J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by msej449

4 Valleys (Verbier, La Tzoumaz, Nendaz, Veyzonnaz & Les Collons): Téléverbier has announced a CHF 400 Annual Pass for under-25s. The usual cost would be 1,425 CHF. It'll be on sale 1st September to 20th November 2017

It looks like they're building on a successful but more limited offer last year, and targeting an age group who are keen on summer mountain-biking and winter ski/snowboarding. A pass holder can also get a 10% reduction for family buying conventional passes.

See http://www.verbier.ch/en/liste-news-3/news-763/

Are you aware that drone filming services are already available in resorts like Verbier? This has been on offer for a couple of years now. The standard service is provided at the two snow parks and they stay in that location filming you as you do multiple runs through the park. That way they stay in a fixed location and can handle a continuous stream of customers, with a 20-30 minute gap before any one customer/group re-appears at the top of the park again. I believe you can hire them privately for the day, but frankly, I suspect that the most cost-effective solution is the one described.
The other factor is battery power. These guys have a pile of battery packs on the ground that would be almost impossible for one person to carry very far: I imagine they have n assistant to cart these to the snow park and take away and recharge dead ones. They're also professional octo-copters so my guess is they're spending £10K+ on drone equipment alone.
I've seen what looks like the same people filming the Verbier Freeride. So you might try a ski area where there's a demand for filming of competitions, just to maximise your revenue opportunities. Also, you might consider doing publicity shots for estate agents - increasingly, prospective buyers (especially of chalets, I imagine) want aerial drone shots.

Finally, I've no idea about licensing for public filming, especially using drones. I'm pretty sure that in most resorts, there may be limitations placed on commercial filming, with out without drones. Clearly what happened in Verbier is that someone came to an agreement with Téléverbier, the lift company, to be the default filming partner and get put on the ski map and website. It might be an idea to see if there are similar lift companies looking for filming partners. Cleraly you don't want to be in competition with someone already established as a partner if there's somewhere else where it could be you.

And bear in mind that you need to have the credit available to pay a lot of charges up-front before you can claim them back. This may not be the case, but can happen, depending on policy, claims handler, and country. A lot of people think they can wave the Travel Policy in the air and it's magically accepted as some form of payment. And be aware (like any insurance) that although you sign-up to 'notify the insurer immediately' if you're on your own and completely out of it, and are taken to hospital and then treated, then you explicitly haven't done this. The extent to which the claims handlers are reasonable will vary. So if you're going in a group, make sure everyone's insurance contact details are on hand and that if you are injured, someone else will contact them on your behalf ASAP.

And obviously, get yourself an EHIC card (no need to use any intermediary: as mentioned, it's free to you). You'll find that insurers may ask for your EHIC number if you make a claim, as they will try and recover any qualifying costs, so you might as well get it up-front. In some cases, just having the card will be enough to get you treated, or at least streamline the admissions process.

A couple of photos of the Prarion / Plan du Fou sector today (26 June 17) showing what I assume are new snow cannon running from the Plan du Feu télécabine base building down to Prarion, parallel to the No.58 'Les Fontaines' draglift. This section is very prone to lose cover as it's south-facing and the main route back to Nendaz from the rest of the Quatre Vallées.



Top right is the café at the summit of Plan du Feu, where you ski down to Siviez on the other side. Slightly to right of centre is the bottom of the PdF télécabine and top of the draglift from Prarion. To the right and below this is the black down to Prarion. At the bottom left is the Prarion chair that goes back up to Tracouet.

And a telephoto shot of the equipment directly below the base building, clearly showing what I assume are the trenches for water piping.



Overall, this should help a lot next season and make the route back into Nendaz easier and available earlier/later than currently. All that's needed now is to replace the draglift and ageing PdF télécabine with a new gondola running all the way from Prarion to PdF.

The photos really don't do justice to just how huge the larches are on the Prarion hillside. This is one of only three remnant Ice age larch enclaves in the Alps. There was a lot of very reasonable concern that the proposed works would damage/disturb this very rare ecosystem, but it seems they've managed to persuade the authorities the work could be done without environmental damage.

UPDATE: View from higher-up, today (4 July 17) in which the snowgun trench work across the whole area is much more obvious:

Starting a thread to recommend places to stop to shop and refuel en route back from the Alps. You know, the usual beer, fizzy, cheese, coffee & filters (why so cheap in France compared to here?) etc.

REIMS A4/A26 Jct. 23 E.Leclerc

Road/Jct.: Reims A4 (Autotoute de l'Est) / A26 (Autoroute des Anglais)
Exit: Jct.23 (Épernay/Reims-Sud)
Distance from Autoroute: 1.2Kms
SatNav: Longitude: 4.011319 / Latitude: 49.2033
Address: Route Nationale 51, 51500 Champfleury
Website: http://www.e-leclerc.com/champfleury
Fuel Prices: Sans plomb 98: €1.417 - SP 95 E10: €1.335 - Gazole: €1.231 - E85: €0.599
To Calais: 280 Kms (approx 2h30m)
Hours: 08:30-20:30, Wednesday 14:00-20:30, Closed Sundays

Right next to the autotoute exit, this is very easy to get to with lots of parking. You can see it easily from the autoroute on the left. Usually has some good offers on wine and beers and cheap fuel. Just be alert at the exit roundabout as it's easy to take the Reims exit instead of the Autotoute exit from the parking. The Petrol station is separated into two sections for cards-only (left) and cash/cards (right). We've swapped to shopping here as opposed to our previous supermarket at St.Quinten Nord as this is even closer to the autoroute and the car park is less congested.

I do similar work and had exactly the same symptoms. Then I underwent a fairly full physical for a new job and the cause was identified. It was a very specific condition that no one had identified before because it wasn't life-threatening. They sent me to a sports clinic, and they came up with a very simple solution plus certain exercises that I now do, and the problem is gone. So before anything else, I'd suggest you see a doctor and budget for a session at a sports clinic.

To give you an idea, we were offered CHF 10,000 for a full season's rental of our 2-bed apartment 68m2 with underground parking and access to laundry and drying a couple of years ago. It was only because we planned to use it ourselves that we declined. This would have been a good offer on both sides, as we rent for about 1100-1450 CHF/week but the only really guaranteed weeks are Christmas, New Year, Half-terms and Easter. We have reasonable internet (15Mbps) and cable TV so it would work for someone who needed to do some work as well. If you're looking, then on this basis, a budget/offer of 8x-10x the weekly rate might be reasonable. Make sure there is good wired Internet, even if it's just for Netflix or Amazon streaming. And access to BBC and ITV cable channels would be more udeful than you might think. Also, remember that agencies often take a big chunk of the up-front charge as commission, so if you can find someone renting directly, then they and you could work on a much smaller budget. This is where the local Tourist Office may prove more useful, as if our village is anything to go by, they have a number of owners on their books who don't rent via an agency e.g. the CHF 10K could be more like CHF 7K if booked direct.

This is a good time to be enquiring about a season rent from the agencies. As an owner, we've received a couple of these enquiries from our agency over the last 5-6 years. They can work well for both parties. In our case, there are often families seconded to one of the Geneva NGOs for a year who then look for a place in the mountains over the winter season, so people aren't surprised by this. However, I think that you'll need to choose somewhere specific, and then contact agencies in the location, or the Tourist Office. Most agencies will have at least one owner who usually uses the place themselves but can't for some reason, and who would be amenable. You should expect a significant discount over the weekly rate. Most owners don't get anything like 100% bookings, with pre-Christmas weeks rarely busy, and January (after New Year week) and February (before school hols) often a very lean period.