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LAAX

Top hip hop music act Cypress Hill will be performing live in Laax on Saturday 19th February
The event is part of a weekend of celebrations from Thursday 17 – Sunday 20 February with skiing under the full moon followed by the gig.
On Friday, 18 February it is the much celebrated full moon night in Laax with the mountain lifts operating until 11pm and the mountain bar at Curnius hosting DJs or live bands during the evening.
Skiers and snowboarders get the chance to explore the flood-lit slopes and snow parks for some after-hours action.
Cypress Hill roll into town on the Saturday night for a one off gig at the Riders Palace Club www.riderspalace.com – an intimate venue for up to 1,000 revellers. DJ Cem from German label Beatpackers will continue to rock the club at the after show party.

The mascots of Manchester's two best known football teams got competitive on the indoor snow at Manchester Chill Factore yesterday ahead of the teams meeting for a much anticipated derby match this weekend.
Man U's 'Fred the Red' and Man City's 'Moonchester' were welcomed to the venue by Chill Factore's own mascot 'Chille the Snowboy'.
The two mascots tried out boarding and skiing before having a competitive snowball match refereed by Chille.
Today (Tuesday 8 February), the football theme continues at Chill Factore with skiers and boarders invited to dress in team colours between 4 and 5pm on the indoor slope and take part in a challenge to see which club has the "best" footfall fans in Manchester.
As well as seeing which team has the most shirts on the snow, up to ten supporters from each club will be hand-picked by the instructors to take part in a supporters' downhill derby with the fastest team to complete the challenge crowned the winners.
"The Manchester derby is a key date in the city's calendar. We know that many of our guests will be watching the game at the weekend and we wanted to tap into the friendly rivalry between the two clubs." Said Morwenna Angove, chief executive at Chill Factore.
A one-hour lift pass to today's event costs £10 for juniors and £15 for adults when booking the following product –' Downhill Derby 1hr Lift Pass.' This is saving of £5 on standard off peak ticket prices and can be purchased via www.chillfactore.com.

Whistler has announced it will open its sliding centre to the general public this month, a year after the facility hosted Olympic competition.
The 'Whistler Sliding Centre' launches its 'Public Sliding Sport Experience Program' which will give resort visitors the chance to experience Skeleton or Bobsleigh racing. For those just wanting to watch, there's a new interpretive centre to explore.
The official one year celebrations take place this weekend from February 11th. Along with the Sliding Centre and celebratory events, permanent attractions in the village centre include the Olympic Rings which can be used for posing in front of for commemoratives pictures.
A second set of rings, these ones are all green, can be found by ski or board on the Dave Murray Downhill run, visible from the base of Whistler's Creekside Village.
Indeed the resort's two Alpine skiing race courses, the Dave Murray Downhill and Franz's runs played host to the world's fastest skiers during the Olympics and are now begging to be schussed with speed –nif not quite as much speed as on race day. The recommended ability for skiers or snowboarders is intermediate to advanced.
Another permanent benefit of the Games is Whistler Olympic Park, an impressive Nordic sports legacy feature with permanent ski jumps, a biathlon course, snowshoe trails and over 90km of cross-country trails groomed for Classic and Skate skiers in the nearby Callaghan Valley.

Fun In Adelbodden, Now Indoors As Well As Out!

Adelboden ski area in Switzerland will open an impressive new ice stadium to add to its list of off-slope attractions this month.
Named the Adelboden Leisure and Sports Arena it finally opens to the public in mid-February. The new facility includes curling rinks as well as distinctly non icy bowling alley, climbing hall and restaurants.
The modern bowling alley has six lanes and attached Bowling Bar making a good meeting place to watch or just hang out.
The Indoor Climbing wall is a major attraction with over 130 m2 of bouldering and climbing surface in the 14m high wall with a surface climbing area of 290 m2. The Alpine School Adelboden provides supervision and interesting individual challenges.
The ice hall has a standard ice rink for skating, hockey and Alpine curling (Eisstockschiessen) and has been designed for both competitions or training purposes.
Particular attention has been paid to creating a perfect surface for the curling rinks together with a great atmosphere. The four rinks meet the highest professional standards as well as providing opportunities for amateur enthusiasts, beginners or groups.
Located on the outskirts of the resort The Arena provides an alternative or an addition to anyone's snow sports holiday and provides a variety of new dining options right up to 'gourmet' level the resort claims, unusual for a sports centre.

The Humble Velogemel

In these tough economic times, it could be a good opportunity to save money on your ski pass and jump on a (snow) bike instead. Well, probably not, but have you ever ridden on a velogemel?
Probably not (again), but the good news is that you can get on a Velgomel and even represent Britain (in your mind) in the up coming Velogemel World Championships all within the week?
The Velogemel was invented in the Swiss Jungfrau village of Grindelwald 100 years ago, first skiewd by a Brit about the same time who famously walked down the stairs of the hotel from his bedroom and outdoors with his skis strapped on. But back then the velogemel snow-bike, now Grindelwald's trademark, served as a means of transport in the snow.
Every year the Velogemel Championship takes place here, involving racing down a slope at high speed and the Velogemel World Championship were revived back in 1996 when the village celebrated 850 years. This year's race takes place on February 5th and is open to all comers.

Glenshee At The Weekend

Figures from Scottish ski centres published today have revealed that business is up 3% on last winter, which was itself the best since 1995-6. Since opening in November or December, CairnGorm, Glenshee, Nevis Range and The Lecht have welcomed 110,284 skiers and boarders, approximately 3% more than at 27th January 2010.
The good news was unveiled by ski-scotland, a marketing consortium which has promoted snowsports in Scotland collaboratively for more than 20 years. It currently comprises the five mountain ski areas (CairnGorm Mountain, Glencoe Mountain, Glenshee, The Lecht and Nevis Range), the sport's governing body Snowsport Scotland, indoor real-snow centre SNO!zone Glasgow and VisitScotland.
"We are absolutely delighted to be slightly ahead of last year", said Chair of ski-scotland Heather Negus. "What we often find is that our numbers drop off when the snow thaws at lower levels and farther south. This year it seems that skiers are much more aware that when it rains at low level, it's snowing in the mountains and the ski areas are getting a nice top up of white stuff, and so they have continued to come, boosting our figures as a result."
Other factors could be that the snow cover is more consistent across all five areas than last winter, when Cairngorm was so inundated by snow in January 2010 that the centre was closed for nearly two weeks as lifts, roads and restaurants were dug out in a heroic effort by staff, later recognised by an exhibition at the centre and a specially branded whisky. However in 2010 early cover at some of the other centres was more problematic.
Several of the five ski areas have had new snow over the last couple of days, followed by clear sunny days.
Glenshee also opened its new rail park, featuring a 21m long "monster", C curve and kickers.
CairnGorm reported 10 cm of new snow, giving superb snowsports from mid mountain upwards and especially on the White Lady, M2 and in the top bowls where they have areas for beginners as well as advanced skiers.
In the west, the groomers are even running a "groomer taxi" to access the Summit runs and terrain park at Nevis Range, where the Goose and Warrens runs are also good and at Glencoe, the Main Basin and Happy Valley have a good cover of hard-packed snow.
Ski-scotland have also produced a short film commercial which can be viewed on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynjBOVm2pXo

Chammy Alcott - seriously injured

Following a number of high profile accidents for ski racers on the slopes, the International Ski Federation (FIS) and Dainese have announced a partnership with the aim of studying "intelligent protection for Alpine Skiing."
Essentially the plan is to replicate Dainese's head-to-toe safety and intelligent protection systems that the company has been employing to dramatically increase safety in motorcycling.
Currently the organisations are in the "data collection phase" of the project which involves human 'crash test dummies' who wear data-recording equipment to test the dynamics of ski racing on the body with the aim of working out the correct algorithm to activate the airbag so that it only works when needed, and does work when needed.
"The new partnership with Dainese is the latest step in the FIS Injury Surveillance System which began five years ago. It benefits from the findings and data collected during the last four seasons and ideally complements the other current projects underway at the Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center and the University of Salzburg," commented FIS President Gian Franco Kasper.
"Protecting people in sport is a corporate 'mission' that has seen us engaged in a ceaseless process of research and innovation since 1972. It is a process that started with motorcycling and brought us an immense wealth of knowledge that we are proud now to apply to Alpine Skiing. Our commitment to the enthusiasts and champions of this sport began in the nineties, when we introduced the back protector, and continues with the D-Air intelligent protection system today. We are therefore honored to partner with the prestigious International Ski Federation with its long-standing dedication to safety in sport," declared Lino Dainese, Chairman of Dainese S.p.A.
The project will continue for the next two years, until 2013.

Steamboat Colorado this week

Inghams tell us there has been a metre of new snow in Kitzbuhel over the weekend, highglighting snowfall in the eastern Alps which has particularly benefitted Austria it seems. Conditions were excellent for the Hahnenkamm last weekend.
The picture remains less rosy in the French Alps where several tour operators have told J2Ski news in the past 24 hours that lower ski areas badly need snow.
The news isn't that bad though in most cases, on the piste at least, as although there's been little snow for a month, the November and early December snow, as well as periods of cold temperature for snow making, has built up good bases on the piste at least.
But for those not yet booked, the January for 2011 is the same as the Spring-advice for any year, aim high.
"The cold is keeping the snow in good condition and with 90% of our skiing located above 2000m, the vast majority of slopes are open, including cross country skiing in the valley. Grands Montets yesterday fantastic (first hand experience)!" said Claire Burnet of the Chamonix tourist office, the resort is go to stage its famous Kandahar World Cup races this weekend.
Or you could fly west. California still has the deepest snowpack on earth with a five metre base, but conditions are currently powder heaven in many western areas in North America too, with Colorado and Utah both claiming the best of the January snow.
Vail mountain say their season-to-date snowfall is more than 50 percent above the mountain's average and that they've had more than four feet of new snow (137cm) fall in the last week
"Consistent winter storms have brought incredible powder to skiers and snowboarders at Vail with more than 6.8 metres of snowfall reported at mid-mountain this season." Said a company statement.
So far this is the fourth best season-to-date for snowfall in Vail's history, dating back as far as records exist to the 1963-1964 season, the second season Vail was open; and compared to the 2009-2010 season, Vail's total snowfall is more than double what it was at this time last year at mid-mountain.

Saying that, don't forget New England either - huge snowfall there a week or so ago.