J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Wanderer

LOTA wrote:Does it have to been St Anton? As you're flying to Zurich, are any of the Swiss resorts an option. In my experience, Swiss hoteliers are not tied in to Sat to Sat or Sun to Sun and are a lot more flexible. You can book accommodation through the tourist office websites - and they show only the rooms available and the price you pay.

Why not try Engelberg? Easy to get to, loads of hotels and perfect for a long weekend (and the deepest snow in Europe at the moment!)

No, we are not tied to St Anton though it was our preference. Anyway, we have given up on the place after countless fruitless emails to accommodation all over the place including outlying villages such as Pettneu :twisted: .

So we have now decided to go to Laax. Its only 90 minutes from Zurich airport and, as you say, it seemed a lot easier to get accommodation for a long weekend. The area looks pretty good with a claimed 235km of skiing with quite a bit of it Red or Black. They also claim excellent access to off-piste - though this is largely irrelevant to me. My knees are simply not up to the demands of serious off-piste :twisted: .
Hopefully, Swiss prices will not be too severe though I am sure they will seem horrendous after the excellent value we got in the Dolomites earlier in the year. :wink:

Looking for help. A group of 9 of us were planning on heading to St Anton on Thursday 14th March and staying until Monday 18th (flights into Zurich booked). I had expected that accommodation would be easy to find at this time of year. However, I am really struggling to find anything other than the high-end, very expensive hotels:twisted:.

The Tourist Office have given me a list of places that "have availability" but when I contact the places, they are not making it available :evil: I presume the Tourist office are simply working off the availability calenders that they keep and that most accommodation is still holding out for Saturday to Saturday bookings.

Is it too soon to panic :?:
Will accommodation become available over the next few days :?:
Is it time to start looking at other resorts :?:

All offers/advice welcome :wink:

We are not fussy about the type of accommodation or location.

Ian Wickham wrote:I like to be selective in what I film, I would select what I wanted to film and then turn on the hand free cam.
You are quite correct in using a held held normally I would use normally without gloves so you are limited through cold how long you can film.

I filmed my daughter in the Dolomites on a bright sunny day for about 90 seconds just holding my ordinary camera. By the end, my hand was seriously painful from the cold :twisted: . It goes to show how important good gear is and what a good job it generally does :wink:

Tony_H wrote:It'll be on pretty much all day every day knowing me.
I took over 500 photos in champoluc on my iPhone, and this will be a new toy to play with.

Tony

I always thought you were someone who skied all day. Now I find that you spend most of your day snapping like some demented Japanese tourist :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Another hero bites the dust..... :lol: :lol: :lol:

... the joys of travelling in a quiet week. Looks like a lovely run!

Gaz C wrote: Some nice piccies there Wanderer. I too like the one of the ice climber. Those guys aren't lacking in the 'cojones department' :) . I also really like the sense of 'sheer altitude' on the Portavescovo pictures. It's hard to imagine that the Malga Ciapella is another 900m higher.

Tony, I am surprised!!! You usually 'talk a better game than that -). Don't worry, it's not as steep as it looks. I'm sure you'd cope -) :lol: .

The ice climber was amazing. As you can see from the picture, he was quite a bit up. I can only assume it would be pretty certain death if he fell from there :( . Serious cojones all right :wink: .

The wires of the cablecar seem to give a great sense of depth/height to the piccies from Portavescovo. I am pretty pleased with those ones :lol:

If you have only a few hours in the afternoon, then just remember that you don't need a big area. You also do not want to waste any ski time travelling to the slopes. I would simply pick whichever area is most convenient to your accommodation/hire shop and get going :roll:.

btw, do check with the lift pass company to see if there is a time when they will let you up free with a multi-day pass for subsequent days. In Soll, they let you up from 3pm :wink:

Dids1 wrote:I think your jacket pre dates the euro!
I'm so sad I did a currency converter and it would have been around 290440.26 lire!

Dids. You are absolutely right - it was pre-Euro. I remember paying the equivalent of IR£120 for it and the Lira equivalent would have been about L300,000 :shock: :shock: :shock: It nearly makes you nostalgic for the old currencies. On the other hand, the amount of zeros often required some mental calculations to work out whether a jacket was a bargain €50 or a rip-off €500 :shock: :shock: