J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by verbier_ski_bum

What's intimidating about Zermatt? It has plenty of gentle terrain from where downloading is possible. Lot of reds are more like blues, and runs on the glacier at the top are almost flat. Unless altitude is a problem I would think it's great for beginners.

March 19 is not late season. Especially these days when seasons tend to start a month later than normal.

I understand that Niseko and other Hokkaido ski areas are flatter, but Hakuba on Honshu has a more challenging terrain, and is much easier to get to from Tokyo.

It gets rather warm rather quickly every time the sun comes out. Luckily it's been fairly unsettled since the start of the year, and weather closes down soon enough when conditions start deteriorating.

Interesting. Couple of friends went to La Clusaz on Saturday to participate in a full-moon descent. They say it was a disaster, just a queue to get on a lift was almost one hour long and then a crowd of people was skiing the same slope. Overall for them the event was only worth remembering so that not to make the mistake of participating again...

I was one of those snowploughing down the red slopes :) I only had 3 hours on a nursery slope and the next lesson the same instructor took me all the way up and we skied top to bottom for three hours, all on a plough. No harm in this at all, it's not the way we ski but it's one of the ways to control the skis, it works and this is what important. Gave me confidence too. I didn't go proper parallel until my second year, but semi-parallel that I mastered in my first year was useful, and it was something I could reliably fall back when something didn't work. I also didn't use poles in my first year at all. Even for drills an instructor would give me one of his. Of course, and especially if you are a holiday skier, your time-frame will be different, but there will be the same kind of progression. So, continue with your lessons, you seem to be on the right track, poles, techniques to use your ski shape to turn - they will all be introduced in a due time. Way too many people insist on using the poles before they can use them properly, they may think they look good, but this is only until they start moving. Enjoy your holiday and definitely take lessons on your holiday too. It will be money and time well invested.

Yes, it's for off-piste, if you are a piste skier then as long as the piste is open it should be good. Avalanche risk changes daily and throughout the day. At 5 no-one is skiing off-piste, this is when they start evacuating chalets and luckily it doesn't happen very often. I think most deaths occur at 3 because this is usually the most common rating, in an average season majority of good off-piste days are level 3 days.

Nice! 5 hours is very impressive.