J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Dave Mac

Top post, Gaz C.

Here is a news report on a rescue training exercise carried out in the Wildschönau. It is written in German, but you can shade 3 lines, right click, translate with Bing. It gives a flavour of the rescue routines, over an actual avalanche area. (created for the purpose, probably with explosives)
If you scroll down, there is a video. The main things to observe are the coverage methodology, early use of Recco, use of rescue dogs.

We have rescue dogs in our Wildschönau village, and because I train Guide dogs, this is of particular interest. One of our dogs turned out to be blind, and while she was dropped from the Guide Dog training programme at an early stage, she went on to assist autistic children, and then was used for medical condition identification ~ predominantly identifying cancers from blood/urine samples by scent.

Again the video commentry is in german, but you can see what is happening.
http://www.wildschoenau.tv/2013/01/13/bergretter-probten-schatzberg-den-ernstfall/

That I cannot help you with, I started skiing, I never actually had lessons ~ I just lived in a house full of instructors!

You can always buy lift passes at the gondela base station. Kaprun isn't a huge village and there will be a ski bus.

You can see the location of treffpunkt on skiset. It is in the village. I think the gondola is a skibus ride.

Hi SG,

Good skiing at Kaprun.

OK, ski hire first. I don't have a Crystal brochure to hand, but Inghams charge £69/£90/£120. At 1.2 Eu/£, and through J2ski, the cost is £60/£77/£93. There is no way of comparing what you get, but you don't know what you are getting from the T/O anyway.

Check where Treffpunkt Eurosport is, in relation to your hotel.

Lift pass. Have a look on the Kaprun Bergbahn website, and see what their Euro charge is. Compare this with the brochure price. Allow a little for the benefit of the Tour rep delevring to your hotel.

Thank you for that Tony. Most of the present J2skiers will not have seen the five years of interaction, that at one time, was good fun. That changed five years ago, for what reason, I do not know. I do know that I ski with many J2skiers, many of them now ex-J2ers - just sickened by the tone of what was written, both personal attacks, which thankfully were stamped on, and then persistent attacks on my resort. This included three serious comments from you.

Nothing to do with Niederau, but I am really sad that J2ski has recently, through the same behaviour, lost one of the great contributors.

It is true that it is a whole five weeks since you passed comment on Niederau.

--------------------------------------------------------------

That is my last word on what has gone before. I take what you have written in good faith. I thank you for writing it.

Other J2skiers however, may not be so grateful. For it means that I will return to writing about Niederau, as and when asked about, and sometimes when it isn't asked about! It will certainly lighten the load on my pm box.

Ski well.

MogulMonkey wrote:Dave Mac.. whats the significance of the painting?
Is it one of yours? i cant make out the signature fully but i think it is signed Dave M** although it could be Dave N**

MM, I was giving Sean some information about the building, and it's location. It was just easier for me to post it, so he could see the building in relation to the mountain.

It is an old farm, and lies opposite the Haus we lived in for several winters, when I worked for the ski school. At nights, one of us would go over with an aluminium can, and buy milk, fresh from the cow, absolutely no pasteurising!

Yes, it is one of my paintings, I have painted most of the old buildings in Niederau, some of them several times. It is a great way to end a ski day, sat on the balcony, glass of wine.....

I have never understood this size arguement. I am fortunate enough to have skied many places in different parts of the world, Huge areas, tiny 5 km areas, the USA, Canada, Australia, much of Europe. Climbed mountains to ski on 200m of snow, skied in Derbyshire, Lake Distict, Scotland, our local golf course.

Every single place I have skied has been enjoyable. Even in poor conditions, I have skied down muddy snow, (or snowy mud)

I never, for any reason, expressed an adverse view on any ski area. That would be totally negative.

So, I do not differentiate on a size basis, nor really on any other basis. I love skiing, for me, it is poetry.

There are many advantages in skiing in a small but familiar place. Knowing the runs well allows you to really attack the mountain. It is no accident that I held the village day run record for 10 years. (That is no big deal, but is indicative of a benefit)

The Wildschönau/Alpbach area is now 145km, and the skiwelt is 280km. Over the next few weeks I plan to ski both several times, plus Kitzbuhel, and Fieberbrunn, plus a couple of other valleys, and some small villages.

I remember once expressing my view~ "I know 10,000 different ways down the Merchenwiess" (run 19 0n my videos)

I hope to ski with you one day, Snapzzz ~ it may have to wait until we are mutually in a 400km area! :-)