J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by steverandomno

I think this is actually quite dangerous. If somebody is skiing off piste without gear, you would hope they knew they were in danger. However, a law forcing skiers to buy equipment will not make them learn how to use it, all it will do is give them misplaced confidence to take even greater risks.

A better law to have passed might have been to require anybody who skis out of bounds to have recco, next of kin and ID forms, to help body recovery and identification. It would make people think twice about the consequences of their decisions.

I remember seeing a news article from Florida a while ago where the police, who could not enforce windsurfurs stay out of the way of an approaching hurricane, instead handed out ID armbands, "to help with body identification after the storm". Apparently it was quite effective.

Good choice. It is a great place to be especially if you're 25 and single.

Fernie would be good too, but on a smaller scale. Golden (Kicking Horse) is a great place also, but with some big differences. It has some of the best terrain in Canada. It is a wonderful lively town with great people, but it is much smaller than Banff. Banff has many more people passing through, staying for a few weeks and moving on. If you like a bit of hustle and bustle then Banff is probably the best choice. If you want more of a small town feel then Golden is the best choice, it is also about 20-30% cheaper.

For Banff, you could also check out the hostels for accomodation. The Hostelling International hostel is good, but a bit farther out of town than the YWCA. You could also try contacting the Banff Centre and seeing if they have any spare accomodation (I'm guessing they have some spare as summer is their busiest time?) That might be a good alternative for some interesting work that isn't washing dishes or making beds.

On the subject of transport, Banff town council may be discussing the lifting of a cap on taxi licences. Keep an eye on those developments (i.e. think about setting yourself up as a taxi service to kill two birds with one stone).

Whatever you do. Don't feel guilty about having some fun - life is too short. There are plenty of people wanting to scrounge lifts to the hills if you are worried about bad Karma. :-)

25cm in East London this morning.

Arrr Ross, I have just 5 starred you (special golden ones) :D

To be fair, the recent snow is the first significant snowfall for a couple of weeks, and they needed it when we left on two weeks ago.

Definately not their worst year, but not above average so far.

Europe seems to be the place to head this season according to friends stories ("waist deep powder" , "I have never skied in powder before, it's quite good isn't it" etc...etc... :mrgreen: ).

RossF wrote:steve, you have to go back when the terrain is open, you seriously missed out on the good stuff at Kicking Horse/Revelstoke!

We were at Kicking Horse the second day of big snowfall. Fuse, bowl over and both sides of CPR ridge were still open so we got some big (heavy) powder turns in there. But when we got to Sunshine, the chutes on Goat's Eye and Delirium Dive were closed. I didn't even want to try the shoulder even though it was open.

Shame, as I've been wanting to try the dive for ages and this year was the first time we had the equipment to do it.

There's always next year.

Don't spend too much.

If you can find anywhere that has decent old stock (new but from the models of a couple of seasons ago) check them out first.

I have just bought some new fat(ish) skis that are great but I realised on holiday that I could have bought new two season old models that would have been very similar for about a fifth of the price.

For example: In Canada recently, I saw a new pair of the legendary 2004/05/06 Rosignol B2's (before they started messing with the bandit range) for about 99 dollars Canadian. That's 70 quid for one of the most popular skis of all time! Buying an equivalent latest model could be about 3-400 quid.

This way you can change your skis again in a couple of years when you improve. So you can start on relatively thin skis and change them for fat all mountain skis later.

RossF wrote:And avvy danger was that bad :shock:

I didn't think the interior was hit too bad, where did you ski?

Starting Jan 4th, we skied Revelstoke, Kicking Horse, Panorama and Sunshine.

We had fresh powder at Revelstoke and Kicking Horse, but it was unusually heavy for early Jan and the base was really in need of the new snow.

They had just had an extended period of -40C and sparse coverage prior to the snowfall when it also warmed up to the minus single digits, followed by high winds. On top of a Nov raincrust this provided serious avalanche conditions for the two weeks from 5th. (Rated at Extreme for at least a week or so at treeline and alpine for the majority of western canada).

We attended an avalanche awarness evening in Banff on 11th where an avalanche forcaster described the then current cycle as one of the most serious in living memory. A guy from parks Canada explained that whilst helicopter bombing a couple of days earlier, the disturbance of the bomb casing hitting the snow was enough to trigger avalanches that ran the full historic path of known runnouts.

We had a day-off in Golden on the 8th and drove towards Rogers Pass. All the roadside banks from Golden to Kinbasket Lake Resort had mini avalanches. Like nothing I have ever seen.

As a result, the steeper less ski compacted terrain inbounds was closed. The conditions now seem to have come back down to Medium/Considerable.

Check out Avalanche.ca for reports.

RossF wrote:Whistler? That'll teach you for going to Canada to ski in a European resort :twisted:

The only place we didn't ski was Whistler :lol: