J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Wanderer

I watched a good bit of the Womens Super G on Eurosport. They were in St Anton and the piste was very scary even where I was sitting :shock:. It seemed to me to much more evil that usual. Those girls are amazing - making fairly smooth turns on an icy course with the slope falling away from them while travelling at speeds of 115kph :shock: :shock: :shock:

There were 15 DNF's which I am guessing is way more than usual. Chemmy skied reasonably well and seems to be recovering form. While she was back in 27th, at least she earned World Cup points for that finish which is very important in terms of rankings, start numbers, etc. :D

Most accommodation does it best to stick to 7 day, Saturday to Saturday stays :twisted:

However, as they get closer to the actual dates, the tend to become more flexible unless they are full or very close to it. But even then it may be particularly difficult to get enough space for a large group. Obviously, you will struggle during peak weeks.

You have indicated that you can only do 4 days but have not specified which days. If you can start your stay on a Saturday or least keep the trip from spanning two weeks, it will make the task easier.

These apartments in Soll are quite decent and the owners are reasonably flexible:
http://www.manorhaus-apartments.com/welcome.htm


Apart from that, I can only suggest you look at the tourist office websites. You might want to consider whether the group would be happy to split up into a few different houses -) If you are in a reasonable compact village, it might not be too much of an inconvenience to be spread over a number of houses.

One other thing to bear in mind. As you are only going for 4 days, you may be able to get away with a smaller and therefore less busy resort.

Good luck with your search :P

Nothing cheap in St Anton unfortunately :evil: :evil: :evil:

One person was killed and another seriously injured in a Zorb in a ski resort in Russia. A Zorb is a large inflatable ball that you get strapped into and are then rolled down a hill. Apparently, they have become a popular feature in ski resorts in Russia.

Unfortunately, in this case, the Zorb veered off course and ended up going over a cliff :x

Here is a link to a news story about the incident:

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/01/09/one-dead-one-injured-in-russian-zorbing-accident/

You can see it all on video on Youtube and other video websites :shock:

Ranchero_1979 wrote:Digging with skis, another well prepared group. Would never ski in group that didn't have, shovel, probe, transceiver and ideally skins.

If you go the Youtube upload, you will see that both he and the rest of his group did have all the proper equipment and clearly used it effectively to locate him and dig him out within a short period of time. He also confirms that the guy digging with the ski was a passer-by who stopped to help out.

While it may not have been wise to ski that particular area that day, the rest seems to have been almost textbook with the guy creating a space in front of his face with his hands as the slide stopped, remained extraordinarily calm considering the circumstances, his friends very quickly located him using the proper equipment and were able to dig him out avoiding a tragedy. :wink:

Now if you want to see real stupidity and a real tragedy, look up "Russian Zorb" on Youtube :evil: :evil: :evil: One guy died and the other was very seriously injured.

Can't really comment on either piste but the comment about time of day and conditions is spot on. Any run can be horrendous at 4pm when it is full of tired inexperienced skiers trying to get home - this is not a grading issue :shock: In my experience, either get down early, leave it very late when it will have cleared out or else take the gondola down :lol:

When it comes to skiing steep runs to the resort, around 10.30/11am is often the best time to take them on - perfectly groomed and nobody on them :lol:

As regards grading, it is my view that nearly all the big resorts try to hit a profile of pistes that fits broadly into 40:40:20 Blue, Red, Black. This is designed to attract the greatest number of skiers. No large resort wants to be branded as an expert-only resort - this eliminates beginners, families, etc. Similarly, no resort wants to be dismissed as being too easy. So they try to shoehorn the runs that nature has given them into the profile above. This can mean that runs are graded up or down depending on what is needed :evil:.


The worst I have seen is St Anton where there are several blues that would be red anywhere else. But if they did this, then the profile would be thrown out and they would be discouraging large numbers of potential visitors :shock:

The races will be on the Karl Schranz piste from top of Kapall down through Gampen area and into the village. I think it is a Red/Black piste.

I haven't actually been to a resort where a big race has been on but I think it usually only affects the run itself and possibly some restrictions on the lift up to it.

St Anton is so big it shouldn't present any real difficulties :D.

On the plus side, the Apres Ski should be particularly spectacular with huge crowds in for the races and plenty of extremely fit young ladies around if that's of any interest to you :lol: :lol: :lol:


BTW, the current snow report is showing the snow as "perfect" :mrgreen: Enjoy -)

The last time I was in St Anton, the price of rentals seemed to be the same in every shop :shock: Clearly, the Austrian competition authorities have not looked too closely :evil:. The only variation I found was that some of them would include overnight storage for half price. This can be more convenient that lugging skis back to accommodation in your ski boots.

There are a few Jennewein's around town and I think they are ok. You might just want to check that it convenient to your accommodation. For example, if you are staying in Nassarien area (or anywhere else in the East side of town), you might want to rent beside the Nassarien Gondola. I think the one you mentioned is probably in the centre of town fairly close to the Galzig/Gampen lifts. -)