Skiing

We drive to the black forest (for the limited alpine skiing) as the inlaws live there. 6-7 hours drive from the Calais Ferry. Here's the Cross country area; https://www.notschrei-loipe.de/
Accomodation in Freiburg is pretty affordable, and it's just all round a great place.

This small hotel is a 20 minute drive from Notscrei and is about £80 a night. https://kuehlerkrug.de/ - the food's amazing. (lots of international chains in town if that's still too much)

Had a chat with a rescue climber earlier. Apparently the guide had them pretty well spaced out which would have saved the group in most cases. The problem in this instance is that the slide was 400m wide due to the nature of the terrain. Scary stuff.

That's the thing with avalanches. A colleague of Cycliste's lost their wife to an avalanche during an avalanche training course. Killed the instructor too. You can mitigate risk, but it's still there.

Anyone have any experience of St Foy? Weighing up a potential trip in March for one very experienced skier, one intermediate (who will likely spend more time lounging than actually skiing), and two beginner kids. Have skied everywhere in the vicinity (La Rosiere, Les Arcs, Tigne etc...) and am pondering giving something smaller a try.

Disappointed by the tv coverage of the snow sports so far from China. With drone technology you’d have thought they could do something quite spectacular. It seems only static camera points are being used.

Weirdly they seem to have drones flying, but I haven't seen any footage from them.

First day of piste skiing for five years today and I had an awesome time. I had totally forgotten how fun it is.

Using the avalanche risk as an excuse to do a few more days on piste in the hope that the abnormally warm temps at altitude will calm things down a bit. Really looking forward to it.

Hmmm. Looking like you should bet your house on the winners of all the Olympic alpine events being on Head skis. 7 of 9 medals so far including all 3 golds

Physio said, and I quote “looks like you got away with it this time”.

Similarly I just got my -ve ONS PCR test result back - swab taken day the after arriving back from an Austria ski trip (with transit via Zurich). I think the Austrian limits on apres-ski and insistence on FFP2 mask wearing were probably just as important as my triple-jabbedness.

(Everyone I know who's gone skiing in France recently has come back testing positive for Covid despite being triple jabbed.)

Should have put more effort into getting ski fit, but still had a blast for the 3.25 days we were skiing.

I'm inclined to agree with you. In Obergurgl at the moment and people are still distancing and generally being cautious.

I suppose it helps that apres ski still isn't allowed in Aistria. And despite what the swivel eyed loons say, we know for certain that ffp2 masks hugely reduce transmission.

(Everyone I know who's gone skiing in France recently has come back testing positive for Covid despite being triple jabbed.)

We both tested negative on day two of our return.

Yep, most of them tested negative with a lateral flow on day 2. Everyone (admittedly a sample size of just 4 different French ski holidays) then tested positive by lateral flow or PCR a few days after that.

One of the most likely places to pick up an infection is the flight home, and a lateral flow within 48h is going to miss a fair few infections.

Obviously different if you drive/train your way there/back I suppose.

(And, obviously, hope you continue to test negative!)

We flew out with Easyjet and passengers were required to wear FFP2 masks to board because of the requirement at the Austrian end. The grumbling was very noticeable.

"Why do we have to wear these masks? Its stupid...masks don't work!"

"I can't wear FFP2 masks because they give me a rash"

About a third of passengers immediately took their FFP2 masks off after boarding and put face coverings on.

If I don't get Covid on the flight back I'll be surpised.

We drove there and back, and didn't go out in the evenings as our hotel was on the piste and you couldn't get back into it beyond 16:30.

Doing this tomorrow from Obergurgl rather than from the Lantalareckhuette.

Really nice first section through a canyon with a short rope climb out to get up to the hut. Will probably descend the way we came. Quite a large part of the route is bombed to protect the service road for the hut and slope aspects line up nicely with the current avalanche report. Really can't wait.

https://www.almenrausch.at/touren/detail/eiskoegele-3233-m-von-der-langtalereckhuette-1/

All 4 in our group negative too.

Head skis burning it up again (women’s super-g).

Got three hours into our tour and made the safety call to turn back. Loads of wind blown snow, lots of wumpfing noises and the snow pit we dug wasn't pretty. Found a safer route but by that time the snow and wind had intensified and visibility was fucked.

Our mountain guide was out with clients on the other side of the valley which was lethal a few days ago and apparently was safe as houses today. Complex thing, avalanche safety.

Well done for turning back

Just got pinged by NHS T&T. Almost certainly from the flight back as I've had contact tracing in the app disabled for months, and everyone in our group got the text at almost exactly the same time.

Had a negative PCR test from a swab taken the day after returning but I'll do the daily lateral flows just because I can (and should), and my wife and daughter are off to see some grandparents in half term so we're all testing pretty much daily anyway (my daughter because of school and my wife because of work).

Well done for turning back

Thanks, you always second guess your decision. Just had a chat with our mountain guide and he thinks we made a 100% good decision. Two buried hoar layers, with faceted granules inbetween. Awful snowpack.

The good news is that apparently the higher side valleys are much safer at the moment as the high winds and temps have melted everything right down to almost crud. Shit to ski on but you're not going to get killed so there's that!

On that note, our guide was in Konigstal yesterday and reckons the aspect and wind has made it super safe.

It has been a few years since we've covered 1000m in winter...will it be type 1, type 2 or type 3 fun?

https://www.almenrausch.at/touren/detail/koenigsjoch-2825-m-von-obergurgl/

France are set to remove the requirement for a negative covid test before travel but are changing the rules around second and third vaccine timing.

Ok, strictly speaking we had snowshoes on today (snow was unskiable at our ability level higher up due to the wind) but I thought I'd leave this here to make you lot feel jellies.

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