J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by bedrock barney

I had a couple of lessons at Castleford in March 2010 (having never skied before)

It was a bit nerve wracking going up to the top for the first time. Nice wide turns are the best thing so that you can control your speed across the slope. Go at 10am when it's a bit quieter.

Not wanting to scare your other half, but I reckon that Castleford is borderline green/blue run, even from the top. It doesn't really compare to a resort where people might be passing by you at 40mph, the slopes are starting to mogul up and you suddenly find yourself on a steeper section!

As many will tell you on here, slope classifications very considerably from resort to resort. For example, from personal experience blues and greens are ridiculously under classified in Val d'Isere (with short sections feeling like a red or even a black). However there are plenty of other resorts which are very steady and suitable for beginners. Choose your 1st holiday very carefully! We learnt to ski in Hemsedal in Norway which is excellent for beginners.

Been very busy with work lately. Earning money to pay for next year's skiing hols!

We've moved onto our 'summer' drinks here in chez BB. Nice chilled glass of pastis freshly poured and ready to drink.

Snapzzz wrote:Just bottled up my first 6 bottles of homemade wine.

I hope this was using home grown grapes.....

hugh4243 wrote:Will it be awfully busy? I do not mind the atmosphere and the hustle and bustle but is it dog eat dog on the lifts and slopes ?

I suspect that it would be busy as any large resort would be over Christmas. However, we were extremely impressed with the lift system and extent of slopes when we skied VDi and Tignes in January this year. There was a decent buzz in Val d'Isere town even though it was low season (7th to 14th Jan).

Not sure how many takers there were for this local delicacy.....

We are likely to go skiing with our children at new year or possibly Easter in 2013/2014. Therefore, it would be me and Mrs BB for the 2014 j2ski trip. Late feb/early march sounds good to me.

I've skied les arcs. Thought it was very good although would choose Espace Killy over Paradiski.

Les Arcs 2000 is a bit brutal, architecturally. There wasn't much ambience as far as we could tell. More happening in Les Arcs 1800 but didn't spend much time there. We stayed in Les Arcs 1950. Excellent accommodation but to be honest it was quite flat in apes ski terms. Didn't see many classic looking chalets as you would see in val d'isere

AllyG wrote:Ian,
I don't think you'd ever find out who it was, unless they owned up to it, and most likely they were only trying to be funny, like Icy.

I'm sure no-one really wants you banned Ian.

There are still quite a lot of people reading our posts. I had a look just now and the Wibble thread has had 14,000 viewings :shock:

It's the best thread on the whole wide world interweb thingy.