J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by ParalyticSkiCrazie

It cost about £25.00 each extra - I have never travelled with them before so will let you know after Easter!!

Pure luxury compared to Ryanair who I flew with last week - ridiculous flight times and equally ridiculous luggage restrictions (like checking after duty free you still only have one bag before you get on the plane or you pay)- Never again will I be seduced by their low prices :oops:

How exciting for you to learn to ski the Mongols.
They are a lot of fun.

I want to learn how to ski those Mongols )

I know where you are coming from regarding the seats, as they are designed for 2-3 hour journeys sitting upright. I ended up lying (not sleeping) on the floor of the carriage underneath seats

Which is why I am booked in first class all the way at Easter - reclining seats and less smelly people 8)

Chamonix has ski buses that are free with your Pass. I learnt to ski there at Le Tour which is 15 minutes from Cham centre. For a group of guys it would be ideal and only 1 hour from Geneva. This accomodation always looked quite good to me http://www.chaletb.com/

Sorry to hear about your toe Ally - hope it gets better soon and is not making you too immobile. Glad you enjoyed the holiday although I have to agree with others that ESF would never be my first choice. My son trained with New Gen and they really do take care of their customers. There are many other English speaking schools out there now too, Magic, Snowscool, Parallel Lines. I have lots of French friends and can converse quite well but found (most) of them quite reticent in lessons, took it all too seriously, revered the ESF instructors whether they were crap or not and took opportunities to slag off the English in their native language with them. In Chamonix we swopped to Evolution 2 who were much better. I have not had lessons with a school for a long time preferring to potter around where I want. As an early bird I often get up on the first lift and ski on my own for a couple of hours which I find invigorating and meet up with the others later. My son tries to teach me how to improve but I soon get bored with all the drills and end up pleading to be left to ski down in my own fashion plus at my age I think I'm a lost cause. )

I bought and used I-GOTU - see http://www.a-trip.com/tracks/view/43519 for the results. It is small and easy to use but to download and then view the map data you need an internet connection as the mapping is done through Google Maps. Our friends have the GTREK which will draw a map of your route that can be viewed later in Google when you get home.

I also found the speeds of the I-GOTU innacurate, previously our friends had a Navman and the speeds recorded on both that and the GTREK were comparable for the same runs however my speeds were recorded 20% lower in comparison :oops: but I certainly was not skiing that much slower. The GTREK also allows you to see distance covered downhill and uphill whereas the I-GOTU does not. It was also less accurate in recording Altitude - one day I was recording as going underwater :lol:

I did like the capability of adding and geo-tagging photos. You ensure your camera/phone is set to the same time as your laptop and then the software matches the photo to the location using the time. It was this feature I liked about the I-GOTU after looking at lesmens trips on here. The ability to upload and save to the @trip server and share with others is a nice feature of the I-GOTU. You can also use the I-GOTU for a range of activities, cycling, walking, sailing, road trips etc.

You will need to take a laptop with you for the I-GOTU as it will only hold one and half days data when recording each second. You can buy a version with more memory. The GTREK is similar but has bluetooth (as does the more expensive I-GOTU) so you could send to your phone for storage until you got home.

Just a word about the Navman one nice feature was that at the bottom of each run you could see your top speed and total distance covered, this is not possible with the GTREK or IGOTU.

OMG I am a geek :oops:

For those who were wondering I was able to ski really well (after only six weeks after breaking my 5th Metatarsal). The rear entry boots off Ebay for a tenner were a godsend and interestingly the comfiest ones I have ever worn :oops: I was able to ski better than I can walk :lol: However I did get more pain than usual in my other hip and foot probably from over compensating.

I will try and load the other days up over the next week. I quite like my little Igotu tracker although the speeds it was recording were about 15% slower than our friends GTREK tracker. I wore theirs one day and my speeds were much faster than shown by the Igotu. The GTREK also allows you to work out your downhill distance only which the Igotu doesn't.

On the whole a really good week and it did warm up by Wednesday. The snow cover was generally good although the snow on Friday was needed for some runs. The queues were horrible at the beginning of the week but we made a point of skiing up till 2pm and then having lunch. After skiing 15 designated lifts on the Piste Map I was able to claim a Diplome De L'Escapade at the end of the week which certifys me as a 3V expert :mrgreen:

So all back safe and sound - no problems with the journeys even though Birmingham Airport had been shut due to snow on Friday.

A really good week we had with lots of sunshine only spoilt by heavy snow on our last day which meant I could not get over to Courcehevel to meet up with Ally - sorry :oops:

We arranged our own accommodation, flights and car hire. Some times we book through the Agencies or direct with the owners that we have got to know. We stayed next door to our friends in seperate studio apartments but as theirs had Sky TV we spent most evenings watching the Olympics there. The apartments are at the top of the station within 20M of the gondola. We have rented in the village before which is great to be near the restaurants and bars (all three of them) but makes getting up the mountain slower as you have to take the drag up to the Gondola. St Martin is a very pretty looking village where new buildings are constructed in the traditional style. There are five plus restauarants, La Voute - mid priced and popular that does Pizzas (also take away) and traditional food. Etoile des Neiges which used to be dead due to their high prices but this year was busier. La Montagnard - looks divine and the food is supposed to be good but never been and our favourite for value and on the whole good food - L'Eterlou. The hotels all have restaurants but we have never eaten there. Le Dahlia next to the Gondola serves at lunch and apres ski but we find it pricey, the decor tired and with no fire to warm up next to, not very inviting. I have uploaded the trips for Days 1 and 2 from my igotu GPS Tracker here;

http://www.a-trip.com/tracks/view/43519
http://www.a-trip.com/tracks/view/43540

The rest will follow soon.