Skiing

Thanks peeps.

It's not looking great, no knee stability at all but docs can and do work wonders with knees now days.

Wont know how bad it is until MRI in UK next week.

Sad to hear that. I did mine a few years ago and I'm skiing better now than I was before (worrying about my ACL really motivates me to stay out of the backseat) and cycling is good rehab - hopefully a couple of silver linings

Sorry to hear that. I'm just off to Lapland hopefully I'll quickly understand the limits of my old body. Get well soon.

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/299113/

Apologies for the spam, but leaving this here in case anyone is interested!

First 1-2-1 ski lesson at Levi ski school.

1 Attachment

^ awesome. Fun isn't it!

YES, TOTALLY. I wish I had the chance or impotous to have done it sooner. By the second day I was able to gingerly meander my way down a red run with only a few soft tumbles. Just looking at The World Cup black run made me feel light headed. One day maybe :-)

1 Attachment

So, Kosovo is officially the best place to go back country skiing in the world. Between our group we had done Europe extensively including Scandinavia, Japan, Canada, the US, and New Zealand. We were all blown away by Kosovo.

One lift working at a time. 2 "pistes", the only other people skiing were mental kosovans falling down moguls and sledging like nutters. You ride the lift for 3 euros a go (cash in hand to the drunk lifty) or 12 euros for a day.

Our entire week was spent off-piste getting first tracks on every descent. Ski inbounds during the day then do a hike for an adventure after last lift at 3pm.

Everyone was so friendly regardless of which side of the ethnic divide they found themselves. Very generous, particularly with the local homebrewed rocket fuel. Beer is 1 euro. Decent size pizza is 4. Regularly full and smashed for under a tenner. Passable twin room is 20 euro a night.

This picture was taken exactly a week ago. Missing it from my desk now.

1 Attachment

That sounds right up my street - will add that to the bucket list

Do they have qualified guides?

I doubt any of the guides are 'qualified'. The only instructor we saw was in a second hand esf jacket....

There is a cat skiing operation, and they have a guide. Cheapest cat skiing around, however with touch stuff to do straight off the lift or with less than an hour's hike/skin we weren't sold on the value. Less than 200 euro a day with food and "accommodation".

Igor in the pizza place is the guy to ask about snow conditions. It was pretty stable when we were out, but I wouldn't trust a fast response team digging you out of anything major. We were probably the most prepared people for miles with all the gear and a half decent idea of how to use it!

2nd visit to the Sellaronda area of the Dolomites. This time we were based in Selva in Val Gardena. A good dump of snow in the week before we arrived but nothing during the week and not enough water for the resorts to make more so conditions weren't brilliant.

Still had a pretty good time which we split between the usual pisted stuff and touring skiing. On the Friday we headed up some snow clad walking paths that managed to lead us to a col well away from the pistes. Clearly other people had up-skied there recently but nobody was around. Only around 300m of carrying skis up a path to tricky to skin up and then dropping down an easy off-piste section to get back on to the usual runs. Was not my best day but going to tick that off as my first proper back country ski effort.

Probably going to look at doing a guided tour next year if we can afford it.

Picked up my new Sego Co. 98 Specials today. I didn't break the 100mm waist on these, figured I have snow boards if I want that. Really looking forward to trying them in Whistler this weekend.

I did notice there is a serious lack of indie ski makers, yet there's lots and lots of snowboard ones. Wonder why that is.

1 Attachment

Probably because the ski market grew whilst the snowboard market shrunk. Line, Armada, Faction were all indie, but have grown, whereas in snowboarding, there's less money to support larger brands so they've all stayed small.

Those skis look sweet, weirdly similar graphics to the 4frnt KYE series! Is the rocker as extreme as the graphic on their website? Looks a similar shape to a camox.

Guess it depends what counts as indie but there are quite a lot out there if you dig around. Not many stocked in UK shops though. Have a look at exoticskis.com
And as Chirosi says, a lot of formerly indie ski brands have become fairly mainstream now
If you're in Whistler see if you can find some Gary Wayne skis for something er different

edit: I'm heading off to La Grave in a couple of weeks - is it ever going to snow again around there???

I'm off to Canada next week (whistler) and have left it quite late for buying a new ski jacket and trousers. Recommendations welcome!

Depending on budget, I would go for a non insulated gore Tex pro jacket and grab a good fleece, and a uniqlo down jacket, so that you can layer up. I've also had good success using a cycling softshell as a mid layer.

That approach means you can layer up or down depending on conditions. If you have a super warm insulated jacket you'll never want to wear it on spring trips.

^ This. I can highly recommend these two shells if you don't want to get too spendy. The Decathlon probably edges it on quality...just.

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/alpinism-mens-jacket-orange-id_8304317.html

https://www.ellis-brigham.com/products/sherpa-adventure-gear-mens-lithang-jacket/236100

At this late point in the ski season, you could do worse than to pick up something when you get out there. Lots of ski shops will be looking to offload this year's stock in sales to make room for the spring/summer sports kit.

Might be worth doing a bit of googling to see what shops have on sale there.

Are you heading to Vancouver? There are a number of ski shops along West 4th Ave, quite a few with heavy reductions even in Jan/Feb.

Nice. Yup going to vancouver first. Are you thinking of the places in kitsilano? I'm staying there so looks pretty convenient.

Also a good idea, cheers.

Always worth looking up MEC. The joining fee usually makes itself worth while on your first purchase.

Cheers. Just so I know, what makes a ski hardshell different from any other outdoorsy hardshell? Snow skirt and goggle pocket? I've got a nice rab eVent jacket that I use for walking and everyday - mebbe I should just wear that with a decent base and midlayer under?

Good shout. I'm arriving lunchtime on Thursday and they're open til 9pm. Off to whistler the next morning :)