J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by SwingBeep

Glad everything worked out Dave, hope you get as much use out of them as you did out of the Raichles. Bit worried about how the puppy is eyeing up your new boots, I would put them out of reach if I were you!

Thanks for the compliment AllyG, if you've lived in the alps for 25 years you're bound to pick a few bits of useful information.

Car hire companies operating in Italy are under no obligation to fit winter tyres as standard, sometimes you get lucky and are given a car that has had them fitted for a previous customer. To be certain of getting car with winter tyres you need to make a phone booking with the hire companies Italian office and insist that the car is fitted with winter tyres. Hertz doesn't offer winter tyres, only snow chains.

If you're planning to drive over the Simplon pass you need winter tyres and chains. If the weather is bad you could use the car train from Iselle di Trasquera to Brig http://www.sbb.ch/en/station-services/car-bike/car-trains/autoverlad-simplon.html

Have you thought about using public transport? Parking can be a nightmare at that time of year and it's very expensive, it costs CHF 15.50 a day to park a car in the Matterhorn Terminal at Täsch and CHF 19 at Saas Fee. There are buses from the airport to Milano Centrale every 15mins and trains to Brig every 2hrs. Or you could book flights to a Swiss airport and buy a Transfer Ticket and get a free Family Card which entitles children aged from 6 to under 16 to travel free if accompanied by at least one paying parent http://www.swisstravelsystem.com/en/passes/swiss-transfer-ticket-en.html

Verbier will only be open at weekends until the end of November. In addition to the runs on the glacier Saas Fee will open the runs down to Morenia on Saturday and Sunday. Andermatt is going to open the cable car up to to Gurschen and the Gurschen chairlift for the weekend, there is 70cm in the village and 270cm on the Gemsstock.

In Italy, Cervinia will open the runs down as far as Plan Maison tomorrow, there is currently 20cm in Cervinia, 60 cm at Plan Maison, 90 cm at Cime Bianche and 120 cm on Plateau Rosa. Sulden am Ortler in South Tyrol will be opening for the season tomorrow.

Last weekend Kitzbühel, Planai, Loser, Grasgehren and Berwang had enough snow to open some lifts.

I would be very wary of doing exercise in ski boots after a knee injury, as they limit the range of movement in your ankle joint.

Curiously the platform on which the boot sits is flat whereas nearly all alpine ski bindings are ramped. The stand height under the heel is higher than under the toe, the difference can be as much as 9mm. It's well known that even small changes in the binding delta can affect fore/aft balance dramatically.

The Ski Instructor Academy in Kaprun offers instructor training and German lessons, if you pass they guarantee you a job. http://www.siaaustria.com/ski-courses/

You can make the modifications to the buckles you describe, but at the end of the day the boot probably won't fit as well as one that is a good fit around the ankle to begin with.

It is universally accepted that length and width are not of primary importance, as the videos demonstrate these areas can be easily adapted to the shape of an individual's foot. As a general rule ski boots can be made bigger but they can't be made smaller.

This video illustrates the modifications that can be made and the equipment you would expect a good boot fitter to have.

Its highly unlikely that you will find a ski boot that fits perfectly out of the box. The design work is done in one size, usually Mondo 26.5, from that size the boots are simply scaled up or down. The human foot doesn't scale in that way, large and small feet have different proportions.

So after booking a party of 20 into a small dated hotel in Sauze d'Oulx for a full week in January are you really going to have to pay for a bus/taxi from the railway station to the hotel yourself?

When you researched the options did you not notice that the Hotel Sauze is owned/managed by ABC Gestioni Srl http://www.gestioniabc.it/eng/home a company that owns/manages 7 hotels in Sauze, along with a taxi/transfer company, a ski hire shop, a ski school and some self catering apartments. In view of the size of the booking surely it would not be unreasonable to expect that they picked you up from the railway station FOC.

On the ABC Gestioni website they state that if you book more than 3 nights in one of their hotels between 6th January to 27th January you get a free lift pass. You didn't mention this when you suggested that the rest of us should book via Crystal.