Latest posts for the topic "Picture for Sean"

Picture for Sean

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 21:29:37 GMT

Sorry peeps, I have been answering dozens of PMs about Niederau, and I have no way of sending this painting by pm.

Re:Picture for Sean

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 22:03:40 GMT

Why pm Dave? Can't you share your secrets with us?
Like your painting.
Next time I go skiing I really want it to be to Austria.

Re:Picture for Sean

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 22:15:42 GMT

Dids1 wrote:Why pm Dave? Can't you share your secrets with us?
Like your painting.
Next time I go skiing I really want it to be to Austria.

They are not secrets, Dids, I am proud of my 40+ years association with Niederau. I worked there as an instructor for four years, and I love helping people out with information.

But one person on this forum persistently denigrates or snipes at the mere mention of the place. Hence I keep it off the forum. But I am always happy to help people out with information ~ I'm afraid I can't help knowing a lot about the place! -)

Re:Picture for Sean

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 22:24:52 GMT

Personally i am sure its a lovely place, i would go but perhaps just for a day or weekend as it looks really small. But then i have never been so am not really qualified to answer.

That pic sure makes it look inviting thats for sure.

Thanks for sharing.

Re:Picture for Sean

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 23:20:30 GMT

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 Wildschonau/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! :-)

Re:Picture for Sean

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 08:09:27 GMT

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**

Re:Picture for Sean

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 10:11:54 GMT

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.....

Re:Picture for Sean

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 11:36:30 GMT

Dave, I think you are clearly a talented guy with these paintings. And your love for Niederau is unquestionable.
But I think this "arguement" needs to be put to bed once and for all.

Niederau is often talked about on this forum, possibly because of your vast knowledge of the place. I myself was invited to visit a few years ago and published, by request, an honest opinion on what I found. It was not a place I would return to, and one of the reasons why was because it is such a limited extent which, for me, and other people, is an important feature for a ski destination when you are limited to the odd week here or there a season if you are lucky.

There has been "banter" between several people on this forum, you and I in particular. I have joked about Niederau's size, you came up with the name Mary Hofen in response to my previous regular trips there, and it seemed in the main to be good banter. The N crowd against the M crowd, as it became known!

You may or may not have noticed that I have not "bated" you or anyone else over Niederau and resisted the opportunity to post about the place in recent times and this will continue henceforth, and despite me not changing my own personal opinion of the place, I see no further point sharing those opinions with anyone on this forum. I said my peace, probably too honestly for your liking, and times have moved on.

Yes, we can all try to share a joke and a bit of banter over anything skiing, and you may question why some people ski certain resorts as much as I might question what attracts anyone to another place, be it Niederau, Borovets or Flaine for example, but everyone is different. You have skied some of the mega resorts such as St Anton and yet still return to your beloved Niederau, which only suggests you have a deep love and passion for the place - instructing and living out there I am sure had a profound effect on you. Your passion for the place continues in your paintings displayed with pride on here.

I have been guilty of appearing to belittle and take the mickey in the past which is a result of attempting to have a sense of humour on a forum, something that is very difficult to put across the right way as you and one or two others have found in particular. Clearly any attempted humour aimed in the direction of Niederau in the past has been taken the wrong way and often inflamed things at times.

I therefore wanted to say I share (as I think you know) the passion that you and everyone else on this forum has for skiing. There is little better in my humble opinion than standing at the top of a mountain looking down at the snow covered landscape beneath thinking of how you are going to attach the descent. I am a very inexperienced skier in comparison to someone like yourself who has spent much of their life skiing, big respect for that.

Therefore, I simply propose peace; a truce; an end - whatever you want to call it. My report from a few years back is available for anyone to read on this forum and it was written honestly at the time. My opinion remains unchanged in that I would not personally return to Niederau as it offers nothing in particular for me in terms of what I want from a ski holiday, but I have not passed negative comment or snide remark about it on here for some considerable time now, which I had hoped someone as intelligent as you might have recognised.

I'd like to move on. As you rightly pointed out, negativity is a bad thing, so I'd like it to stop on both sides.

I am honoured to be able to ski and spend time in the mountains at winter time, and its often easy to forget just how special that really is.

Re:Picture for Sean

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:34:02 GMT

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.

Re:Picture for Sean

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 10:15:49 GMT

I am new to j2ski but love the ski banter and obviously don't know what has been said in the past but I love Niederau. It was our first time skiing in 1998 and I was with my hubby and two kids who were 4 and 6 at the time. I thought it was the most gorgeous place I'd seen and having skied twice a year since I still think it is the most beautiful. Two years later the whole extended family learnt to ski there brothers, sisters and their kids.

I have not been there since those early days but both kids now excellent skiers and hubby and I still plodding on - lots of skiers say you can tell skiers who learnt in Austria and those in France or elsewhere.

Went to soll for a week in January and would love to have had the opportunity to go back to Niederau I am sure we will soon. We went from a couple of trips to NIederau to a long weekend in Chamonix which was obviously quite a shock.

I think the place you learn to ski is always kinda special and now that I've skied most of Austria some of France (gimme Austria any day) and Vail there is still no place like Niederau.

Back to chamonix this week hope it is not so daunting!!

Re:Picture for Sean

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 13:00:49 GMT

Looks like a decent area to me, provided you don't mind hopping on and off the odd bus (which I don't). I would take the family there without hesitation. The new link (Auffach/Alpbach) looks good. I reckon prices are about to go up as that area begins to appeal to a lot more people.

Re:Picture for Sean

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 14:55:46 GMT

Am always surprised at how many km people are looking for in a weeks skiing. I would consider myself ski fit (8+ weeks a year), train throughout year and ski faster than most. Never got bored, never out skied any resort in a week. Spent many a weekend at a Myrkdalen in Norway (300 vertical), 1 lift, 2 T bar and never managed to get bored of the place. Small resorts mean you can amuse yourself with ski drills, or just go skinning. Some of my best days skiing have been a single descent, having worked hard to earn it. Just doing laps on flat blues and over graded reds has no real interest for me. Like driving down a motorway in cruise control.

Boredom is a state of mind. I blame apps for the obsession with number of km in resort.

Re:Picture for Sean

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 15:20:43 GMT

Ranchero_. I blame apps for the obsession with number of km in resort.[/quote wrote:

I'm not getting into a discussion about niederau.

But I have to say that statement you just made is utterly ridiculous.
Maybe we should start a new thread and leave this one for the pleasure of daves picture, and ask why people want to have a weeks skiing with a good amount of km to go at or not?

Re:Picture for Sean

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 15:50:40 GMT

Ranchero_1979 wrote:Am always surprised at how many km people are looking for in a weeks skiing. I would consider myself ski fit (8+ weeks a year), train throughout year and ski faster than most. Never got bored, never out skied any resort in a week. Spent many a weekend at a Myrkdalen in Norway (300 vertical), 1 lift, 2 T bar and never managed to get bored of the place. Small resorts mean you can amuse yourself with ski drills, or just go skinning. Some of my best days skiing have been a single descent, having worked hard to earn it. Just doing laps on flat blues and over graded reds has no real interest for me. Like driving down a motorway in cruise control.

Boredom is a state of mind. I blame apps for the obsession with number of km in resort.

I see your point. The only thing I would say is that many people, who get to ski for just one week per year, simply want to 'clock up the miles' and if that means skiing with poor form, doing no drills and taking no lessons, then so be it.

In a recent thread I was a little critical of Livigno and Courmayeur. Thinking back, my attitude to these resorts was dictated by my attitude to skiing in general at that time. Basically, I was a fit, testosterone-fuelled, 30-odd year-old 'adolescent' whose modus operandi was to ski as fast as I could, for as far as I could, for as long as I could. I shudder to think... :oops: :lol:. I reckon I could quite happily go back to either of those resorts 'wearing my more mature head' and enjoy them more than I did the first time around. I think the phase I went through is typical of many young-ish, British, male skiers. I like to think that when, sooner or later we all arrive at the point that you aptly compared to motorway driving, many of us wake up to the fact that that's what's really boring and then we start to move on as skiers. 'Motorway driving' keeps the rest happy.

Re:Picture for Sean

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 21:48:20 GMT

It's not a case of wanting to clock up miles for the sake of it, more a case of having a choice in where to ski and try to vary days on the slopes.
Monterosa doesn't have a huge recorded mileage, varies according to who you believe, but there was plenty of places off the piste map to play on. But doing 75 miles a day end to end gave a real sensation of travel.