J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by J2SkiNews

If you've ever fancied trying out some of the numerous alternative sports to downhill skiing, a new option this winter in the 3 Valleys is Biathlon.
Les Menuires, which is celebrating its 40th birthday this winter, is home to Vincent Jay, a gold medal winner in the sport at the Vancouver Olympics earlier this year. This season the resort's ski school will be offering 'Introduction to Biathlon' courses. It follows the introduction of the sport in resorts as far afield as Bansko in Bulgaria, Seefeld in Austria and Northstar in California in recent years.
So what is biathlon? For the uninitiated, this sport involves cross country skiing with a rifle strapped on your back like a ruc sac. Every few kilometres you stop at a shooting range and try to hit five targets 50 metres away that are the size of walnuts!
Exhausting to try at competitive level and exciting to watch – if a skier races too hard they are unlikely to be able to shoot accurately enough and miss the targets, losing points, but if they ski too slowly they'll lose anyway! The sport is covered by Eurosport each winter at Europa Cup and world Cup levels.
In Les Menuires the French ski school (ESF) will offer two hour introductory sessions for 86 Euros for one or two people. You can also try biathlon at Bessans near Val Cenis (free ski bus), Peisey Vallandry between Les Arcs and la Plagne and at Le Grand Bornand.

Ever improving equipment and the plethora of exciting ski movies can induce we mere mortals to feel we're capable of heading off piste and in to the back country without realising how important it is to be properly equipped and fully aware of what we're doing.
Ski equipment manufacturer Salomon, the Ski Club of Great Britain and ski shop Snow+Rock are launching a six-date 'Backcountry Ski Seminar Tour' at venues across England this week which will provide anyone interested with the knowledge they need.
The tour will be presented by established mountain guide Nigel Shepherd who has many years experience of back country skiing worldwide.
It will take place at Snow+Rock stores across the UK with the first three stops being Gateshead (Tuesday 2nd November), Chill Factore (Wednesday 3rd November) and Bristol Snow+Rock (Thursday 4th November)stores.
Shepherd will share his experience of some of the world's best backcountry ski spots and discussing the basics of avalanche awareness. There'll also be the chance to learn more about ski touring kit and at Hemel Snow Centre and Chill Factore there'll also be the chance to try a range of the Salomon Quest boots and Sentinel skis on the slopes in a one hour on-snow session.
The following week the tour will continue on Tuesday 9 November at Snow+Rock, Kensington; Wednesday 10 November at Snow+Rock in The Snow Centre, Hemel Hempsted with the ski testing and touring demo on snow included and finish on Thursday 11th November at Snow+Rock, Chertsey.
The following week the tour will continue on Tuesday 9 November at Snow+Rock, Kensington; Wednesday 10 November at Snow+Rock in The Snow Centre, Hemel Hempsted with the ski testing and touring demo on snow included and finish on Thursday 11th November at Snow+Rock, Chertsey.
The talks will run from 7-9pm with additional demo sessions at the Hemel and Chill Factore indoor snow centres afterwards from 9-10pm. Tickets can be bought on the Ski Club of Great Britain's online shop at skiclub.co.uk and costs £7 or £5 for Ski Club members and under 16s. £15 for talk and on snow demo.

La Plagne

La Plagne has announced a long calendar of events this winter, so if you're already booked to go there, these are the shows to look out for when you're in resort. If not already going there, you could see if any appeal and then book your trip to coincide.
The events kick off with the Intercontinental Skeleton Cup on la Plagne's bobsleigh run, one of the most advanced in the world, with 19 high speed turns. Skeleton is the one with the tiny sledges and the competition takes place on December 11th and 12th.
'Les Etoiles Du Sport' ("The Stars Of Sport") is an interesting event that follows on from 12th to 17th December. In this 20 existing French sports champions from 20 different disciplines meet up with 20 promising newbies in the respective sports to compete in teams to try to work out who looks the most promising for the future. It sounds like the kind off thing we ought to be doing more of in the UK to develop our talent in all sports disciplines. www.lesetoilesdusport.com
"The Night Of The Red Pom Pom" on New Year's Eve celebrates La Plagne's iconic bobble hat logo. Centred on Plagne-Bellecôte there'll be an 'outdoor club' complete with white dance floor on snow, a giant ice-bar and a live video show from 10pm onwards in to 2011.
'La Gorzderette' will be back for the eighth time from 28 to 30th January. The, "iciest contest in the world," is staged at Champagny le Haut with lots of team fun snow sports. Last year there were 400 participants all shouting the event's catchphrase, "Relax, everything's going to be just fine!" (probably in French) (gorzderette.free.fr).
A new event on the 12 and 13 February will be the first French Ice Climbing Championships also on the ice tower at Champagny, with timed climbing for the country's best, so it will be exciting to watch.

Kitzbuhel

More than 30 ski areas will be open in the Alps this weekend, including several that have opened early as a result of up to three feet (90cm) of snow falling over the past week, according to reports from snow reporting agency www.skiinfo.co.uk.
Austria will have 10 ski areas open, eight of them glacier areas but also Schladming (which opened last weekend) and Kitzbuhel (which opens on Saturday, October 30th). The eight glacier areas include the recently re-opened Dachsteion as well as the country's highest slopes on Pitztal. Solden, which hosted world cup ski racing last weekend is another option, as is the Kitzsteinhorn glacier above Kaprun and the Stubai glacier near Innsbruck. The Hintertux glacier has more than 42km (26 miles) of runs open – more than anywhere else on the planet at present.
Neighbouring Switzerland has six ski areas to choose from, all with glaciers. The new option this weekend is the Vorab glacier above Flims and Laax. You can also ski or board at Glacier 3000 above Les Diablerets near Gstaad, at Diavolezza near St Moritz and on the glaciers at Engelberg, Zermatt and Saas Fee. The latter is staging World Cup snowboarding this weekend with twin super pipes up on the Alladin glacier.
In Italy Passo Tonale re-opened last weekend and Cervinia will open on Saturday. They join the less internationally well known Val Senales and Passo Stelvio glaciers which have been open all summer. The latter has a two metre base, deeper than anywhere else in the world at present.
In France it's the second weekend of Les 2 Alpes' one week October opening and it closes on Monday for most of November before re-opening for winter. However Tignes remains open as it has been since mid-September.
Up in Scandinavia eight ski areas are due to open in Norway, joining Ruka in Finnish Lapland which opened a few weeks ago, beating Schladming to be the first non-glacier resort in Europe to open.
In the USA, Sunday river in Maine was first to open a week ago. It was joined by Arapahoe Basin and Loveland in Colorado last weekend and this Sunday the first ski area in Canada to open for winter 2010-11 should be switching on its lifts – Mt Norquay, near Banff, will be celebrating the start of its 85th season.

Vail Resorts have acquired a sixth resort and their second in California – Northstar at Tahoe.
While other big North America resort owners like Intrawest, Booth Creek and the late American Skiing Company seem to snap up resorts quickly during boom years with their empires rising and falling over just a few years, Vail's approach is more measured, only buying top quality resorts every five years or so.
Northstar-at-Tahoe may be little known internationally but it has been a major development resort over the past five years. One of a dozen or so ski areas around Lake Tahoe, it has been investing first in some state-of-the-art new lifts, then in excellent facilities beyond downhill skiing, and most recently a large Ritz Carlton Hotel has opened there.
Northstar is not too far from Vail's other Californian resort, Heavenly, also be Lake Tahoe, and the company will be offering joint resort incentives.
Northstar had been operated for quite a few years by Booth Creek which also operates Sierra-at-Tahoe as a sister resort. Booth Creek will continue to operate Sierra-at_tahoe.
"We are thrilled by the opportunity to bring Northstar-at-Tahoe into our family of world-class mountain resorts. With substantial and diverse ski terrain, a completely renovated and modern base village and outstanding guest service, Northstar-at-Tahoe has been one of the fastest growing mountain resorts over the past few years," said Rob Katz, chairman and chief executive officer of Vail Resorts. "We believe guests of Heavenly and Northstar will greatly appreciate the flexibility to enjoy both the north and south shores of Lake Tahoe as we introduce pass and lift tickets products that offer access to both resorts starting with this coming 2010-2011 ski season."
Vail's other four resorts are all in Colorado – Vail itself, Beaver Creek, Keystone and Breckenridge.

Snow today in Whistler.

Resorts all over the northern hemisphere are reporting heavy snowfall at present.
The biggest accumulations have been in the Alps but resorts in North America, Scandinavia, Scotland and the Pyrenees have also been firing in snowfall alerts to J2Ski!
In the Alps the biggest snowfalls of the past 24 hours have been reported by Bormio in Italy which claims to have had a 60cm (two foot) fall.
Of resorts already open, the Hintertux glacier which has one of the largest snow areas open in the world at the moment with more than 40km of piste and a 600m vertical, has reported the biggest snowfall with 40cm (16 inches) of snow – making for superb conditions.
The Pyrenees have had snow too, if not so much, but Formigal in Spain and Soldeu in Andorra are both excited by their first white coats.
All of Scotland's ski areas have had white slopes for more than a week now, but there's no sign yet of The Lecht repeating its Halloween weekend opening of a few years ago.
Whistler is the latest to report a foot (30cm) of new snow.
"The freezing level is expected to remain steady with more periods of snow forecast for this week. Meteorologists are calling for a La Niña weather cycle for the Pacific Northwest, meaning cooler temperatures and more snow than Whistler Blackcomb's annual average of 34 feet/10.25m." said a resort spokeswoman.
However there's no news of the area joining Nakiska and Mount Norquay near Banff to the East in Alberta which plan to open for the ski season this Friday.
In California to the south Squaw Valley has reported its first snowfall of the autumn, a four inch (12cm) accumulation.

Sir Steve Redgrave checks out Formigal.

No word yet on whether Formigal will be offering as many free ski tickets to Brits this winter as last season (otherwise they have some of Europe's highest prices for a single European resort...) but however much it costs they are laying on more fun facilities on the slopes this winter.
First up there's a new Boarder cross trail for beginners so even newbies can check out the fun of a roller coaster piste, presumably after they've learned to stand up at least. The new 600 metre long course is on the Furco slope.
There's more to do of the slopes too with a new slopeside apres-ski joint with sun terrace, Los Sarrios, to collapse in to once you've had enough of the new bordercross course.
Then you can move on to Marchica´s, the popular après-ski pub, which this winter is adding a sheltered outdoor terrace with different sectors including a live DJ area and a new 'fiesta' sector.
Just to make your day in Formigal complete, the new Keeper night club stays open right through until the new boardercross course re-opens for another day. Located close to the site of the former Furco lift it has a cool interior design and multiple themed zones.

Whistler

Many people don't realise that while ski schools offer learn to si lessons from age three or four (sometimes as low as 18 months in private lessons!), snowboarding tuition isn't offered until age 7 or 8. This is partly due to the unavailability of equipment small enough, and partly because, the general wisdom is that children can't master boarding until that age due to their physical development.
Whistler have decided to break with tradition for the coming winter however and the Whistler Blackcomb snow school will now offer snowboard lessons for children as young as four years old.
The program will make use of a mini terrain park at the Children's Learning Centre and new snowboards which have been produced and are especially designed for little shredders.