excellent boot fitting specialist who told me simply to take out the insole and ski without it. The problem was my high instep, so I needed more height inside the foot of the boot to give my feet room for circulation.

He also advise undoing the boots at every lift and possibly ski-ing with them undone at the end of the day...obviously this gives a bit less control, but it means not being in agony!

I've followed this advice, and it has worked...my feet used to be in exactly the sort of pain you've described.

I've done the same with my tennis shoes - pulled out the insoles - as my feet used to hurt in the same way at the end of a tennis match.