J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by admin

Ski & Snowboard Show, Battersea Park 26th – 29th October

We've got three pairs of tickets to give away in an easy-to-enter competition.

(Tickets are General Admission and valid for any day except Saturday)

Please note that the competition closes at midnight on Tuesday 17th October and winners will be notified (and need to confirm) on Wednesday 18th.





CLICK HERE TO ENTER

Due to some cancellations, we have a few spare tickets for this.

NOTE :- The talk is this coming Wednesday (18th October) evening, starting at 18:30 at Chel-Ski in London.

If you can definitely go (and would like to, obviously!), please send a Private Message to me (Admin) ASAP.

:thumbup:

Another Winter Season of SalomonTV Launches with Fountain of Youth





Annecy, France — Longtime Salomon athlete and free-skiing pioneer Mike Douglas says he never expected to make it as a pro skier, and he certainly never expected to still be doing it at age 47. As founder of Switchback Entertainment, he may now be an accomplished filmmaker, but the guy they call "The Godfather of Free-skiing" says he has too much fun skiing to let age slow him down. It's that notion that led to the making of SalomonTV's premiere episode for the 2017-2018 winter season, Fountain of Youth.

"At 47, the realities of aging start catching up with you," Douglas says. "On my birthday last year, I looked around and realized I didn't know anyone doing the type of skiing I was doing professionally, who is older than me. It made me wonder how much longer I could keep it up without having any more mentors to follow."

Looking into the science of longevity led Douglas to Japan, a place that is home to more than 10 million skiers and "of the major industrialized countries, it's the one where people live the longest," he says. "But I have to admit, in the beginning there was a part of me just looking for any excuse to go ski powder in Japan."

Fountain of Youth focuses on Douglas' time with the Miuras, a revered sports family of Japan. Yuichiro Miura, who recently climbed Mt. Everest at age 80, and his son Gota set aside time last March to share what they've learned about aging, and Douglas says it was a revelation.

"What I learned completely changed what I believed to be the secrets to longevity," Douglas says. "Most research is based around the idea of simply living longer and not necessarily the quality of life along the way, but there are things I learned on this trip that will stick with me and help guide the rest of my life."

Of course, like any SalomonTV winter opener, the episode also features enough powder skiing to get viewers amped for the coming winter season. It stars Salomon athletes and Douglas' fellow Whistler residents Stan Rey and Alexi Godbout. Douglas, of course, proves once again that he still has what it takes to keep up with the younger generation who grew up watching him.

Fans of SalomonTV can view Fountain of Youth in early October at Salomon.com/TV and watch for more episodes of SalomonTV this winter.

Can't help with the bus, but past few seasons snow depths are shown on our history pages :-

Saalbach snow depth history

January should almost always be good for snow, but there's no way to tell in advance (either from silly long-term forecast guessing, or from past seasons).

joosmeyer wrote:If anyone is interested in taking the booking from me, we would arrange for payment of the deposit to myself, and connect you with the booking agent to pay the rest of the fee to them. You would just take over the booking on our behalf.

Whilst we have no reason to suggest this is not just as stated, we're not comfortable with this proposal.

Many agencies charge admin fees for changing bookings and - in any case - the safe way to do this would be for the new customer to pay their deposit to the booking agent, and for the booking agent to then make a refund to the original customer. That offers more security for all parties.

If anyone wishes to contact the OP, they may do so via Private Message but they do so at their own risk.

J2Ski's Where To Ski or Snowboard In October 2017

The Matterhorn's waiting for winter too...

Top 100 Snowiest Ski Areas Worldwide

This Week's Snow Headlines
- Eight ski areas open in Austria - over half the northern hemisphere's total.
- Two ski areas open briefly after September snow in the USA.
- First Finnish ski area due to open on October 7th, using stockpiled snow from last winter.
- 40cm of late September snowfall in Canada.
- The first non-glacier resort has just opened (Sept 30th) for the season in Norway.
- Will a ski area in Arizona be first to open for 17-18 in the USA?
- 2017-18 season gets underway in France.
- 2017 season winding down in Southern Hemisphere, though some have extended seasons.

Well, what a difference a month makes. Writing our September report at the end of August we were reporting glaciers where the snow had melted away following months of high temperatures, and forest fires were raging in Western America. Since then we have had a month of mostly cold temperatures with high slopes in the alps seeing two or three September snowfalls, and we have gone from less than five areas open in the northern hemisphere to 15 for the start of October. There have also been some big snowfalls in Western North America and first turns made on that snow, although the ski areas concerned only opened temporarily.

There's been snow in the Dolomites, Pyrenees, even on high slopes in Scotland and Croatia and in Scandinavia centres are starting to open, aided by snowmaking and in some cases snow stockpiled from last season.

In the Southern Hemisphere the season is starting to wind down and more than half of areas now closed, with 95% due to be closed by the 8th October - with several enjoying a week-long extension to their planned seasons thanks to all the late snowfall.

In the Forecast

It's way too early to make any predictions for the coming European winter, but it is certainly not too soon to start watching the forecasts in earnest; and they're currently pretty typical for the time of year.

European mountains should see snow high up this coming week and temperatures look likely to fall encouragingly as October progresses, with colder-than-average weather particularly likely to the East.

This will be the last of our monthly reports before we revert to our usual weekly round-ups toward the end of this month.

Always check local conditions and resort opening times directly before travelling!

Re-publication :- our Snow Report Summary, being the text above this line, is free to re-publish, but must be clearly credited to www.J2ski.com with text including "J2Ski Snow Report" linked to this page - thank you.

NORTHERN HEMISPHERE
Austria
Austria is a clear winner for early-season skiing in the Northern Hemisphere! As of the last day of September, all eight of the country's Autumn-opening glacier ski areas had opened for 2017-18 with The Dachstein and Kitzsteinhorn glaciers last to join the party, following the Kaunertal Glacier the week before them; the Stubai and Pitztal glaciers on the 16th, and Solden the weekend before!

The Molltal glacier which had been open since the spring but closed due to the snow-melting summer heat also re-opened and the Hintertux glacier is open year-round. It's unusual for all eight to be open by the start of October, even without the long hot summer, and we certainly weren't expecting them all to be open by now. The September snow has transformed things – so long as it stays cold anyway. Bases are in the 45-95cm bracket and most areas have 3-9km of runs open although the Hintertux has more than 20km accessible.

There is only one other ski area scheduled to open in Austria in October, now that all the glaciers are open, and it should be the first non-glacier ski area to open in the Alps for winter 17-18, just as it was the past few seasons. Kitzbuhel plans to open a high altitude (by its standards – about 1800-1900m) slope using farmed snow from last season on 14th October.

France
The French ski season got underway this weekend with the Grand Motte glacier at Tignes opening for its eight month long season through to next spring.

It will probably be the only ski centre open in France until mid-November when Val Thorens will lead the mass-opening of the country's centres, excepting Les 2 Alpes which will open for a week at the end of October for its annual celebration of all things snowsport.

Last season though several centres including Alpe d'Huez opened early after big snowfalls in early November, so the picture is far from certain.

Italy
Italy has two glacier ski areas open at present; Passo Stelvio which has been open since May, and Val Senales which opened last month. The hot summer weather had led Passo Stelvio to close for a few weeks and Val Senales to delay its autumn opening but there's been lots of fresh snow on high slopes in Italy during September and Passo Stelvio now has an upper slope snow depth of 1.5m, the deepest in the Alps. Cervinia will be open for weekends in the latter half of October and full-time from the 29th.

Switzerland
Saas Fee and Zermatt have been the two choices in Switzerland for the past 10 weeks, longer in Zermatt's "always open" case. Both have around 15km of runs open, with base depths in the 60-70cm bracket.

Four more Swiss glacier ski areas will open in October though, providing conditions allow. First up, in terms of scheduled openings is the Diavolezza glacier near St Moritz which plans to open for its long season through to next spring on 21st October. The glacier at Laax and Glacier 3000, close to Gstaad and Les Diablerets, are aiming to open a week later on the last weekend of the month, 28 Oct. The fourth area to open in October looks set to be the Titlis glacier above Engelberg but it hasn't named an opening date yet.

Scandinavia
Norway's Galdhoppigen glacier is still open and posting a 3m base, still the deepest in the northern hemisphere. However Norway now has a second choice of ski area as Geilo opened a run again on the last day of September, the same as it has the past few seasons. The centre uses stockpiled snow from last season, preserved under tarpaulins in a shady spot on the slopes and spreads it out on the slopes to create a 1km long run, reported to be popular with teams for training and kids for fun.

Next Saturday, October 7th, Ruka ski area in Lapland, Finland, plans to open a run using the same trick, beginning a 200 day season. Ruka claims the longest season in the world of a non-glacier resort but as it now tends to close in early May, rather than early June as previously that claim might be challenged. Arapahoe Basin in Colorado was open from October to July last season and Mammoth from early November to early August – more than 260 days.

North America
Ski areas in Canada and the USA look well placed for the start of winter 2017-18. There was heavy snow across the west of the continent in late September with many areas reporting 5-10cm of snow but more at some.

Silverton in Colorado managed to open to locals for a bit of powder skiing whilst Mt Bachelor in Oregon opened a terrain park the weekend after the snow fall. The biggest reported fall was a 40cm dump on Marmot Basin near Jasper in Alberta over 36 hours on the last day of summer and first of autumn.

In terms of the real start to the season though the usual high altitude suspects, Arapahoe Basin and Loveland in Colorado are reported to have started snowmaking and hope to open by mid-October. This time last year things started well but then hit a warm spell. A Basin managed to open but Loveland had to delay in to November. This year's wildcard is Arizona Snowbowl which is also reported to have started snowmaking.

Southern Hemisphere
The ski season has ended at many southern hemisphere ski areas and is in its final week or two at most of the rest.

All Australian ski areas had been scheduled to close by October 1st but the sensational snowfall there in August and early September meant that most of the bigger resorts extended their seasons to the 8th. Bases are still at around 2.4m (8 feet) at Perisher and Thredbo.

New Zealand's ski areas have some of their deepest snow depths of the season so far too with a little fresh snow at most in the last week of September. Mt Hutt has the deepest in the world at present for an open ski area at 3.6m (12 feet). Several others have 1-2m with Mt Ruapehu on the North Island which usually stays open longest in the southern hemisphere in to late October and sometimes 'Snowvember' at the deeper end of those. Most other areas are due to close on 8th or 15th October.

Ski areas in South America will mostly close at the end of the day on the 1st of October with a few staying open to the 8th or 15th. Not much fresh snow has been reported since early September but base depths are as in New Zealand, still fairly good at 1-2m for most. Valle Nevado has 3m/10 feet, the deepest on the continent. Bases in Argentina are up to 2m.

Heliski evening with Graham Bell - Join a Q&A with the Ski Sunday presenter as he shares his favourite heliski adventures

Fancy spending an evening in the company of Graham Bell, finding out about heli-skiing (in Europe!) and hearing tales from the road from Ski Sunday and The Jump?

Yeah, us too... and we've got a bunch of free tickets to give away in a really easy-to-enter prize draw...



TO WIN A TICKET, GO HERE ---> Win a Ticket to hear Graham Bell

Here's the full run-down of the evening...

Five times Winter Olympic Downhill Skier, Graham Bell will be revealing how they made the famous opening heliskiing sequence on 'Ski Sunday', what went on behind the scenes on 'The Jump' and more insights from a career in skiing. Graham will also be giving details about the exclusive 'Heliski with Graham Bell' trip to Alagna in March 2018 that he's hosting for James Orr Heliski.

The trip is a 4 day off-piste and heliskiing adventure based in Alagna, Italy, with Graham and organised by James Orr Heliski. The cost is £1,875 and anyone attending the evening will receive an exclusive discount of £100 off the trip. Details can be found here > Heliski with Graham Bell

Members of the public are invited to attend, with tickets on sale at £15 per person, including a drink and snacks, plus 15 minutes of slope time before or after the event.

The evening is hosted by James Orr at Chel-Ski, between 18.30 and 20.30 on 18th October, 2017.

Following an introduction from James Orr and the chance to mingle with Graham and fellow skiers over a drink and light refreshments, a Q&A session with Graham hosted by Rob Stewart of Ski Press will be followed by further opportunities for the audience to get involved and pose their own questions.

James Orr wrote:"We're delighted that Graham has agreed to take part in this evening, which is a chance to really spend some time with one of Britain's best ever downhill skiers and well-known broadcaster in a relaxed, personal environment. As well as talking about heliskiing in the Monterosa region, guests will get to hear about some of his stories that span a career of over 25 years".

Prizes will be available on the night including equipment from leading brands.

Anyone attending the evening will have the chance to receive £100 off Graham's heliskiing adventure (if booked by October 20th with a 25% deposit)

Where? Chel-Ski, 4 Sotheron Place, Michael Road, London, SW6 2EJ
When? Wednesday October 18th, 2017 - 18.30 to 20.30

We'll pick our winners on the 11th October, but if you miss the deadline or you'd rather just pay £15 to go then you can grab a ticket here :- https://www.eventbrite.com/o/james-orr-heliski-12208434990

Welcome back! Let's get you skiing... 8)

For companies, take a look at Hofnar (Morzine) and Cold Fusion (Chamonix) but also look for rooms in the larger independent chalets; can be a little hit-and-miss for singles but if you're fairly easy-going could be a good bet. E.g. Ski Bonjour's chalet in Tignes Le Lac; not expensive, has a bar, and the dining room has large tables so groups tend to get naturally mixed up and you'll get chatting to folk. Probably applies to many of the larger chalets.

If you've not been on here for a while, you might have missed that we now have a (basic) list of Who's Going Where compiled from people's trip plans.

And do keep an eye on the forum; we regularly get posts from people looking to fill spaces on group trips.

Good luck!