J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by ise

Little ski wrote:

MY SKI TRIP TO EUROPE

Myself and my husband have been planing this trip since August
We live in Perth Australia. I would like to let other people out there how hard it is to go and ski there it's a joke.

I have never been to Europe before my husband has but only Rome.
So because we love to ski/board we thought we would go in winter. Thought we would go for 4 weeks give us time in Paris and to ski.
So we booked our flights they were cheap flights could not exchange or refund.

Booked our time in Paris for a week. We were going to ski Chamonix. But changed our mind and decided to ski Italy and Swaziland instead.
Then it came to book our accommodation in the ski fields we were not told before booking all the ski fields in Europe only do 7 days min stay.

We Only had 11 days to ski so can't stay 11 days in Courmayeur only week to week.
Was a dream to go and ski Zermatt but also out of the question as w-week.
My travel agent said the only place in Europe we can go for 4 nights is st mortiz 'Yea' the most expenses resort in europe we had no where else to go so we booked there.
Now only few weeks till we go. We have not booked our train around to the ski resorts. My travel agent said she could book some trains but not others and that we would have to book it when we are there. NO NOT me I need it planed down to a T And the other reason is because we only speek English so don't want to get stuck. As we are going there on a weekend through to Courmayeur. The tunnel through chamoniz is closed I herd. She said we would have to go up to Geneva and two more stops to the ski field on a bus. That's just to get to Courmayeur one of the two ski fields. Then we have to make our way back to Geneva after st mortiz as we are flying out back home from there. We do have another way fly it. But can't get direct flights into courmayeur and st mortiz

I so wished we had booked to go to Japan or America

Any feed back would be great

you're crossing Switzerland, we've got probably the best public transport system in the world (and I've tried quite a few), it sounds to me that your problem is not having the best travel agent in the world ) You can book and pay for the public transport online, it's the only country in the world to my knowledge (and I've tried quite a few) that this is possible. If you tell me the exact journey I'll tell you how to do it but with a spark of initiative you can do it via http://sbb.ch/en/index.htm

I've heard the skiing in Swaziland isn't too good you may want to skip that.

Pablo Escobar wrote:Do you actually ski these days or just go up hills? :twisted:

Just kidding, great pictures again.

skis were invented for making journeys, it's early days for this new-fangled idea of having ironmongery all over the mountain and locking your heel down, too early to say if it's going to catch on really :D

The Jura is such a fantastic area to explore but it only makes real sense to use nordic gear, AT/TT gear just wouldn't work out. I thought it made a change from the usual photo's and I've had to be over this way for work.

Telemark Pyrenees have a sale on Nordic Touring gear apparently so get yourself kitted out and see what it's all about

goff wrote:Did you wash the cheese down with Absinthe which originates from the Suisse Jura.

I did have Pontarlier Anis the other day as an apero' but it's not my thing really, I prefer plain pastis. I was bought a bottle for Xmas as well but it's nearly untouched.

you probably want to turn the junk filter off otherwise you'll miss half the posts :D :D

Anyway, how about the Zillertal and Hintertux? Wouldn't that be within 5 hours of Bratislava? I presume that's anywhere east of Innsbruck basically.

susko wrote:

ise wrote: Powder on a glacier is not common. It can be throwing it down in resort or on the slopes whilst a glacier above gets a sprinkling.

I most certainly didn't write that ) I've only had one glass of wine :shock:

Your GPS38 possibly isn't accurate for speed as it's a single receiver and it's poor at getting the altitude correct so it's producing 2D data when you're moving in 3D. I think whoever told you about the accuracy was getting a bit confused about something called "selective availability", that's gone since 2000, Wiki has a great article about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Selective_availability

I've always assumed the cheap GPS loggers were single receiver as well but I've never really checked. There's a series of other technical reasons why things like phone's with GPS aren't accurate.

tino_11 wrote: Powder on a glacier is not common. It can be throwing it down in resort or on the slopes whilst a glacier above gets a sprinkling.

aren't glaciers made of snow that's fallen out of the sky then? )

jonG wrote:......don't think they will make me ski any faster though :D :D

I don't know, some of the trackers are so inaccurate you see some wonderfully unrealistic claims for speeds )

The Garmin GPS 38 was a good single channel device IIRC, reasonable battery life as well. My Oregon has the 2000 waypoints I need but then the batteries last no time at all, I went through two sets of alkalines in about 12 hours this week which is just ridiculous.

Oddly, the GPS38 is the spitting image of my old Magellan which is weird.

caron-a wrote:On our transfer day in Obergurgl we bought a walk on pass to go and have lunch up the mountain. It was a chipped card which we put inside our jackets as usual and just walked through like everyone else. No one would've known any different.

They do, the RFID card is read by the gate as you pass and the operator display shows the pass type, if there's a photo on file it's displayed, if it's a senior pass or a child pass it displays in big letters along with if it's a ski pass or a pedestrian pass. It's one of the reasons these systems were installed, it's easier for the operators to spot fraud. The route the pass has taken around the mountain is also stored, if it's being misused at one gate the operators at the other gates will have to answer how they missed, for example, a senior pass being used by a 18 year old.

caron-a wrote:You don't normally use your pass to come down as they've obviously correctly assumed you needed one to get up there in the first place.

That depends where you are, a lot of lifts do check for descent. There's even one in Switzerland that checks you've not got a ski pass as only pedestrians are allowed to descend. Likewise, any lifts used in the summer tend to have gates installed descent as a matter of course. There's no normal, it depends where you are really.

caron-a wrote:Personally, I'd give it a shot.

I wouldn't :D I think most people know the T&C's don't allow transfer, it might be inconvenient but the only reason you're there is for the operators to make money and in some places it's legally quite serious, on a par with riding the London Underground without tickets for example.

Here in Switzerland the Swiss Alpine Club did a survey about single trip and pedestrian tickets and published a table about where was the most expensive and so on, it made interesting reading. Around the Jungfrau pedestrians need a second mortgage to ride the lifts while in other places it's a couple of francs and in some locations some people don't pay at all for pedestrian access.

Please help! Need advice on Austrian Resorts and Glaciers... Started by User in Austria, 10 Replies
you probably want to turn the junk filter off otherwise you'll miss half the posts :D :D Anyway, how about the Zillertal and Hintertux? Wouldn't that be within 5 hours of Bratislava? I presume that's anywhere east of Innsbruck basically.

Please help! Need advice on Austrian Resorts and Glaciers... Started by User in Austria, 10 Replies
susko wrote: ise wrote: Powder on a glacier is not common. It can be throwing it down in resort or on the slopes whilst a glacier above gets a sprinkling. I most certainly didn't write that ) I've only had one glass of wine :shock:

Please help! Need advice on Austrian Resorts and Glaciers... Started by User in Austria, 10 Replies
tino_11 wrote: Powder on a glacier is not common. It can be throwing it down in resort or on the slopes whilst a glacier above gets a sprinkling. aren't glaciers made of snow that's fallen out of the sky then? )

Messages posted by : ise