J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by SwingBeep

You might find this article by Dr Mike Langran a GP and ski patrol doctor at CairnGorm Mountain interesting http://www.ski-injury.com/specific-injuries/knee unfortunately he fails to mention that women skiers are almost twice as likely to suffer a knee injury as men. A woman's knee ligaments are about 20% weaker than those of a similar sized man.

The Nordica Helles Bells and similar skis from other manufacturers are designed for skiing on soft snow so they don't work very well on hard snow or hard surfaces like artificial ski slopes.

Nordica skis are usually quite stiff and at 90mm under foot the Helles Bells will take some work to get them from edge to edge. Compare how the lady in these video clips skis on the Helles Bells and the Wild Belle, look at how much easier the Wild Belle is to ski in the moguls and how much further up on edge she can get them compared with the Helles Bells.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VttdVha0rnc

Probably not the best ski for someone with dodgy knees. Be very careful especially if the snow is hard.

AllyG wrote: I think he was talking about layers of snow, and as I said before I think it had something to do with the wind. It had been very windy for several days and you could see the snow blowing along. There had also been a thaw going on. So I suppose with this combination the snow became unstable.

All these factors have a major impact on snow pack stability. If you're interested in learning more about snow and avalanches Robert Bolognesi's books are pretty good and not very expensive.

http://books.google.ch/books/about/Snow.html?id=rgqhtUEhEY4C&redir_esc=y
http://books.google.ch/books/about/Avalanche.html?id=G98KAZmei-8C&redir_esc=y

Sadly there are there are usually 2 or 3 fatal accidents involving mountain guides every winter. Every now and then they make a bad decision or something unforeseen happens and sometimes the clients don't do as they're told. This is a photo of the mountain guides memorial in Zermatt cemetery, as you can see the 4 plaques in the middle are quite recent.



By and large they do an excellent job and are very safety conscious, but mountains are dangerous places so there will always be risk involved when exploring them.

Dave Mac wrote: I don't think we can accuse the Bergbahns of being deceitful. If there is no standard common measurement, then the resorts are free to choose the most advantageous method.

There must be thousands of pages of guidelines, regulations, and standards that apply to the operation of ski areas, but strangely there is nothing that specifies how pistes should be measured. In the absence of any clearly defined method I think that the only fair way to measure the length of a piste is down the fall line, we buy cloth by the running metre not by the zig zag metre.

It's not as if the ski areas don't have the information to hand, for several years now they have been using GPS and radar systems to manage the depth of snow on their pistes, for these systems to work properly they have to accurately map (to plus/minus 10cm) the terrain on which the pistes are built in 3D, during the summer. A computer displays all the necessary information required for optimal grooming in the drivers cab.



Verbier, reportedly one of the worst offenders uses what is probably the most accurate system, a combined GPS and radar system from Geosnow http://www.geosnow.ch/upload/editor/pdf/Geosnow_GB.pdf and Alpbach uses a system from PowerGIS http://www.pistenmanagement.at/images/stories/arena_images/pistenmanagement_folder_en_2011_screen.pdf

With all this information and the results of studies that the various cableway operators associations have carried out which show that kilometers of piste is a decisive factor for many skiers when choosing where to go on holiday. I think that there is more than a bit of exaggeration going on here. In Austria the public prosecutor responsible for corruption has been asked to conduct an investigation to see if there are grounds to bring a prosecution for fraud and in Switzerland the Foundation for Consumer Protection has said that if this is true then it amounts to unfair competition.

There is a daily bus service from Turin Porta Susa railway station to Cervinia, it leaves 07:03 and returns at 17:00. There is also a bus from Turin bus station to Saint Vincent at 14:30, these and the airport shuttle buses are operated by http://www.sadem.it/home.aspx From Saint Vincent there is a bus to Cervinia at 17:40 which is operated by http://www.savda.it/it/index.php

There are also trains http://www.trenitalia.com/ from Turin Porta Susa and Porta Nuova railway stations to Chatillon that connect with Cervinia bound SAVDA buses.

As there are 10 of you I would seriously look into getting a package deal from a TO, travel on public transport in Italy can be quite an adventure.

Inghams have also suspended their hosting services in France pending the outcome of the appeal, which probably won't be heard until the autumn. The law that Le Ski was charged under has been in place for over 10 years.

I don't think there are any catered chalet holidays on offer in Bettmeralp, Braunwald, Riederalp, Rigi, or Stoos. It will probably be difficult to find the type of accommodation you're looking for in Grindelwald, Mürren, Wengen and Saas-fee and if you want a pretty place Avoriaz is defiantly out.

It shouldn't be a problem to find a suitable chalet in Zermatt and there will be plenty for the non-skiing grandparents to do. Try http://www.mountainexposure.com/ and http://www.oxfordski.com/