J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by ise

Snapzzz wrote:
I said countless times ' how tragic would it be if your holiday got ruined by someone running into you?'

There's no doubt it would be tragic but it's also exceptionally unlikely so you shouldn't let irrational fears spoil your holiday.

Someone did a study on the various ski myths, including it was a dangerous sport, and published it late last year. I couldn't recall the title and googled for it, what I found first was this :

http://www.articlesbase.com/travel-articles/ski-holidays-10-myths-exposed-861723.html

that wasn't what I was looking for at all but it's with this great quote :

2. Skiing is dangerous

Although skiing does involve travelling downhill on planks of wood without any breaks, the vast majority of skiers who learn to ski with instructors and ski within their limits will have a happy lifetime of incident free skiing. Yes accidents do sometimes happen, but more often than not ski related accidents are less to do with the actual skiing and more to do with amounts of alcohol consumed and not taking care on icy surfaces etc. If you learn to ski properly, you will also learn to ski safely.

apparently this guy has set out to debunk a few myths armed only with a bit of common sense and a can-do attitude which is unfortunate as facts tend to work better ) He's right, "skiing is dangerous" is a myth but one that he could have easily debunked with a few figures but he's gone for links with instruction for which no proof at all exists, in fact several studies have established there's no link at all with lack of instruction and people having accidents.

In a real tour de force of rational argument he's also gone with this in relation to snow levels and global warming :

6. Because of global warming, there won't be much snow

It is true that global warming was blamed for the bad winter of 06/07 in the European Alps. However, this was down mostly to lazy journalists not researching their facts properly. The bad winter that year was down to the weather, and not the climate. Plus, the skiing wasn't actually bad - it just wasn't as good as it could have been.

well, quite, those darned lazy journalists not researching their facts properly, it's a scandal )

The study I was thinking of published in "Sports Health" which is here :

http://sph.sagepub.com/content/1/6/486.abstract

ise wrote:

Admin wrote:
Be careful out there...

...heavy snowfall in recent days have prompted officials to warn of a heightened avalanche risk in the Swiss Alps.

These warnings are going on deaf ears, people on holiday have some bizarre ideas about why and where avalanches occur and how and why snow is unstable.









This slide is at the top of the Orxival drag lift in Grimentz, it's quite small and looks like it was triggered from above by two snowboarders who decided to take a couple of extra turns by walking a few metres up from the lift and then riding down. Neither were equiped, no transceivers, no probes or shovels.

The small slab that detached then hit the piste below, we just arrived as the pisteurs were probing the snow and were ready to assist but they were happy no one had been hit by the slide.

In the final shot you ought to be able to see how badly consolidated the snow is, there seems to be two distinct slabs both of which failed.

None of which is particularly worthy of comment apart from that at the same time as the piste security are probing the snow people are climbing up on the ridge above them and looking over the cornice at the top to the pisteurs below. Simultaneously, about 150m behind us skiers without any equipment are skiing into the Abondance itinerary which was clearly closed. In some bizarre and potentially lethal parody of safe skiing one particular group ski the slope one at time before regrouping below it, the spot they picked would be to within a meter or two the maximally exposed position in the bowl and slides on any the slopes around it would have reached maximum depth exactly where they were stood.

And all day we saw the exact same thing, skiers and boarders without any equipment at all on slopes that were extremely dangerous, moving in groups from 2 or 3 to 7 or 8 only a few meters apart, stopping for a chat in positions of extreme danger or terrain traps.

http://www.tsr.ch/tsr/index.html?siteSect=200001&sid=11767183

The avalanche, mentioned by bandit earlier, was in this area someone just told me. The antics of some skiers and boarders in this sub-area have been amazing, this was the same slope I was alarmed about above and the exact same circumstances, people unable to understand the risk of skiing without any equipment and unable to understand the dangers of the slope they were on no matter how close to the marked run it was.

AllyG wrote:I wrote a long post on this - I wonder where it went :?:

Bulgaria :D

Little ski wrote:
Paris-courmayeur-st mortiz-Geneva all is booked just have to work out how to get around?

a lot of interesting contributions and some little better informed than your travel agent sadly :roll:

Paris - Courmayeur, you need to take the TGV to Anney, change to a regular SNCF train to Chamonix and the bus runs to Courmeyeur.

Courmayeur - St Mortiz, back to Chamonix, train via Vallorcine, Martigny etc to St Moritz, it's on the the http://sbb.ch/en/index.htm website

St Mortiz - Geneva, that's just Switzerand so it's simple and on the http://sbb.ch/en/index.htm website

If you check the Swiss Travel Service website they'll be able to tell if there's a special deal on the tickets in Switzerland, there may not be as you're entering and leaving by different points.

That's going to cost you though, and take a few hours.

tino_11 wrote:
I went in and talked to a guy and said I wanted him to take some time and hand service my board as I had a machine service in Sallbach and they made a real mess of it. He charged me 80CHF for it but set the edges to 87deg and finished the base with what I can only describe as a micro-groove so it was not a flat surface.

sounds like a good find, most stores wouldn't take that amount of care and the price isn't bad at all really

tino_11 wrote:I had my board done to 87 degrees at Christmas whilst in Grindelwald. I only saw 2 disdvantages:

That's quite interesting, which store was that? Most of them won't do anything slightly out of the ordinary, servicing just means running them through the grinder at whatever it's set as. Anywhere that is able to do something so unusual, and for a board that's very unusual, is to be commended really.

Brucie wrote:I went trsvelling in Australia a few years ago and did everything myself, flights, booking camper vans, cars, trips, and that was in the days before t'internet!!!!!!!!!

amazing isn't it? it's so handy having the internet you forget we did manage with the telephone and even fax once upon a time :D

planning's a large part a trip as well, although sometimes it is nice to let someone else do it :-)

brandyaitch wrote:I thought I was beginning to understand some of the technical issues around skis, bindings, boots etc, then somebody talks about 87 degree edges on skis, de-tuning boards and I just bury my head in my hands in despair - I know nothing !

I'm sure you know loads, don't be intimidated.