Ski+board February/March 2015

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Editor’s note Seldom can headlines have changed so rapidly as when the story of ‘no snow’ in the Alps was replaced by tales of snow chaos, as a giant snowstorm brought parts of France to a standstill.

It may be of little comfort to those who were stuck in airport lounges — or worse, spending the night in a shelter — but one reason we go skiing is to put ourselves at the mercy of the elements, returning to a more primitive state, where a sudden white-out can turn the most benign mountainside into an impenetrable maze, with all the fear and excitement that brings.

On a more prosaic note, it should be noted that in the past resorts rarely opened before Christmas week. The dash to be the first to open in early December, or even late November is a new phenomenon. Those who want a guarantee of snow can rarely go wrong booking a late season holiday, as by then it is sure to have been cold enough for the snow cannons to do their work, even if, come April, spring has sprung and there is little cover between the pistes.

As an unashamed fair weather skier, this has always been my preference. Even for families tied to school breaks, there are some good deals to be found in the second week of the Easter holidays. However, those who dream of a white Christmas must accept that, very occasionally, their venture will not pay off. Under the circumstances, there was little that tour operators or resorts could have done this December, even with the millions of pounds that resorts have invested in snowmaking facilities. For the record, it has been found that many of the problems that occurred on the day after Boxing Day stemmed from a lack of communication between the Savoie prefecture and other organisations, including the emergency services.

Editor Colin Nicholson colin.nicholson@skiclub.co.uk Acting Deputy Editor Ben Clatworthy ben.clatworthy@skiclub.co.uk Graphic designerS Nicole Wiedemann Annabel Stevens Zaid Katbi Martin Ritchie media sales Madison Bell madisonbell.com 020 7389 0835

Ski+board has strived this season to be a powerful, independent voice backing the interests of British skiers and snowboarders against the vested interest groups they face. But for all the hostility tour operators attracted in the Christmas weather chaos — and arguably they could have updated customers more — they have generally championed the cause of British skiers.

By keeping prices remarkably low, they have transformed skiing from an elitist sport into one that can be enjoyed by most of us. One large tour operator told me that it makes just three or four per cent profit on the basic cost of a ski holiday. That’s about £20 on a £600 holiday, although tour operators make a lot of their money on extras, such as lift passes and equipment hire, which they sell to customers at the regular price, but buy at a discount from the resort. So it is only by dealing with big volumes of skiers that the operation can be viable.

Indeed one representative of a French region, with absolutely no axe to grind on the subject, told me that she was amazed to find that in March last year it would have been cheaper for French skiers to book their accommodation through a British tour operator and simply not use the flights and transfers, rather than reserve rooms direct.

For all the uphill struggles that British skiers have faced this winter, perhaps, as we enter the main part of the season, we should be celebrating all that we can be grateful for.

Ski+board editor

february/march 2015

London SW19 5SB skiclub.co.uk 020 8410 2000 Distribution Jellyfish Print Solutions Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Independently audited circulation of 19,880 ( January to December 2013) © Ski Club of Great Britain 2015 ISSN 1369-8826

COVER PHOTO: Portes du Soleil/JB Bieuville

Colin Nicholson

Ski+board

PublisheR Ski Club of Great Britain

skiclub.co.uk

The Ski Club cannot be held responsible for any unsolicited material. Ski+board is printed

by Precision Colour Printing, Stirchley, Telford TF7 4QQ.

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Contents February/March 2015

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Exposure Seven pages of the sort of shots you weren’t expecting… and how they were captured

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You Say Readers lend their weight to the campaign to lift restrictions on skiers

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Ski Club Leader on trial, 007 in Tirol, the incredible £31.5 million of items lost by British skiers every winter, and is the falling oil price leading to flight bargains?

23

Quintessentially British — the festivals that are taking the mountains by storm

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With the stage set for the biennial World Championships in Vail and Beaver Creek we look at the diversity of skiing that America has to offer

PHOTO: M. Vitré/Portes du Soleil

News

PHOTO: Jack Affleck

6

Our writer and would-be ski instructor finds her way barred in many countries

52

PHOTO: Daniel Zangerl PHOTO: Jimmy Petterson

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PHOTO: adrenaline-verbier.ch

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The secret Austrian testing ground for ski lifts with a history dating back over a century

Discover Europe’s newest skiing nation — Azerbaijan — and its remarkably fancy ski resorts

The Info

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Fashion

Boots extra

The ski tests

Snowboard review

Ski technology

Lighter shells for warmer days, with urban and vintage looks for après style

The odd designs that may be the shape of things to come, plus park and pipe boots

The Ski Club’s industry-leading testers investigate big mountain skis

Board makers create weird and wonderful shapes in the big mountain category

All the latest knowhow for keeping your feet comfortable, plus sunscreen for skiing

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96

Health and Fitness

Technique

Resort insider

Tone up at the gym to make sure you’re ski fit, and what happens if you are badly injured

The vital but often overlooked role of poles, and how really to avoid avalanches

Our writers reveal their eight favourite snowsure resorts in five countries

Photography masterclass Post-production tricks to enhance photos — and what to avoid

Books New editions reviewed — from collections of ski posters and epic runs to ski history

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Skier Thibaud Duchosal Location San Martino di Castrozza, Italy Photographer Stef Godin I was with my friend Thibaud Duchosal, a pro rider, in the Dolomites in early February. We were expecting blue skies and sunshine, but the resorts were closed because too much snow meant they could not secure the slopes. It was also not possible to climb because the avalanche danger was too great. However where we were in Cortina there was one gondola open. It was in the forest at the bottom of San Martino di Castrozza, which was fairly safe from avalanches. I saw a nice view between the firs and asked Thibaud to turn in front of me. Though I’m not sure even he expected three metres of powder.

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Skiers Tess Swallow and Lynn Sharpe Location Kühtai, Austria Photographer Ross Woodhall

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Sometimes you don’t have to stray too far from the lifts to discover a nice patch of fresh powder that will make for an eye-catching shot. Here race coach Lynn Sharpe, closely followed by ski instructor Tess Swallow, found a beautifully light stash in the Tirolean resort of Kühtai. The pair were there in February last year for the Ski Club’s annual week-long ski tests. Between them, the team tested more than a hundred pairs of skis, although, as their smiles show, work can be fun.

boarder Lon Canu Location Hemel Hempstead Photographer Aivars ‘Zee’ Zarins The Morrow Jam has become something of an institution at Hemel Hempstead’s Snow Centre. On one evening in November, riders turn up for a free jam session for an hour and a half. During this qualifying round the top riders are selected for the finals and awarded fluorescent bibs. The judges then rate the finalists only on their performance in the second session, with the top three places in the three categories winning awards. With the contestants under little pressure to do a ‘safe run’, spectators and photographers alike are rewarded with exciting tricks. In this instance Zee, who runs his own agency, Motion Stoppers Photography, caught Lon Kanu in full flight. Who said indoor slopes don’t offer challenges?

Rider Rowan Biddiscombe Location Harrow Skate Park, North-West London Photographer Russ Shea I am based in London and it only snowed for a short while here last winter — at the start of January — and even then it was just a couple of inches at most. After a few frantic phone calls and armed with only a shovel and the idea of snowboarding Harrow’s famous Skate Bowl, Rowan Biddiscombe, Joe Rackley and I drove through the rush-hour chaos, arriving at 8pm. The next issue was the local youths. The park is not the friendliest of places, as many of the street lights no longer work and there were a lot of kids hanging about. Though we didn’t fear for our personal safety, the kids had spied our camera gear. But once they saw what we were doing they watched in amazement. There was not as much snow as we had hoped for, so we set about scraping together as much as possible to put into this old, graffiti-strewn swimming pool.

After many attempts by both riders, Rowan finally managed to get the speed for me to capture the image I was after.

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Skiers Unknown Location St Anton, Austria Photographer J Mallaun Austria is known as the place to go for a last ski down from the bar, but on this occasion the skiers were enjoying a sun-downer of the original sort. This sunset in Tirol was made even more spectacular by an ‘inversion’ day - when the temperature increases the higher you go. This meteorological phenomenon typically happens during the winter, when the angle of the sun is very low on the horizon, meaning it scarcely heats the valley.

In large, polluted cities, the tell-tale layer of fog, hanging menacingly in the sky, is synonymous with pollution and respiratory problems.

In ski resorts, happily, this picture conjures up images of fresh air, a beautiful run down the mountain, to be followed by an après-ski drink at the bottom.

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SkierS Various Location Chamonix, France Photographer Tim Lloyd Which way is down? This way... One of the most startling aspects of Chamonix are the views you get of the sheer kilometre drop into town if you take a wrong turn at the Aiguille du Midi.

And that is one of the reasons why these young competitors in the Freeride World Tour are paying such close attention to the instructions, as they prepare to launch themselves through the temporary metal gate into the void. Freeride competitions differ from many other ski contests as competitors will often discuss together how they will descend a face, and will sometimes study a series of photos taken over the course of the winter to see how snow has fallen on a cliff to gauge how they are going to tackle it.

SkierS AND BOARDERS Various Location Engelberg, Switzerland Photographer Christian Perret Appearing to have come straight out of JRR Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy, these fearsome-looking skiers and boarders are preparing for Engelberg’s annual torchlit run. It started as a Guinness Book Of Records attempt, and indeed claims to be the world’s longest torchlit descent at 12km (seven miles), snaking down from the freeride capital’s highest point at the Klein Titlis at 3,030m (9,950ft) to the town at 1,050m. And the participants have a fire in their bellies too. The event, traditionally held at the end of season, is preceded by dinner at the restaurant at the top, with bowls of spaghetti to prepare skiers for the run.

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Skier Unknown Location Tremblant, Canada Photographer Daniel K Cooper Canada’s eastern resorts rarely get the quantity of powder snow that their counterparts in the Rockies and on the West Coast are famous for.

Falls like this come just seven to ten times a winter in the resort of Tremblant in Québec. So when this one came last February — and with the temperature a balmy 0°C — it caused quite a lot of excitement in the French-speaking province. Dan Cooper, who was back in the resort in the summer to compete in its annual Iron Man competition, caught this skier as he spotted this stash of light powder by the side of the piste, and both skier and snow burst into a giant snowflake in the wintry Laurentian Mountains.

Back and forth to the up and down, 25 times daily.

It’s never been so easy to get to the Alps from London. At SWISS, we offer regular departures from all 3 major airports. En route to the slopes, you’ll travel in great comfort thanks to our outstanding inight service. By the way, your ski equipment travels free. For more information visit us on swiss.com

You Say… writing Campaign is making its mark

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I read with interest comments in Ski+board about the protectionist policy in France concerning the Ski Club’s Leaders and subsequent legal action. I have spent six holidays in France over the past two seasons, always skiing with Leaders. It’s why I choose a particular resort. This year I will be skiing elsewhere. I wrote personally to four ministers on September 10 to explain my decision. I finally received this response from tourism minister Pierre Cyrille earlier this year. They don’t rush anything, do they? Anthony Goggin.

The Ski Club writes: Thank you, Anthony, and it is gratifying to note the The minister refers to Leaders as minister appears to accept ‘accompagnateurs bénévoles’ — that Leaders are volunteers, volunteers — a key point in the Ski though he may take a bit Club’s argument as to why Leaders more persuading before we are not in breach of the law can get him fully on board...

Anthony Goggin Ski Club of Great Britain

I am forwarding to you a copy of an email I sent to the Val d’Isère tourist office in the summer, after the Ski Club was forced to withdraw its Leaders, under threat of further legal action. Strangely, despite a reminder, they have not replied…

Hans Scheiwiller

To:

info@valdisere.com

Cc: Subject: Ski Club of Great Britain

Wed, 2 Jul 2014 18:01:57 +0100 I understand that the Ski Club is proposing to suspend its leader programme in France, due mainly to the attitude of the authorities in your resort.

As a frequent visitor to Val d’Isère and having spent a great deal of money in your hotels, bars and restaurants over the years, I just thought you might like to know that in future I will be skiing in Switzerland, which has a far more welcoming approach to ski hosting.

Ski Club chief executive Frank McCusker writes: Though you didn’t hear back, your email and other correspondence has not gone unnoticed. When I met the ESF in Val d’Isère it told me the tourist office had raised the issue of the letters and complaints Ski Club members had sent. Keep up the good work!

Cheer up, Ski+board scribes!

The December/January coverlines of Ski+board seem overly negative — “Vanessa-Mae has race hopes quashed by ban”, “Ski hosts axed in Italy”, “Clouds loom in Austria” — has someone got the winter blues?

Many of your readers will have opened the magazine ahead of their first ski of the year, hoping for inspiration, and in anticipation of fun ahead.

I’m sure there’s a place for hard-hitting reporting in the magazine, I’m just not convinced that it should dominate the cover.

Wishing you winter cheer.

Oliver Horton

I know that this email will not make any difference at all to the way you seek to protect the vested interests of the ESF through the criminal law. But you might like to reflect on the fact that very many people from England use and enjoy the hosting services of the Ski Club and the English travel companies.

If enough of us decide to ski elsewhere this may be something your resort, and the tourist industry within it, comes to regret one day.

Goodbye!

Got something to say?

Share it with us at: @TheSkiClub

/theskiclub

skiclub.co.uk/snowtalk Ski Club of Great Britain, The White House, 57-63 Church Road, Wimbledon Village, London SW19 5SB Or email: colin.nicholson@skiclub.co.uk

Ski Club News SKI CLUB TO APPEAL AS FRENCH COURT FINDS PIDDLESDEN GUILTY

By Ben Clatworthy

The Ski Club has said it will appeal the verdict of a French court in Albertville, after one of its Leaders was found guilty of illegally teaching skiing.

Ken Piddlesden, one of the club’s many volunteers who show members around the mountain, but offer no instruction, was fined €10,000, of which €5,000 was suspended. The judge also awarded damages of one euro to the Ecole du Ski Français — France’s national ski school, which brought a civil case — for loss of earnings.

The decision of the hearing, held in December last year, was presented on January 12. The case was bought against Piddlesden after he was stopped by gendarmes on the slopes of Val d’Isère on April 4 last year.

He was charged in relation to a French law which stipulates that no one can “lead people around the mountains for remuneration unless they are suitably qualified ski instructors”.

As Leaders are volunteers, paid only travel and living expenses, the Club maintains the action is misguided and inappropriate.

The case continued late into the night when it was heard in Albertville on December 8. The state prosecutor, Gwenaëlle Terrieux, argued that Piddlesden was teaching skiing without the necessary qualifications, while

Leaders are much valued by club members

the civil claimant — the ESF — sought damages for loss of income. The hearing was delayed from September after the prosecution asked for more time to prepare its statement.

“This is the outcome we expected,” said Frank McCusker, chief executive of the Ski Club, adding that the club would be “continuing the fight”.

He said he regretted that the club would be unable to reinstate its Leader programme in France this season, as it is expected to take at least six months for the appeal to be heard, with a decision coming eight weeks later.

The club has replaced its Leaders in the 11 French resorts in which it operates with Ambassadors, who are able to advise members on the best places to ski and eat, but cannot ski with them. The club continues to operate its Leader service in 18 resorts in six other countries.

24 NEW SKI CLUB LEADERS MAKE THE GRADE The Ski Club has hailed its annual leader training in December in the French resort of Tignes as a great success, despite poor snow.

Of the 28 applicants, 4 were injured, but the remaining 24 all met the standard and will join our pool of Leaders and Ambassadors.

A ‘refresher’ course was also held for existing Leaders, who must attend a training course every five years to continue service.

The courses were run by a Ski Club team, including Leader manager Jonny Cassidy and Ski Club alpine safety advisor Nigel Shepherd.

cheer for members going to Mayrhofen Leaders are back in Mayrhofen this winter after an absence of two seasons.

The move comes in response to calls from members who ski in the popular Austrian resort, known for hosting the Anglocentric Altitude comedy festival and the Snowbombing music festival.

“We’re always looking for new resorts in which to expand the Leader service,” said the Ski Club’s Jonny Cassidy.

Members can meet the Leader on Sunday morning at the Happy End Café, opposite the Penkenbahn, while there is a social hour from 6pm to 7pm every evening at Mo’s Bar. Festivals — Page 23

WHAT type OF SKIER or boarder ARE YOU?

catchup catches on

If you call the Ski Club, staff will inevitably quiz you on what sort of skier or boarder you are, whether it’s to help you pick a holiday or buy gear.

But skiing isn’t just about whether you do green or black runs, or prefer to stay on piste or go off-piste. There are hundreds of ingredients that come together to make a good ski holiday.

So to help you answer that tricky question, the club came up with a light-hearted image to help you work out what’s most important about a ski holiday for you. See it at goo.gl/UcsxCy

The Ski Club’s new online CatchUp service, which lets members coordinate holiday plans so they can ski and socialise together, is proving popular, with 529 members signed up at the time of writing and 177 messages sent.

One member, William Smith, said: “I tried CatchUp for my days in the Swiss resort of Grindelwald, as it has no Leader in January, and was pleased that Maureen Fanshawe, who leads in neighbouring Wengen, asked me if I wanted to join her group.”

Sign up at skiclub.co.uk/catchup

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February/March 2015

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News

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snow chaos was CAUSED BY lack of communication

new James bond film is being filmed in an Austrian ski resort

By Ben Clatworthy in the Three Valleys

By Ben Clatworthy

A breakdown in communication lay behind so many skiers being stranded on the busiest changeover day of the year.

James Bond fans will be excited by the news that some scenes of the next film, Spectre, are to be filmed in the Tirol.

A production office was set up in the Austrian resort of Sölden over the summer and filming, which began in mid-January, is set to run until February.

The region’s tourist board confirmed that 22 filming days were planned in the Tirol, with a film crew of 500.

Daniel Craig, who will play 007 for the fourth time, is so far the only star confirmed to be visiting the resort.

Spectre, the 24th Bond film, has a release date set for November.

To read Chris Taine’s blog on 007 in Sölden visit skiclub.co.uk/blogs

Hundreds of holidaymakers were stuck on roads to and from ski resorts on the day after Boxing Day after 60cm (2ft) of snow fell in parts of the French Alps.

Authorities in the Savoie region were forced to open more than 80 emergency shelters in school halls and gyms, after an estimated 15,000 cars were left on the roads. Bernard Cazeneuve, France’s Interior minister, has called on the ministries of transport and interior to investigate why emergency plans did not prevent vehicles becoming stranded.

The snow was forecast early in the week. However, the authorities’ measures, which included doubling the number of police and firemen on duty, as well as mobilising 200 snowploughs, did little to solve the problems.

An initial investigation by the Savoie prefecture found the root of the problem was a lack of communication between the police, local authorities and the 20 major resorts affected.

Hervé Gaymard, chairman of the General Council of Savoie, told a local newspaper that he “regretted the delays of the state in its decision-making” over the weekend.

At Chambéry airport alone more than 2,000 air passengers, mainly British, were grounded. Those worst affected were forced to spend two nights in emergency accommodation as tour operators struggled to implement emergency plans and rearrange flights.

The situation was so serious that the Red Cross was drafted in to provide food for those who were still unable to reach their resorts or their transport home. The worst affected main road was the dual carriageway between Albertville and Moûtiers, which serves the Three Valleys, Espace Killy and Paradiski ski areas. Even after the snow had stopped, accidents caused by skidding, combined with drivers stopping to fit snow chains, added to the congestion.

snoworks promises instructors a job Ski instructor courses are costly and jobs at the end elusive. But Snoworks Gap is offering successful participants on its three-week summer programme on the Hintertux glacier in Austria a guaranteed season-long job in St Anton.

Eight days’ training will be followed by ten days of exams. Those who pass the Austrian Anwärter exam will be offered a full-time job for the 2015-16 season with the Arlberg Ski School.

A good grasp of German is essential to get on the £2,995 course.

I want to be a ski instructor — Page 38

UK athletes find novel ways of funding

ABS airbag recall

British winter sports athletes have been using novel ways of raising funds to cover their training and race expenses.

One of Britain’s top snowboarders, Zoe Gillings, has launched a razor delivery service to finance her training for the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Subscribers to the PoundShaveClub will receive a razor and four blades a month in the post with prices from £3.50.

Meanwhile, Britain’s number one female slalom skier, Charlie Guest has turned to crowdfunding — where anyone can pledge money to support a cause or initiative — over the summer.

German avalanche airbag manufacturer ABS is recalling all European steel cartridges (black) currently in use with a filling date of before December 3, 2014, after a fault was found.

The airbags — which are designed to inflate in the event of an avalanche — have become a important asset to off-piste skiers in recent years.

The company is also recalling any ABS TwinBag (dual airbags) that have been inflated. ABS carbon cartridges and ABS Mono airbags are not affected.

For more information visit the website abs-airbag.com/recall

She raised just over £2,000 in 45 days, but needs to raise £12,000 to cover the full cost of a winter season competing.

“That would have been a push and I was never really expecting that,” she told Ski+board. “It was there really to show everyone just how much it costs, and how hard it is to be racing and training on a world class programme without complete financial support.”

Team BSS and Sport England were criticised last year for their allocation of funding, with £4.89 million ring-fenced for park and pipe skiers, as they stood the greatest chance of winning medals.

News Thomas Cook to launch direct flights to Reno

By Ben Clatworthy

By Roger Bray

Skiers flying with Air Canada this winter can transport their skis or board free of charge, in a move that has raised hopes that the falling cost of fuel will lead to lower air fares.

Thomas Cook Airlines plans to launch the first ever non-stop service between the UK and Reno-Tahoe airport. From there the drive to Californian and Nevadan resorts around Lake Tahoe, such as Heavenly, Northstar, Kirkwood and Squaw Valley, ranges from 40 minutes to 75 minutes.

The service is scheduled to start in mid-December this year and with fares starting at £399 return it opens the prospect of US skiing at keen prices.

The airline will run the flight twice weekly until mid-April from Gatwick, but it is contingent on final clearance

by US Customs and Border Protection.

Vail Resorts, which owns Heavenly, Northstar and Kirkwood, said it was talking to its accommodation partners in the hope that they would come up with deals to tie into the new service.

The new rule means flyers can carry their skis in addition to one piece of luggage and a boot bag. Previously skis incurred a fee of about £100 return.

The announcement comes as the cost of aviation fuel falls to its lowest level since November 2010, at $2.3 a gallon.

OAG, an analyst of the airline industry, said the 20 per cent fall in fuel price in 2014 would lead to a £4.5 billion saving for the global aviation industry.

However, it is unlikely that the fall in the cost of aviation fuel will be passed on to consumers in the near future.

In December, US Senator Chuck Schumer released a statement urging airlines to reflect the falling prices in their ticket prices.

However, Airlines for America, an

organisation representing major US carriers, said that falling fuel costs meant that airlines could reinvest in the business, and insisted that fuel is just one cost of many that contribute to the overall price of a ticket.

Air Canada, which flies daily from Heathrow to Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal, has said that its new baggage rule will be valid until April 30.

The cost of winter sports equipment carriage is cited as one of the biggest deterrents to buying skis.

Skyscanner, the flight finding website, has created an infographic explaining the ski carriage policy of most international airlines.

To see it search for ‘skyscanner’ on the Ski Club website, skiclub.co.uk.

PHOTO: David Carlier

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Air Canada’s free ski carriage offer lifts hope of fare cuts

New Budget carrier flies to New england Budget flights to New England will start on March 27, as Icelandic low cost carrier Wow begins operating between Gatwick and Boston, via Reykjavik.

Are the fares sufficiently competitive to justify adding three to four hours to the seven-hour non-stop journey time?

When Ski+board checked a couple of departure dates in April, it found that in one instance Wow was more expensive than BA, but generally was significantly cheaper. Wow charges £39 each way for checked bags, but undercuts BA’s extra bag charge for skis and snowboards.

Junior freeride contest launched in Andorra BA to fly bigger plane to denVer

By Colin Nicholson The Freeride World Tour has announced it will host a junior competition in Andorra in February. The Junior Freeride World Championship, the only event of its kind, will take place in Encamp, in the Grandvalira ski area, on February 7.

The young riders will start at 2,833m and descend 538m down the northern face of the Pic Alt de Cubil. Grandvalira has been promoting freeride for the

past three seasons, and has set up the Freeride Center, a part of the ski school dedicated to this off-piste specialty.

Andorran rider Tommy Moreno said: “It’s great to be able to participate, and even more so at Grandvalira, where I’ve spent many hours training and enjoying its freeride zones. I’m excited to be competing against the best junior riders in the world.”

British Airways will increase the number of seats it offers on its London to Denver route by 15 per cent this spring when it begins operating a Boeing 747 airircraft.

It is expected that the airline will maintain this extra capacity throughout next season.

If it does watch out for deals during periods of low demand.

News british skiers lose £32million of possessions every season

inghams announces price freeze on next winter’s holidays

By Ben Clatworthy

By Ben Clatworthy

British skiers will lose nearly £32 million of belongings on winter holidays this season.

Tour operator Inghams has said that prices for “tens of thousands of holidays” next season have been frozen at this winter’s rates It made the announcement when launching its preview brochure for the 2015-16 season.

Inghams said the move comes thanks to “favourable negotiations” with local suppliers and the strengthening pound.

It also said that it expected the strength of sterling to lead to the average couple spending £90 a week less in resort.

Crystal Ski, which no longer issues a traditional brochure, has also released prices for next season on its website with a number of special offers.

The research, carried out for Post Office Travel Insurance at the end of last winter, works out at around £219 worth of belongings per skier.

Nearly 900,000 holidaymakers headed to the slopes last winter, where they lost 143,000 items between them.

Up to a third of skiers — 32 per cent — misplaced sunglasses, followed by 25 per cent who lost mobile phones, while 15 per cent mislaid money.

Also included in the top ten items regularly going missing were cameras, tablets, keys and ski socks.

The research, which was conducted

by One Poll on behalf of the Post Office, questioned 500 people who have been on a winter sports holiday and reported losing belongings.

Of those questioned, 43 per cent said they lost their possessions on piste.

Nearly a fifth — 18 per cent — lost something while partying off the slopes and 17 per cent said they dropped their items from a chairlift.

Paul Havenhand, head of travel at the Post Office, said: “Taking a winter break can be costly and should be as

Some 17 per cent of skiers questioned reported dropping items from a chairlift

worry-free as possible. Losing valuable items on the slopes can be a stressful experience for many and, as our research shows, can spoil the holiday.

“Having the right winter sports cover can ease the strain when it comes to replacing precious personal items.”

Research conducted by Bradford & Bingley suggests that up to 14 per cent of skiers travel to the mountains each winter without adequate insurance. The cost of being taken off the mountain by helicopter or bloodwagon after an accident can be thousands of pounds.

House swap website sees surge in listings in the alps as skiers seek budget stays

By Ben Clatworthy Independent skiers looking for cheap and flexible accommodation are turning to the website Airbnb in the hope of securing themselves a bargain.

Founded in 2008, the website allows people to rent rooms from ordinary householders on a per night basis without going through a B&B. It means skiers looking for accommodation for a few nights’ stay can do so without committing to a whole week.

The website, which has listings in just about every major city across the globe, has seen a boom in the number of properties listed in the Alps.

However, some have raised concerns

Ski+board

February/March 2015

about safety following a series of news stories, while others have complained of ruined holidays after bookings were cancelled at short notice.

But for frugal travellers the website offers rooms at attractive rates. For example, it is possible to rent a fourbed studio apartment in the French resort of Val d’Isère for £40 a night.

In the resort of Bansko, Bulgaria, a one-bedroom studio apartment, five minutes’ drive from the gondola, costs £27 a night, with a minimum stay of just two nights. There’s even a listing for an igloo in Kühtai, Austria, for £80 per person per night.

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the cost of a winter break is going down The cost of skiing holidays is down on last year, according to new data released by the Post Office.

Its annual Ski Resort Report, released in December, surveys 27 resorts in both the US and Europe. It found prices fell in 24 of the resorts. The price covers a six-day ski pass and ski and boot hire for one person, together with ski school (five to six half-days) and the cost of lunch on the slopes, plus drinks including coffee, wine and beer.

Soldeu, in Andorra, saw the biggest drop — 23 per cent — to £331. The cheapest was Bansko in Bulgaria, at £261, and the most expensive Zermatt in Switzerland at £687.

over-60s given lift pass reduction Skiers over the age of 60 can benefit from reduced rates for ski passes on some Inghams holidays this season.

In the French resorts of Les Arcs and La Plagne, a six-day pass will cost just €10. Reductions also apply in Verbier, Davos and Klosters, all in Switzerland.

However, many resorts offer special rates for senior skiers independent of tour operators. In the Austrian Arlberg area an ‘active pass’ is €22 per day.

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Norway, where the ski season lasts longer

More snow, more skiing, more for your money and more winter activities. With a ski season lasting until the end of April, what’s not to like about Norway?

Here are our top 5 reasons for choosing Norway for your next skiing holiday: 1. Superb snow.

It’s guaranteed! Endless amounts of it. Norway regularly registers more snow than anywhere else in Europe and has the most reliable snow conditions. The season extends several weeks beyond most resorts in the Alps – well into May in many places - and off-piste, there is still fabulous powder to please more experienced skiers. So you really can go skiing this Easter!

Even better news, this year visitors will find that their pound buys so much more than 12 months ago due to good exchange rates.

3. Easy to get to.

Surprisingly, only two hours from the UK. Norway is served by a wide range of airlines with departure points all over the UK. Transfer times to major resorts vary between 45 minutes to 3 hours.

2. Exceptional value.

4. More time on the mountain.

The value to be found in Norwegian ski resorts is a well-kept secret.

Children under-7 ski free, provided that they wear a helmet (also provided free of charge). Accommodation, typically self-catering ski-in, skiout chalets, mountain cabins and apartments are spacious, well equipped and of much higher quality than those of comparable cost in the Alps. Chicly furnished in modern Scandi style with traditional touches, private saunas, log fires and designer kitchens provide luxury mountain living at down to earth prices.

Norway’s ski resorts are pleasantly uncrowded and with fast, modern lifts that means more time skiing and less time queuing in the spring sunshine.

The ski equipment on offer is also state-of-the-art.

5. Plenty of non-ski options.

Skiing in Norway combines the very best modern facilities with traditional charm. You will also find many other winter activities to enjoy – who could resist snowshoeing, ice fishing, horse-drawn sleighs, ice climbing or husky-sledging?

Book with the following Norway ski specialists.

Crystal Ski: www.crystalski.co.uk Ski Safari: www.skisafari.com skiNorway: www.ski-norway.co.uk Inntravel: www.inntravel.co.uk Best Served Scandinavia: www.best-served.co.uk

such VERY

BRITISH FESTIVALS There’s now a strong UK theme to the evEnts taking place in ski resorts, so this is the perfect time to join the fun As soon as you feel the urge to leave, you can ski off and rediscover the winter wilderness, with no fences or security personnel barring the way.

What you will be able to do is enjoy a beer, glühwein or vin chaud while watching some great bands perform on open-air stages on piste. Or you might want to watch some spectacular aerial acrobatics in the park.

And, as Ski+board’s correspondents reveal, there is often an intimate side to these festivals too, with smaller bands performing in cosy restaurants and traditional bars.

From last season in particular, the festivals have developed a very British theme, with the first UK band to headline the Portes du Soleil’s Rock

the Pistes festival being Babyshambles, led by the infamous Pete Doherty. You can read about his antics when Kate Thorman was with him in the FrancoSwiss ski area.

Tignes’ Brits festival has clearly always had a strong UK theme, despite taking place in France, as James Street reveals. But so too have Mayrhofen’s Altitude comedy festival and its Snowbombing party, as Michael Karkoszka can testify, having worked at both in Austria. And Ben Clatworthy offers a round-up of all the other major festivals starting later this season.

With the feel-good factor that skiing, sunshine and the mountains brings, you may yet discover that you’re more of a party animal than you realised.

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PHOTO: Portes du Soleil/JB Bieuville

If the idea of paying extortionate sums to camp in muddy fields strikes you as absurd, the chances are that you’re not a festival person. Though you may find British summer events a damp squib, don’t close your mind to the many festivals taking place in ski areas on the Continent in March, April and even May. These are events backed by resorts to bring in skiers and boarders during the quieter part of the season. So not only are prices for flights and accommodation at their lowest, but you often don’t need to pay a penny extra to attend the concerts. And you certainly shouldn’t have to hang on the end of a phone for hours to bag a ticket, especially if the only ticket you need to join in the fun is a lift pass.

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February/March 2015

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Take it tO the next stage

Half an hour late, Pete Doherty stumbles off the back of a snowmobile and takes to the stage, a cigarette in his mouth and a bottle of bourbon in his hand. ‘Bonjour Switzerland,’ he cries out to the crowd. He is in France.

Rock stars are famous for getting their venues confused, but in this case Doherty could be forgiven. We were at the Rock The Pistes festival in the giant Portes du Soleil ski area, straddling France and Switzerland, and the concerts are held at open-air stages on the pistes in different resorts each day. The five-day event has taken place every March since 2011, attracting some 20,000 music fans to the area to see some of the Continent’s top musical talent. But for the first time last season the line-up included British bands.

On the day the festival took place in Châtel, France, Babyshambles were headlining and backstage, while waiting for Doherty to show up, we talked to Drew McConnell, the bass guitarist, who told us this was their first gig playing on a mountain top.

After their fashionably late start, they performed some of their bestknown songs, including ‘Delivery’ and ‘Killamangiro’, as well as an odd rendition of something that sounded a lot like ‘row, row, row your boat’.

After the gig, Doherty, dressed in a suit-and-tie combo with trademark brown felt hat, wanted to go skiing.

He button-holed his manager, who was equally adamant that Doherty would not go skiing, arguing he was in no fit state. After nearly an hour of

arguing, Doherty gave in and, perched precariously on a window sill, agreed to answer a few questions from the press.

Doherty may not have made it on to the slopes, but we certainly did. You can see why he was so desperate to go skiing. The area has an astonishing 650km (400 miles) of runs connecting eight French and four Swiss villages.

The piste map indicated day-long tours around the area which we could do, yet still get back to our home-fromhome, the chalet-hotel Régina in Les Gets, in time for tea.

The sun was out in force for most of the trip and, being a fair weather skier, I took the time to enjoy basking on the sunnier Swiss slopes whenever possible. However, on one of the days when it did snow, we stopped off in a mountain restaurant and were handed shots of genepy, which warmed me up, even if it did nothing for my skiing.

Pete Doherty talks to the press

PHOTO: Portes du Soleil/M Vitré

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For the first time last season the famous Rock the Pistes festival, with its giant stages on the pistes of the Portes du Soleil ski area, was headlined by a British act. But Kate Thorman found that Pete Doherty would gladly have swapped shoes with her.

And I loved the Stash snowboard park — an area covered with trees, which proved great fun for darting in and out of the woods.

‘After the gig, Doherty, dressed in trademark suit, tie and felt hat, wanted to go skiing. He button-holed his manager, who was equally adamant Doherty would not go skiing.’

You can also explore the freeride areas such as the one above Plaine Dranse, where the resort encourages off-piste skiing, because it controls the area for avalanches.

During our stay, I never remember skiing the same run twice, as we ventured to every corner of the piste

Babyshambles in action

PHOTO: Portes du Soleil/M Vitré

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map. And of course we were chasing the bands. At the purpose-built resort of Avoriaz at 1,800m (5,900ft), The Klaxons had opened the festival, with crowds bopping to indie-rock classics such as ‘Golden Skans’ and ‘Not Over Yet’. The band embraced the mountaintop atmosphere, and even challenged the crowd to a snowball fight at the end of the set. On an even more impromptu note, two British holidaymakers decided to bare all in the front row.

‘A mystery remained. No matter how far we skied, a Frenchman dressed in leather and sunglasses would appear. We later found out he was the Simon Cowell of France.’

The next day, we crossed into Switzerland, where London band Breton and the local favourite Mass Hysteria took to the stage. This was one of my favourite settings of the festival, with the stage set high on the slopes, with a spectacular mountain backdrop that got

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February/March 2015

the audience head rocking and even crowd-surfing.

Rock the Pistes isn’t just a daytime affair, however. The party continues into the night, so one evening we headed to the Carrera Sound Club, in Les Gets, where Maxim from The Prodigy was playing.

If you want to get away from the music for a quiet evening out, that’s not hard. In Les Gets’ charming La Péla restaurant we went for a steak au poivre, followed by an indulgent chocolate speciality. And the resort has some other fantastic restaurants such as Le Choucas, where we feasted on some more of France’s finest bifstek and légumes.

You can also combine eating and music. For the opening party we had headed up the mountain via the Mont Chéry gondola to the Belvedere restaurant, where we stocked up on fondue accompanied by a selection of Alpine tipples while a local band, Emynona, charmed us with a selection of French cover songs, and even Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep’.

One mystery remained however.

No matter how far or fast we skied, a Frenchman dressed in leather and

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always wearing sunglasses — even at night — would appear at every festival destination. Was he stalking us?

So who was this hot shot? Well we later found out he was Philippe Manoeuvre, the ‘Simon Cowell’ of France, albeit a little shorter and without the square haircut.

If we needed any more proof of the quality of acts that Rock the Pistes attracts, this was it. And this season it will be back.

The organisers are keeping quiet on which acts they have lined up, but at least I know I can ask Monsieur Manoeuvre whom he recommends.

Rock the Pistes (rockthepistes.com) takes place from March 14 to 21. Entry is free to those with a lift pass. Kate Thorman travelled courtesy of Portes du Soleil (en.portesdusoleil.com) and stayed at the chalet-hotel Régina (+33 4 50 75 80 44, chalet-regina.fr). She flew with Swiss (0845 6010956; swiss.com), which offers flights from London Heathrow and City to Geneva from £65 one-way.

Skiidy Gonzales (+33 4 50 37 36 85; skiidygonzales.com) offers transfers from Geneva for £30 one-way.

PHOTO: The Brits

Who’s the daddy?

With its lively festival atmosphere, The Brits showcases the best of our young and aspiring freestyle talent. Though James Street, 25, didn’t realise just how young.

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Heading out to Tignes in late March carried a double thrill for me. Not only was I going skiing, but I was going to one of the best mountain festivals of the year — The Brits. The event is home to an excellent line-up of music, lively après-ski and parties, which revolve around the British snowboard and freeski championships. It showcases the best the UK has to offer in the way of up-and-coming freestyle athletes.

And what better way to get the party started than on the Eurostar overnight train to Bourg St Maurice. But was I getting old? Plugging in my laptop at my rather comfy seat, I found myself settling down to a DVD and soon was grateful for the blanket, earplugs and facemask that even standard class passengers get to block out the presence of my fellow passengers on their way to the bar.

Come midnight, when the bar closes, things die down a bit as everyone heads to their seats for the remaining six hours of the journey through rural France. Nowhere else do you get the excitement of knowing that when you wake up, you’ll be at the foot of some of the best skiing France has to offer.

When we arrived the resort seemed quiet, but this was the calm before the storm. So we took the chance to discover the area on skis.

Tignes is big. It’s really big. The long, well-groomed runs give you enough time to get into the swing of things as you take one of the many chairlifts that whisk you to scenic peaks such as the Aiguille Percée — a rock with a huge, natural hole in the middle. Our lift of choice was the Grattalu, a fast, sixperson chair from where you can watch the action on the competition course.

The Brits has played a fundamental

The après parties are a major feature of The Brits with performances by live bands

part in developing British riders’ abilities. Sochi bronze medallist Jenny Jones, James ‘Woodsy’ Woods and Jamie Nicholls have all triumphed at The Brits. Though there are UK-based events that give aspiring British athletes a taste of competing and act as a fantastic, freestyle stepping-stone, this is the next level — bridging the gap between UK and global competitions.

On the next day we went to watch the practices on the halfpipe. Although the bibs had yet to be given out to competitors, making them hard to spot, we found an energy and buzz among a sea of British riders, as they took it in turns to speed check the jumps and test the rails on the slopestyle course.

Some as young as nine were displaying stickers from snow centres and dry slopes around the UK. We saw them doing what they loved: spins and flips in every direction. The atmosphere was one of enjoyment and ease, revealing the positive effect of freestyle culture.

Afterwards, we retreated to Le Coffee for the first après session of the festival. How fun was it? Well, let me

“My rivals consisted of seasoned skiers, waxing racing skis and psyching themselves up. I was on unwaxed twin-tip skis and nursing a slight hangover”

just say that with a few drinks inside me, I felt inspired to sign up for the ski cross the following day.

“Had I made a good decision?” I wondered the next morning, as I headed to the course first thing for practice runs. I may be 25, but I was no spring chicken in this competition, with as many competitors younger than me as there were older than me.

The course was fast, bendy, steep in parts, full of rollers and long enough to ensure your legs are burning nicely when you finally reach the bottom.

Each rider gets two timed solo runs and the best one counts.

My rivals consisted of seasoned racers, waxing racing skis and psyching themselves up. I was on unwaxed twintip skis and nursing a slight hangover.

I won’t reveal my score, but I didn’t qualify for the semis. Even if I had, I would only have embarrassed myself against Ed Drake and Emily Sarsfield, both of whom won gold in their categories.

After the ski cross and crazy snowboard rail jam, we headed back to the resort for the first prize-giving, where the winners climbed on to the podium with beaming smiles and rightly so — it was a tough contest.

The next day brought glorious sunshine again, as the boarder cross championships and freeski ‘bangers and cash’ rail jam practice got under way. I spent most of the day at the

PHOTO: The Brits

“I noticed a real sense of friendship among the parents. Regardless of whose child is on the course, everyone screams their name, whooping and cheering them on.”

rail competition, soaking up the sun with one of said hotdogs in my hand, watching the contestants vie for the prizes. The standard of riding was nothing short of incredible. It was also awesome to see the females take to the rail garden, with my highlight being Sarah Hoefflin’s gold-winning front-flip off the U-rail.

The ‘feel-good’ factor that oozed from the competition was so infectious that we were buzzing even before the start of the après session hosted by the Ski Club, which included an excellent cover band, The Dominos, playing everything from Prince to Bastille.

I woke to find my face looking like a half-ripened tomato thanks to an uneven balaclava burn mark. But nothing was going to dampen my spirits — freeski slopestyle was on. The clouds parted for an epic contest, with the sun glinting on the line of kickers and rails. I was at the best vantage point by the judging table, alongside the parents of the competitors. I noticed a real sense of friendship among the parents, closer to me in age than their offspring. Regardless of whose child is on the course, everyone screams their name, whooping and cheering them on.

In the end it was Dave White, a Tignes local, who took the overall male title, throwing double front and backflips on the bottom two jumps, prompting the biggest cheer of the day.

It was great to see younger skiers give the older guys a run for their money.

Doncaster’s Haydyn Fiori, 13, who came second, was just one of many ‘groms’ showing real promise for GB freestyle.

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February/March 2015

Day five also featured the Whitelines/ Downdays rail jam at the après session, bringing together some top UK rail riders… with a few have-a-go beginners. I quizzed one who told me he had only been skiing for three days.

However, among the many bails were some real gems of talent. Will Gilmore was on fire, a true one-to-watch when it comes to snowboard freestyle. The best moment was when he was given a bottle of bubbly for his crowd-pleasing display. It was quickly snatched from the 11-year-old by his coach when he started downing it. Never mind. I’m sure he’ll have plenty more opportunities in years to come.

On the last day of the competition, the clouds and wind finally won out, and (nothing to do with the night before) I only got myself to the freeski halfpipe event after it had begun.

Although many riders were throwing down clean, impressive runs, one name stood out — James Machon, Team GB halfpipe skier and Sochi veteran.

His winning run was nothing short of brilliant, as he burst high out of the pipe, showing off a vast array of tricks.

It was nice to see all the younger riders come together at the end for a big group photo, too, emphasising the alliances and camaraderie among our up-and-coming freestyle athletes.

The day ended in the usual fashion, with drinks and music on the terrace at Le Coffee. With the championships over, you could feel a real sense of accomplishment from everyone there — and rightly so. As for the have-a-go freestylers like me, it had been a great, week-long party for people of all ages.

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James Street travelled courtesy of Eurostar (03432 186 186; eurostar.com), which offers journeys to the Alps from London St Pancras, Ebbsfleet and Ashford from £120 return, including ski carriage. The Brits (the-brits.com) takes place from March 21 to 28. The competitions are free to watch, however competitors must register at the website, which also offers paid-for packages that include accommodation, lift pass and a festival wristband offering discounts on food and drink, and free club admission.

Ski Club members can save 20 per cent on Eurostar tickets. See skiclub.co.uk/discounts PHOTO: Rachel Rosser

Anyone with a festival wristband can compete (though a certain level of skill is assumed)

Heading back to catch the Eurostar, I felt assured that the future of British freestyle skiing and boarding was in good hands. I had arrived expecting to feel a little out of place among a sea of ‘gap year-ers’ and university students downing Jägerbombs, but experienced something much more all-embracive.

All types of festival-goers come here and all appeared to be having the time of their lives.

The only thing missing had been sleep. And in a far quieter train back to London, I was finally able to catch up with a bit of shut-eye on the way back.

Prizegiving ceremonies are a daily highlight

What’s the difference between a ski bum and a eurozone bond? The first will eventually mature and make money...

Comedian Dominic Maxwell in full cry

But how I ended up doing the conga with John Bishop in the Ice Bar I still can’t fathom… Michael Karkoszka Altitude Comedy Festival (0844 844 9988; altitudefestival.com) takes place in Mayrhofen from March 23 to 27. The price of a five-day festival wristband is £157.

… and a week-long party that’s gone down a bomb Working as a ski rep, I thought I had seen it all in the hurly burly of transfer day.

But nothing could prepare me for the coach transfers at Snowbombing 2014.

I thought I’d hit the jackpot getting a minibus of eight sober guests. But, as we turned a corner we hit the Snowbombing motorcade — 150 vehicles ingeniously fixed up as rockets and comic book cars — a surreal experience.

Stuck in the middle we had no choice but to follow it up the high street to the welcome parade. Hordes of people were shouting “Willkommen in Mayrhofen!” and one managed to board the minibus, intent on giving me and the driver a hug.

These were the thousands of skiers and boarders who take over the town for a week to see a line-up of world-class artists including Manchester electro

PHOTO: Snowbombing

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If you’re up for a laugh and have a passion for the slopes, look no further than the Austrian resort of Mayrhofen.

Since I was working there last season as a ski bum — sorry resort worker — I was lucky enough to get an inside view of the Altitude Comedy Festival, as I had volunteered to help out at it.

What is clear is that any funny business must not interfere with skiing Mayrhofen’s varied 135km (85 miles) of linked slopes, with another 350km covered by its lift pass. So events only begin around 4pm each day with the après shows. The one that stood out for me was The International Improv Allstars, who used their creative wit to act out some hilarious improvised scenes that were shouted out by the crowd, with awkward chairlift conversations among the more repeatable ones.

Every evening, I would head to the gala show to see the headliners and some fantastic rising stars. There Rob Beckett, ventriloquist Nina Conti and John Bishop had us in stitches — Bishop with his story of how he lost his phone after too much schnapps and began to fear for his life, having heard tales of the fate of drunks lost in ski areas.

I also saw rising stars such as Joel Dommett, who had previously been a hip hop producer, and he played us some of his tracks. Austrian après-pop didn’t sound quite so bad the next day.

And the nights didn’t end there as The Late Show awaited at the Arena in the Strass Hotel, a smoky, low-lit venue in this charming Tirolean town. It played host to comedians well past the watershed. On one occasion Al Murray, The Pub Landlord, played ‘mein host’, meeting and greeting his audience. This was unfortunate for one poor soul who happened to own a trendy City bar. He received a firm telling off, followed by a detailed lecture in how to run a ‘proper’ drinking establishment.

PHOTO: Anthony Upton

A comedy festival in a ski resort? you must be joking…

duo The Chemical Brothers, Rudimental and Sub Focus. If you are capable of combining a day on the slopes and practising the art of ‘eat, sleep, rave… repeat’ then Snowbombing is for you.

A typical day for me was to wake up late, down energy food, then hit the pistes, starting on the Penken Mountain, with my group usually heading straight to Rastkogel for the best snow, making our way back to my favourite run, Red 7, full of little jumps and natural features.

After a quick shower, we would head

to the Racket Club, a giant, purpose-built venue, where the biggest DJs played.

Chase & Status had the crowd in awe.

A few sweaty hours later we were in the Mothership — which is the tourist centre converted into an alien spaceship — hosting the likes of High Contrast and Clean Bandit. Then it was on to the Arena club pumping out drum’n’bass.

As dawn broke it was bedtime, and the cycle continued, only broken by the fancy dress street party one afternoon.

If you’re able to party hard and ski hard — and I’m not so sure I am now — this is the week for you. Michael Karkoszka Snowbombing (0844 967 0001; snowbombing.com) runs from April 6 to 11 in Mayrhofen. Five nights’ accommodation and festival wristband starts at £234.

Discover the best of Mayrhofen’s slopes with

The best of the rest of the fests

By Ben Clatworthy

Horizon Festival

Snow boxx

Zermatt Unplugged

Bansko, Bulgaria March 7-13

Alpe d’Huez, France March 21-28

Zermatt, Switzerland April 14-18

Horizon may only be in its third year, but it has become one of the most popular festivals, thanks to its home in the budget resort of Bansko. This year’s full line-up is still under wraps, but so far the organisers have announced DJ EZ — one of the hottest DJs at the moment, championed by Radio 1’s Annie Mac — as a headline act. Also secured is Submotion Orchestra, whom pundits cite as one of the most exciting names in urban music, with a live set “something not to be missed”. Entry is by package only. See horizonfestival.net

After two successful years in Arinsal, Andorra, Snowboxx is on the move to Alpe d’Huez. This year’s line-up is as strong as ever, with some of the biggest names in dance music taking to the stages. Already confirmed is Blonde — whose single I Loved You shot to number seven in the UK chart — and Horse Meat Disco, who were described by one music critic as “underground disco legends”.

The festival adds to Alpe d’Huez’s aprèsski cred, after the opening of a new Folie Douce venue there last winter. Entry is by package only. See snowboxx.com.

If hardcore pulsating music isn’t your scene, Zermatt offers a more mellow festival. Over five nights, 18 acts perform acoustic and atmospheric sets.

James Blunt will headline the Marquee Stage on April 16. Scottish band Travis are also performing, while English singer-songwriter Billy Locket — who has toured alongside music sensations Lana Del Ray, KT Tunstall and Nina Nesbitt — will headline on Saturday. But be quick, tickets are selling out faster than ever. Individual tickets cost from CHF35. See zermatt-unplugged.ch

Top of the Mountain Concert

Freeze Festival

Famed for its concerts, Ischgl will again close this season in style. A 30,000-strong crowd will travel to an altitude of 2,300m to see a yet-to-benamed world class act. Afterwards head down to the resort — the party capital of the Alps — for a night like no other.

Free with lift pass. See ischgl.com.

London, United Kingdom November 25-29 (provisional) If you can’t make it to the mountains this spring, fear not. The Freeze Festival, once famously held in Battersea Power Station, is back this autumn on Clapham Common. It’s an extraordinary juxtaposition — skiing, boarding and festival stages silhouetted against the urban London skyline in dramatic fashion. Details are still sketchy, but expect to see the return of the giant kicker where some of the world’s best freestylers will show off their tricks. In previous years, the organisers have also secured some of the UK’s hottest talent on DJ decks, playing everything from Old School Disco to Dubstep. Expect tickets to be about £60. See freezefestival.com

PHOTO: Snowbombing

Ischgl, Austria May 3

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p o h s k r o w g n i t lift tes A solar-powered chairlift is the latest innovation to come out of the little known Montafon valley in Austria, where the family behind Doppelmayr ski lifts has been operating since the 1890s.

Martin Symington reports.

My pulse quickened as we lowered the bar on the chairlift that was about to take us to the legendary Diabolo, one of Austria’s steepest pistes.

With my mind focused on this vertiginous run, I was inclined to let pass the comment of Judith Grass, the representative of the tiny resort of Golm, in the little-known Montafon valley, that one of us was “powered entirely by the sun”.

Perhaps she was referring to herself and the legendary Teutonic love of tanning, as three of us rose out of the low-hanging valley fog into the steelycold January sunshine of Austria’s far western Vorarlberg region. But when she mused “incredible, isn’t it?” I felt the urge to question her.

It turns out that she was neither referring to the effect of vitamin D, nor the magical sensation of floating above the clouds, as the toothy towers of the Sulzfluh, Drei Türme and Drusenfluh soared up before us in this region that borders Switzerland, Germany and Liechtenstein. Rather, she was challenging me on what I reckoned was carrying us up the mountainside.

To the untrained eye, the six-seater Hüttenkopfbahn looks and feels much like any modern lift: fast, quiet, comfortably padded with heated seats and a bubble hood for bad weather.

To those in the know, however, it is the world’s first solar-powered chairlift. Convex photovoltaic panels are integrated into the base and top stations, as well as in the curve-roofed building where the chairs are parked.

According to Doppelmayr, the firm which supplied the lift, the photovoltaic panels generate 60,000 kilowatt hours of electricity over a typical 1,000hour season of operation. That is a third of the lift’s total consumption of 180,000kWh, which explains Judith’s Ski+board

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PHOTO: Silvretta Montafon/Daniel Zangerl

mysterious claim about one of us being elevated courtesy of the rays.

The greater mystery is why this pioneering milestone in ski lift technology should be found in this alluring little ski area, which does indeed have one amazing run in the form of the Diabolo — I survived it, in case you were concerned — but which is otherwise a rather overlooked resort.

The answer has to do with a local lad named Konrad Doppelmayr, who in 1892 founded an engineering company in the Montafon valley.

When skiing began to flourish as a leisure activity, his company diversified into developing ski lifts.

Konrad’s son Emil built the first chairlift in Arlberg in 1937 with ski pioneer Sepp Bildstein, but when Austria was annexed by the Nazis the next year, the family firm was diverted into making parts for tanks and military boats. Undeterred, Emil’s son Artur took the company back into ski lifts after the war, and the company is still based in the valley, run by Konrad’s descendants.

The firm stays close to home when it tests something new. So Vorarlberg, and particularly the Montafon valley, has become a sort of secret workshop for ski lift innovation.

The solar-powered Hüttenkopfbahn is just one example. Another was the choice of nearby Mellau in 1972 to experiment with a continuous aerial lift of detachable four-person cabins

which the company termed ‘gondolas’ — although they bore little resemblance to the boats in Venice.

The world had never seen the like of these little red hanging boxes with doors that passengers had to open

Emil Doppelmayr built the first chairlift in Arlberg in 1937, but when Austria was annexed by the Nazis the next year, the family firm was diverted into making parts for tanks and military boats manually at the stations. Some were sceptical. What if they slipped down the wire? Or broke down, leaving skiers stranded? Surely this was an experiment destined for the scrap heap…

Of course that never happened, and now Austrian firms lead the way in developing ski lifts. Doppelmayr alone controls 20 per cent of the French market, supplying equipment

to a country where lifts are on average 19 years old, compared with 11 years old in Austria.

Perhaps surprisingly, however, there are no plans to use lifts to connect the four ski areas scattered along the Montafon valley — Golm, Silvretta Montafon, Gargellen and the tiny, tworun resort of Kristberg. Turning them into a large French-style mega-area would contravene the country’s strict environmental laws. So too would long cablecars of the kind that swing between Swiss peaks.

The four areas nonetheless share a single lift pass and are connected by an efficient ski bus. They also offer some excellent off-piste skiing between the areas, which are markedly different from one another.

Golm, despite its fearsome Diabolo run, is touted as the ‘family mountain’.

There is a free kindergarten, a liftserved rollercoaster through the snow and a ‘flying fox’ zipwire.

By far the most extensive area is Silvretta Montafon claiming 1,700m (5,500ft) of vertical drop and 246km (150 miles) of groomed pistes. Of these 56km are black runs, 64km are red runs and 126km are blue, so all types of skier are catered for.

Yet even this terrain has only been linked since the start of 2011-12 season, when the two-stage Grasjoch gondola was opened, linking Silvretta Nova on one side of the valley, with Hochjoch on the other.

The Grasjoch lift is another piece of world-first technology on test: a ‘recovery concept’ ensures that all the cabins are brought back to the station in an emergency. Those 43-year-old fears about skiers stranded in gondolas are evidently still alive...

From the summit of Hochalpila, where the gondola, with its orangetinted, one-way-mirror windows, deposited me, I corkscrewed down a tapering piste… and was funnelled straight into a hole in the mountain.

“Don’t panic,” I told myself, as I plunged in. I schussed through nearly half a kilometre of darkness towards a distant pinprick of light, which grew and grew. The Hochjoch ski tunnel, I learnt, is the world’s longest. It was bored through the Sennikopf mountain in 1995 in an imaginative solution to expanding the area.

I could only marvel at having

MONTAFON

In 1972, the world had never seen the like of these little red hanging boxes called ‘gondolas’.

What if they slipped down the wire? Surely this was an idea destined for the scrap heap

a single rail tunnel, so the dialect spoken here is similar to Swiss German, reflecting the fact that many in Vorarlberg feel a greater affinity to Switzerland than distant Vienna. And the local food typically features more fondues and rösti than schnitzel.

The Montafon valley even has its own Matterhorn. Mount Zimba, above Golm, looks so familiar at first glance that it is tempting to imagine a creator trying out a new geological idea here, Doppelmayr-fashion.

The deity might then have headed for Zermatt to perfect the art of shaping pyramid peaks.

Martin Symington travelled courtesy of Crystal Ski Holidays (020 8939 0726; crystalski.co.uk), which offers a week’s B&B at the four-star Explorer Hotel in Gaschurn from £639 per person based on two sharing including flights and transfers. The nearest airport is Friedrichshafen, just over the German border, served during the winter by British Airways (ba.com) from Gatwick and Monarch Airlines (monarch.co.uk) from Gatwick and Manchester. Zurich airport is 90 minutes away by road, and Innsbruck airport two hours away. For more information on the region visit montafon.at and vorarlberg.travel.

Read details of hundreds of resorts at skiclub.co.uk/skiresorts. Ski Club members can post their own comments on resorts they have visited and award them star ratings.

PHOTO: Illwerke Tourismus

stumbled upon yet another unexpected world first. Another thing that struck me was that after three full days skiing in the Montafon valley, I had heard barely a word of English spoken. This brings me to Gargellen, the village and ski area I left until last, and where I was to discover that the eclipse of Montafon by the British market is not quite total.

At 1,423m in altitude it is the highest village in the valley and generally snowbound for most of the season — the whole area is known for its excellent average snow coverage.

Like Golm, the ski area at Gargellen is small and not linked to any other, but in contrast with the other resort villages, its appeal lies in the gingerbread charm

of snowy lanes, chocolate shops and shuttered chalets clustered around the onion-domed church. It is a secret which has been kept by a small clique of British families who have been coming here for generations.

They tend to stay at the slightly old-fashioned Madrisa Hotel, which was bought by the father of the current owner, Hans Rhomberg, in 1930. He told me: “The British connection started when Erna Low began bringing her guests here in the 1950s. Some of those same families still come again and again.

“At certain times of the year more than half my guests are British and at half-term I have 80 to 90 children.”

My visit to the hotel coincided with the arrival of veteran BBC broadcaster Sue MacGregor, who, with her family, has been a discreet Madrisa regular for four decades.

Gargellen notwithstanding, about 70 per cent of skiers and boarders in the Montafon valley are Austrians and Germans, with Swiss and Dutch accounting for most of the rest.

One young visitor from further afield whose name crops up time and again in conversation is Ernest Hemingway, who spent the winter of 1925-6 in the Montafon village of Schruns learning to ski while penning The Sun Also Rises.

In those days, as when Konrad Doppelmayr was a nipper, the Montafon valley and the rest of Vorarlberg were only linked to the rest of Austria by

The solar panel array at the Hüttenkopfbahn lift

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To those in the know, the Hüttenkopfbahn — which looks like any modern lift — is the world’s first solarpowered chairlift, with convex photovoltaic panels integrated into the base and top stations

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Members’ benefit

Dreaming of the best snow but…

Yet to find it amongst the crowded slopes? With the snow having proved elusive at the start of the season, you’ll be keen to make sure you make the most of it now it’s here when you book your ski trip.

We’ve all had days where the perfect snow becomes a dream, and you’re left wondering if you can dial up a ski genie to lead you to the powder or glistening empty slopes.

Well now you can.

Freshtracks have the perfect holiday formula, exclusive to Ski Club members — and people like you. All holidays have an experienced Leader, guide or instructor who make it their business to get you to the best snow, whatever the conditions.

1. Define your ski standard.

We help you identify your skiing ability so you can ski with people of a similar ability to you and use only the best instructors and mountain guides 2. Decide what kind of holiday you want, from off-piste explorations to trips devoted to developing your technique, heli-skiing, weekend breaks or social skiing with Ski Club Leaders. We’ve carefully chosen a selection of holidays in a wide range of resorts.

3. Pick the perfect holiday for you.

Whether it’s a relaxing spa trip, a thrilling off-piste course, or a solo adventure with likeminded skiers and no singlesupplement, we have 172 Freshtracks holidays — and one will be perfect for you.

ts cher Spor PHOTO: Fis

The Freshtracks formula creates a perfect holiday

r r in th e p o w d e e st a E te a br le e C

Off-Piste Easter weekends If you’re more of an off-piste adventurer, we have Engelberg Easter Weekend in Switzerland — with powder bowls, couloirs and challenging off-piste runs including the Laub.

Or try La Grave Off Piste Weekend, where we have three of the best local guides to show you the incredible variety La Grave has to offer. They will lead you to open powder fields, narrow gullies, tree runs and even some drops if you’re brave enough.

Members’ benefit

Maximum skiing — minimum time.

Davos Easter Extravaganza If you like the idea of Easter on the slopes — we’ve got some four-night late spring breaks to suit different skiing abilities. You can fly to Switzerland, and spend time skiing in Davos with Leaders, making the best use of a long weekend on the snow in the extensive DavosKlosters ski area. The Hotel Sunstar Davos deserves its four-star rating thanks to its traditional rooms and excellent wellness centre where you can pamper yourself after a day on the slopes.

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The thrill of off-piste skiing.

Flaine — Learn to Ski Powder and Improvers Powder skills

Val d ’Is ère in t he sun

i off-p i k s to Learn

Hone your technique — and become a better skier.

Val d’Isère — On Piste Progression

ste

Our off-piste instruction weeks in Flaine are some of the most popular holidays in our programme, as they really do offer something quite special. You’ll learn to ski powder or improve with others of the same ability. And you’ll get to stay in one of our two Chalet Freshtracks in Flaine, a great way to make lasting friends on and off the slopes. Ideal for those venturing into off-piste territory for the first time or for those looking to develop their offpiste skiing skills. We run our Chalet Freshtracks in Flaine throughout the season, just search by entering ‘Flaine’ at skiclub.co.uk/freshtracks.

If wide open pistes are your thing – a Freshtracks development holiday in Val d’Isère is perfect. You’ll ski five full days with instructors, mainly on piste, to help you progress from the intermediate-plateau and up to a new level, cruising and carving as well as tackling serious bumps. You’ll travel with Mark Warner, and stay at their chalet hotel in the heart of the village, just a short walk away from the lifts and après ski bars. For these sevennight chalet board holidays, select ‘Development’ on the Freshtracks’ website, where you’ll find full listings of our holidays.

Found the right holiday for you yet? These holidays are just a few of the 172 holidays we have on offer at skiclub.co.uk/freshtracks or call 020 8410 2022 for a brochure.

PHOTO: Italy: Aosta Valley/Laurent Vicquery; Switzerland: Adrenaline Verbier; Austria: Schladming/Peter Burgstaller; France: Les Deux Alpes/B Longo

So, you want to be a ski instructor?

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Ski Instructor

Which of us has not dreamt of being a snowsports instructor?

But the obstacles are intense, and not just in France, as Vicky Norman found out, as she went on a tour of Europe in a quest to see if she could make her dream come true.

I want to be a ski instructor. There, I’ve said it.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense I know. I have a perfectly good career as a travel PR, but the more time I spend surgically attached to my mobile phone with my eyes glued to a laptop, the more I feel life in the outside world is slipping me by — probably down a beautiful tree-lined piste somewhere…

It doesn’t help that my boyfriend is a ski instructor.

Based in France’s Three Valleys, he’s on his 20th season. And he has sacrificed years of training, his life savings and the health of a knee to achieve the highest level British Association of Snowsport Instructors (Basi) Level 4 International Ski Teacher Diploma (ISTD) qualification.

He still skis more beautifully on one leg than I ever will on two, and I can’t help but envy his graceful turn shapes, the rapt attention of his clients — and he looks pretty cool too. No matter that when I’m visiting, he’ll stomp in shivering and exhausted at the end of the day, complaining about the cold, late guests and the trials of managing a mixed ability group of children. All it takes is for him to show me a video clip of a new client — “this is him at the start of the lesson, can hardly snowplough, this is him after two hours, parallel turns on blue runs” — and I’m sold.

I know the impact a good (or bad) instructor can have and I can’t help thinking how I’d like to be making a difference on the slopes. Despite his best efforts to persuade me that becoming an instructor is a terrible idea, when I see him smile, mumble something about how good he is and fall asleep on the sofa, I want to give it a go.

Call it the trauma of entering my thirties, but it really has triggered my lifelong ambition. One day, we’re keen to settle in the mountains and start a business, and I want to be out there on the hill, not in the office glaring enviously out at the blue sky.

However, the more I look into my options, the more I realise that it’s not a simple case of jumping on to a course and seeing how things go. The question of where I want to teach and how qualified I need to be keeps cropping up. Working regulations vary from country to country, or in some cases region to region.

France is known as the toughest place to achieve an instructor qualification, but other countries have their own systems and quirks, and in many cases Ski+board

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demand a similar level of skill and commitment to work independently or establish your own ski school.

France would be my first choice. I speak a bit of French, my boyfriend is based here, it has the highest earning potential and the highest number of British holidaymakers. And for all the criticisms levelled at it, its ‘stagière’ system is arguably one of the most structured, progressive pathways, operating like an internship. And I have a lot of respect for the technical demands of the Eurotest, which requires male would-be instructors to complete a giant slalom in 18 per cent of the time it would take the World Champion, and 22 per cent for women.

If I committed to a season of intense training, passed my Basi Levels 1 and 2, and the tricky ‘test technique’ — a

Andy McIntosh

Snowsports training manager at Interski, which offers courses in the Aosta Valley. interski.co.uk

slalom race which I would have to do in a slightly more generous percentage of the ‘base’ time — I could work for a limited period at a certified ski school.

But I’d be on a timer to complete my training and attain full certification, equivalent to BASI Level 4 ISTD, and pass the fearsome Eurotest, within four years. And I’ve been advised that would take a good six seasons of full-on training, as well as a serious investment of time and money.

So is there anywhere else I could operate as a lesser qualified instructor?

Most ski schools will ask for a minimum of Basi Level 2 or equivalent, with the expectation that you will want to progress within the school.

Perhaps I could work in Italy?

Beautiful Aosta Valley, the ‘sunny side’ of Mont Blanc, would do me nicely for a few seasons. The pretty cobbled streets and tranquil slopes of Courmayeur and La Thuile are a far cry from the bustling high-rise French resorts of Val Thorens and Tignes. There may be fewer British clients in this part of the world but the dramatic scenery, delicious food and sparkling flamboyance of the area and its people definitely appeals.

When I approached Andy McIntosh, snowsports training manager at Interski Training Academy in Aosta, he was suitably encouraging. He told me: “Gaining your Basi Level 2 qualification is like getting a licence to learn. You can achieve this in a season and go on to teach for the Interski snowsport school. It’s a great option for anyone looking to teach skiing and develop in an Alpine environment.”

So what’s the catch? You can work as a Basi Level 2 instructor for a ski school in Italy for up to 46 days in a season.

But if you want to practise full-time you need to attain Basi Level 4 ISTD and pass the Eurotest, just like in France.

I’d also need to become pretty tidy at speaking Italian. I spoke to a British instructor who is a qualified Maestro di Sci in Italy and Basi Level 4 ISTD. He practises both in Tignes and Aosta.

He told me: “If you want to teach skiing full-time in Italy it goes without saying you need a high level of fluency in Italian. And if you want to teach specifically in Aosta you also need to pass a French test that’s harder than anything I’ve ever had to do in France.”

Because of its French heritage, the region insists instructors are bilingual, even if few of the population are. He added: “In fact, I swear my level of French has gone down since I’ve been spending more time teaching in France.”

So I could teach in Italy as a Basi Level 2 instructor, but I’d be restricted to the number of days in a season, and that’s if I could land a part-time

Peter Gillespie

I could try an English -speaking destination, such as Canada, the us, or New Zealand, but as soon as I stray out of Europe I will invariably face work visa issues position. If I wanted to become a ‘Maestro di Sci’ the barriers seem if anything greater than in France. Oh well, I always thought their Armani uniforms were a bit flash anyway.

But how about Austria — land of giant beers, frenzied après-ski and dirndls? I’ve always been drawn to St Anton, another popular British ski haunt, for its vibrant nightlife and challenging terrain. I’m also a dab hand at dancing on tables in my ski boots.

But before I can even consider the ski qualification required to work in Austria I have to hold up my hands and admit that alas, mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut. In fact, that’s pretty much all I can say in German. Even if I had top level instructor qualifications this would restrict my options in most resorts.

I could have a bash at completing my Basi Levels 1 and 2 in an Englishspeaking destination, such as Canada, America or New Zealand. However, here another problem rears its head. As soon as I stray out of Europe I will invariably face issues getting a work visa. I’m over 30 remember, not to press a point.

If you want a career teaching in Europe, it’s highly recommended you get some language skills under your belt. France may have one of the highest bars when it comes to technique requirements, but seems to be one of the more lenient when it comes to language skills.

A friend training as a stagière in the Ecole du Ski Français — the national ski school — once told me how she was teaching young tots and at the end of

Head trainer and director at Alpinecoaching, which offers courses in Hintertux, Tirol. alpinecoachingsnowsports.com

Ski Instructor Tirol title. He told me: “If Austria is the ultimate goal then I suggest taking the Austrian qualifications and going through its system. But you would need to learn German, as not to do so would hinder your progression and integration into the community.”

If I wanted to set up independently things become even more complicated.

To work on your own, you need the Austrian state diploma and be a resident in your chosen community.

To open a ski school you also need to qualify as an off-piste winter ski guide and pass other exams, including tests covering business skills which, Peter warned me, are very hard.

Oh well, I hear they’ve banned ski

that you’d need to be fully qualified in the Swiss system and do a five-day director’s course. You would also need to prove residency.”

This year skiing has been reclassified as a dangerous sport in Switzerland, so now you need a federal stamp or ‘Brevet d’Etat’ to teach skiing off piste, but I’m nowhere close to that yet, so Rowena PhilLips now I’m sorted. Or am I? Director of Matterhorn Diamonds In practice, there are few schools left Ski School in Zermatt. that will employ aspiring instructors matterhorn-diamonds.com without a Basi Level 2 qualification, or local equivalent, as a minimum. the session, needed to collect all their And those positions are seen as an bibs so called out: “Levez les jambes!” opportunity to develop, so my idea of She couldn’t work out why they were juggling the job alongside my PR career all trying to put their legs in the air and wouldn’t be straightforward. Plus Swiss falling over left, right German is even harder to and centre. She then France is quite lenient when it comes understand than German. realised her mistake, and to language skills One British stagière Oh well. What sort of couldn’t think of the word nation prides itself on wanted her tots to raise their arms so for arms, so shouted: cuckoo clocks anyway? she should could collect their bibs and “Pardon, les mains!”

I could try Andorra, They were all rolling called out 'Levez les jambes!' She couldn't which has lots of around waving their work out why they were all falling over British instructors, but hands and legs in the air although its currency is and found the whole thing hilarious. boots in hotels and restaurants after the euro, Andorra is not part of the I spoke to a French language teacher 8pm in St Anton now, so I’ll save my European Union, so I would need to in the Three Valleys who had been blazing moves for another town. apply for a work permit. And working helping British and Italian instructors.

But where else is there to go independently is not allowed, as under She told me: “Basi only demands a very with my limited language skills, my Andorran law you cannot teach outside basic level of French to teach in France. rather nascent ski technique and my of a locally recognised ski school.

I was quite surprised. Producing proof questionable après-ski moves?

The more I’ve explored the dizzying that you have GCSE French is usually One country where it appeared world of instructor requirements, the enough to satisfy the authorities, and I could operate without an official more I’ve come to realise that you can you must be able to speak enough qualification was Switzerland. In dabble to a degree. But if you want to French in case of an emergency. The theory Swiss ski schools only need make a career of teaching, it’s a case of Italians who want to work in France one ‘fully certified’ instructor, and they getting on a pathway and committing usually have a better level of French.” are allowed to temporarily employ up to it wherever you are in the world.

A higher level of fluency is expected to four ‘non-qualified’ instructors as I’m far from alone in my ambition to in most non-English speaking countries, long as they have completed a fivegain an instructor qualification. In fact which seem to prefer instructors to day course. the competition for jobs has increased. be able to teach in a second language So did the land of pristine villages Basi has seen a rise in the number of its alongside their mother tongue. and punctual trains beckon? It was members, of whom three quarters hold So back to Austria. If I did have a time I was off to speak to Rowena the Level 1 and 2 qualifications, better grasp of German, I could pursue Phillips, the director of Matterhorn Each level you hop up, the more the basic ‘Anwärter’ higher level 1 Diamonds Ski School in Zermatt. employable you become and the more qualification, roughly equivalent to Basi She offered a glimmer of hope, you can earn but reaching that top level Level 2, and work in a ski school. telling me: “Lower qualified instructors of instruction takes years of dedication.

In theory, I might even be able tend to be given the ‘bread and butter’ My idea of ‘teaching a bit’ alongside to achieve the next Austrian lessons, but it’s a great opportunity to my day job in Europe is not impossible, qualification within a season. There develop. Group lessons for children and but perhaps a little ambitious. So if you is a direct conversion process from beginners can be tough, but it builds talk to me when I’m in the Alps in a Basi ISIA (International Ski Instructors your experience and really helps with few years time, I fear it will not be on Association) to the full Landes using your imagination to make lessons the slopes... but on the other end of a qualification, the Austrian equivalent. fun and learning to manage groups. mobile, my eyes glued to my laptop.

It was time to visit Peter Gillespie “The definition of qualified can be in Hintertux. He is head trainer and variable. In Switzerland, Basi Level 3 Read our quick guide to becoming a ski director at Alpinecoaching and he has ISIA is perceived as fully qualified. It’s instructor at the ‘Working in a ski resort’ earned the prized Diplomschilehrer only if you wanted to start a ski school section of skiclub.co.uk/infoandadvice

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On your marks , go

With the biennial World Championships upon us, three writers do a ski circuit of the US to discover the full breadth of what American skiing has to offer.

All eyes are on the resorts of Vail and Beaver Creek with the Colorado ski areas hosting the World Championship ski races, held every two years.

However, while the excitement of the races will gain all the attention, there is a huge range of recreational skiing in America to explore, in a country where a large proportion of the population can name their local ‘ski hill’.

And British skiers and snowboarders have long been attracted to the ease of

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access to off-piste that North America offers. Colorado’s powder fields are legendary, but Ski Club president and BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner went to discover them in a different way — in a sitski in Aspen and Beaver Creek, in the first powder sortie of his life in the Rockies.

Meanwhile Utah is challenging the status of its eastern neighbour as America’s best-known skiing state by announcing a plan to link no less than

skiclub.co.uk

seven of its resorts, including all of the biggest. That may still be some way off, as Ben Clatworthy reports, but at least two of the major resorts, Park City and Canyons, will be linked later this year.

And, on the East Coast, Colin Nicholson follows the trail of Olympic gold medallist Bode Miller to see how the bad boy of skiing made it by learning to ski the ‘glades’ of New England, dodging the trees in this natural slalom course.

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PHOTO: Park City Mountain Resort

will Utah go from silver to gold?

The former mining town of Park City is surrounded by three resorts — two of which will be linked later this year. And as Ben Clatworthy reports, this may be the precursor to an even bigger project.

I’m ripping down one of the most beautifully groomed runs I’ve skied, the razor sharp edges of my skis gripping the corduroy as I pick up speed.

But I’m not in exclusive Aspen, where such designer pistes would match the outfits of its upmarket clientele.

Nor am I in Vail, though there’s plenty of grooming going on there with the biennial World Championships upon us.

In fact, I’m not in Colorado at all.

I am in Utah, home of the Mormons, who are the butt of so many jokes there is even a musical written about them.

But the perfect pistes confounded all the stereotypes I had come armed with.

I arrived expecting to find Utah’s legendary powder snow, but 2013-14 was a poor snow year across the pond.

But, hey, I love piste skiing and they don’t come much better than Silver King, one of what Park City Mountain Resort calls its ‘signature runs’.

Usually there would be moguls the size of small cars covering the slope, but the groomers had bulldozed every inch of snow flat. Each night a different one of the signature black diamond runs undergoes the same treatment.

If there is an apt metaphor for the transformation that Utah’s resorts are undergoing, this is it. For so long in the shadow of Colorado, Utah is preparing to hit the big time in skiing terms.

Next season, a link-up between Park City and its neighbour Canyons will create 7,300 acres of skiable linked terrain, some 1,800 acres more than

any other US resort. And even if I couldn’t access all the off-piste in the current conditions, I was more than happy on a trail such as Silver King.

“It’s a perfect way for someone who might otherwise stick to the blues and reds to get a feel for a black diamond trail,” explains Paul, one of the hosts at the resort, which, as is common in North America, offers a free guiding service to guests around the mountain.

We head for the Motherlode Lift, which serves an area of double black diamond runs and offers some of the resort’s best tree skiing. It’s here you spy the remnants of mine shafts and machinery harking back to a bygone era.

It was the discovery of silver in the Wasatch mountains that brought the first settlers here in the 1860s. A century later they came back in search of the white gold, with the first ski lift opening here in 1963. A $1.25 million loan from the Kennedy administration was used to convert the aerial ‘trams’, once used to haul ore, into chairlifts.

My guide Joshua from the ski school and I head for the Ninety-Nine 90 peak — it just missed the 10,000ft mark — to take advantage of the dusting of fluffy, light powder that has fallen overnight and play around in the trees.

And he skied me off my legs: searching for every inch of untracked powder in every nook and cranny of the mountain.

After that I was ready for a drink, but I feared Utah’s Mormon background might deprive me of this. So I was grateful when Joshua invited me to join him and his friends at a bar on Main Street for some beers and live music.

It is on this street, where 64 of the original mining buildings have been listed, that you’ll find most of the nightlife. The one road has more than 40 restaurants, 20 bars and clubs, and 50 shops and galleries. The tale Ski+board

February/March 2015

Grooming one of Park City’s signature runs

shuffleboard table at the saloon with some newly made friends from nearby Deer Valley — my third and final resort.

Rumour has it that the resort took its name because miners would visit the red-light district greeting the ladies with a simple “hello dear”. Ironically, it’s now known as ‘America’s Courchevel’.

There are valets to carry your skis from the car to the slopes, and another valet poised at the top of the gondola ready to unload them. It only made all my British ways surface, as I muttered: “Thank you, sorry, it’s okay. I’ll do it.”

I wouldn’t have received such offers if it had been a snowboard I was carrying — they’re banned here. They cause far too many problems, apparently.

The resort is scarcely hungry for business. It sells a maximum of 8,000 lift tickets on any one day, meaning the groomers were tidier, and quieter, than even Park City’s.

At $114 (£75) a day, you’d think the lift pass would effectively limit itself, however it does give you access to 800 acres of tree skiing, six bowls and

chutes… as well as those exclusive pistes and the ski valets.

Deer Valley has expansion plans of its own. Just two weeks after Vail’s acquisition of Park City, it announced its purchase of nearby Solitude, which is linked to Brighton.

This may prove a catalyst for an even bigger project, announced last autumn.

With the addition of the linked areas of Snowbird and Alta, all seven resorts have signed up to create the One Wasatch area, with over 18,000 skiable acres, 100 lifts and more than 750 runs. Whether this will come to pass is as yet unknown. Environmentalists oppose the idea and then there is the issue of the snowboard ban, which exists in Alta too.

There are other reasons why Utah is not quite ready to eclipse the rest of America for British skiers. There are no direct flights to the state from the UK, so you have to fly into one of America’s hub airports, before catching a connecting flight to Salt Lake City.

However, from there it’s just a 35-minute transfer to the three resorts around Park City. And even if the most ambitious of the expansion plans are a long way off, there’s plenty there to keep you amused in the meantime.

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Ben Clatworthy travelled courtesy of Visit Utah (01923 839375; skiutah.com) and British tour operator Ski Safari (01273 224060; skisafari.com), which offers holiday packages to five ski resorts in Utah, with seven nights’ B&B at the three-star Park City Peaks Hotel in the town of Park City costing from £1,145 per person, including flights from London with United Airlines (united.com) and transfers.

The Ski Club’s Freshtracks holiday programme offers trips to Utah and the States.

See skiclub.co.uk/freshtracks PHOTO: Solitude/Justin Altman

“Valets will carry your skis in Deer Valley, but I wouldn’t have received such an offer if I were carrying a snowboard — they are banned here”

goes that in mining times no man was ever known to take a drink in every bar and make it to the bottom of the street standing. Knowing I was hitting the slopes the next day, I declined the challenge, opting to prop up the PHOTO: Park City Mountain Resort

Paul and I stop for lunch at the MidMountain Lodge — once a boarding house for single miners who were banned from the city because of their raucous behaviour — before heading upwards. From the slopes we can see the two other ski areas that surround the town of Park City — Canyons to the north and Deer Valley to the south.

The next day I jump on the bus to explore Canyons. Next season, I should be able to catch a gondola there. The development comes as part of Vail Resorts’ seeming quest for world domination. Not content with its Colorado base in the town of Vail, the group has bought resorts in Lake Tahoe, Michigan and Minnesota, but didn’t have a stake in Utah until spring 2013, when it bought Canyons.

Then, this autumn, news broke that it had taken over Park City in a £110 million deal. The group plans to upgrade key lifts at the resort, and has already added it to its ‘Epic Pass’ this winter, which includes not just its own resorts, but also Verbier in Switzerland and the Three Valleys in France.

Canyons is big even without the link to Park City. Its seven mountains have different aspects, so you can chase the best powder and sun through the day.

Above, Solitude is one area that may be linked. Main image, the mining town of Park City

skiclub.co.uk

on the trail of Bode Miller

Bode Miller is guaranteed to be one of the most keenly followed racers at the World Championships in Vail and Beaver Creek. But these are relatively foreign destinations for him. The bad boy of American skiing does not hail from the Rockies or Sierra Nevada.

No, he honed his skills in the charming woods of New England.

And to find out how they made him a champion skier, you must follow signs to its innocuously named ‘glades’.

Glade skiing is an exhilarating adventure in a country otherwise obsessed with health and safety. When I drove north from Boston, through pretty clapboard villages with their narrow church spires piercing the electric blue sky, my side mirror told me vehicles might be closer than they appeared.

In my room at the lodge at Stowe Mountain Resort, the glass in front of the fireplace said it might be hot. When I strode on to the balcony to survey the reddish forest of birch, with pistes cut through it like a razor through hair, I was warned I might slip on snow, or ice might fall on my head.

Yet I can leave those same pistes to embark on one of the most exciting forms of skiing. I tentatively follow signs to one of the glades and enter the woods. Soon, the swoosh of piste skiers fades, and I find myself alone in this thinned out forest.

I put in a few tight turns around the trees — this type of skiing requires all your concentration — and stop again, but all I hear is the distant tapping of a woodpecker. I begin to fear I have shot

PHOTO: Stowe Mountain Resort/Rick Levinson

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The charming villages of New England were the unlikely breeding ground of an Olympic champion, discovers Colin Nicholson

Skiers have to put in a few tight turns when they enter the ‘glades’ at Stowe Mountain

right out of the ski area altogether.

Darting between bare trunks of beech, oak, maple and hickory, I use the plentiful March powder to slow myself down. No wonder Bode learnt to ski gates so quickly when his natural playground was littered with obstacles.

In the Alps, where many dense forests of spruce are impenetrable, this would be unthinkable.

Even in the land of the free and home of the brave, however, small signs mark the ski area boundary. Though I feel I am lost in the wilderness, the glade deposits me back with my friends, who have followed signs marking the easiest way down the mountain on gentle meandering runs, and soon we are all eating traditional New England clam chowder in the sunshine together.

You don’t have to be an expert to try skiing glades, particularly at Killington, my next stop. What Killington lacks in the prettiness of Stowe — fairy lights over sleepy restaurants and covered bridges — it makes up for in parties.

There is a lively après scene at the foot of the slopes, with the locals revealing an easy-going, East Coast liberal spirit.

Known as the Beast of the East with its 115km (70 miles) of pistes spread over four peaks, Killington grades its glades by difficulty. So having skied out the fresh, heavy powder on the pistes, it isn’t long before I am itching to test my skills in the untouched snow between the trees again. And the glades and moguls prove a great way to warm up when the wet snow returns.

“If you don’t like the weather in Vermont just wait five minutes and it’ll change,” the locals quip. That might sound like old England, but it gets far, far colder here. Many Britons opt to come late in the season — as I did — because Killington stays open six months a year with the help of

snowmaking machines — an invention from this corner of the US. Many Americans get just ten days’ holiday a year and so only visit at weekends, with UK visitors boosting midweek business, particularly in spring. As a result, most Vermont resorts work closely with UK tour operators to fill rooms, offering good rates. And Icelandic airline Wow is launching budget flights from Gatwick to Boston via Reykjavik this season.

For the highest slopes I head to New Hampshire. This is where the Appalachian range, which starts in Georgia, is at its most impressive, with white-capped peaks soaring to 2,000m.

Cannon Mountain is where Miller learnt to ski and like many North American resorts has no ski-in, ski-out accommodation. Stowe and Killington are exceptions, which is why they are so popular with the British.

However, you can stay in Franconia, where Miller was brought up in a log cabin, or Littleton — try the cosy Beal House Inn — or in Sugar Hill at

Colin travelled courtesy of Discover New England (discovernewengland.co.uk) and flew to Boston with BA (ba.com). Returns currently start at £496. Wow air (wowair. co.uk) begins flights from Gatwick to Boston, via Reykjavik, from March 27.

He stayed at Stowe Mountain Lodge (stowemountainlodge.com), Killington Grand (killington.com) and Sunset Hill House (+1 800 786 4455; sunsethillhouse. com). Double rooms start at $199 (£130), $155 (£100) and $149 (£95) respectively.

He hired a car with Alamo (alamo.co.uk/ usa). Rental starts at £18 a day including insurance, tax and additional driver.

Three cool and quirky things to do in the area 1. Do you want to race Bode Miller himself?

Every April, Miller returns home to Cannon Mountain to take on skiers of all abilities in the Bodefest in aid of charity. This year’s event will be held on April 4 and typically costs $49 (£30) to enter. Go to cannonmt.com.

2. Bag a Burton bargain Forty-five minutes’ drive from Stowe is the town of Burlington, home to Burton snowboards. Here you can pick up the ubiquitous boards, boots and bags at the outlet store.

3. Meet Ben and Jerry Just 20 minutes from Stowe is Ben & Jerry’s headquarters, where for just $4 (£2.50) you can go on a tour of the factory to see how the ice cream is made and try the flavour of the day. Those counting calories can burn off a few by doing a free snowshoe tour of the site too. See benjerry.com Bode Miller skiing at Cannon Mountain

Ski+board

February/March 2015

skiclub.co.uk

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PHOTO: Cannon Mountain

PHOTO: Stowe Mountain Resort/Scott Braaten

The gondola at Stowe is very welcome on the many cold days the East Coast experiences

the genteel Sunset Hill House. Nancy Henderson, its owner, tells me how she had to tell off the young Miller for ‘tailgating’ — when party-goers arrive at a licensed venue and drink beer from the back of their car — at her hotel.

It is hard to imagine Miller fitting in with this quaint, old-fashioned world — but perhaps that goes some way to explaining his rebelliousness.

What made his skiing prowess was something different. Because of the challenging terrain and conditions, New Hampshire folk tell me: “If you can ski here you can ski anywhere.”

And now that I have skied the slopes — glades and all — that made Miller the Olympic champion, I will happily believe them.

Sugar Hill is just a few steps from where another famous American, the poet Robert Frost, lived. Looking back over the landscape which Frost loved, I reflect that, in falling for the wintry charms of New England, I, like Frost — and like Bode after him — had taken the road less travelled by.

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PHOTO: Beaver Creek/Jack Affleck

High and dry in the Rockies

Photographed at -----

Ever up for an adventure, Frank Gardner wanted to take his sitski one step further and try powder in the Colorado resorts of Aspen and Beaver Creek.

Though it proved more than he bargained for...

As a skier I like to indulge in the unusual.

I’ve skied past armed militiamen in Lebanon. I’ve skied down an active volcano in New Zealand. I have evaded Iran’s morality police on the Alborz Mountains and skied in wolf-inhabited forests in Transylvania. But I have never skied in the Rockies.

It’s not deliberate. Even during my 20 years as an able-bodied skier I wasn’t ducking, weaving or generally wimping my way out of tackling either powder or moguls. I just never got around to it.

But ten years after a terrorist gun attack in Saudi Arabia left my legs part paralysed, leaving me dependent on a wheelchair, my friends suggested that I have a go at skiing the high and dry powder slopes of the Rockies — in a sitski.

My ski-bum friend Mark Dennis was the most persuasive. A Coloradan, he appears to ski eight months of the year, and spends the rest of the time

emailing me annoying videos taken from his helmet-cam while I am stuck behind a desk in drizzly London.

From the sheer cliff faces I watch him dropping down, the Dark Menace, as we call him, seems to know no fear.

“Come to Aspen,” he says. “Trust me, you’ll be well looked after.”

This, as it turned out, was an

understatement. Pitching up at the resort of Aspen Snowmass in the lateFebruary lull between President’s Week and Spring Break, we had barely got out of the car before being enveloped in the welcoming arms of an outfit called Challenge Aspen.

Since 1995, this not-for-profit organisation has been providing yearround recreational and other activities for children and adults with both cognitive and physical disabilities.

Its brochure read like an ad for an award-winning restaurant: “Over 150 disabilities served, $1.2million awarded in scholarships. 56,000 participant

A question of balance — Frank Gardner with his guide. Above, Beaver Creek village

“If I fall and come to rest facing downhill I have two choices: either I shuffle myself round like an upturned beetle to face uphill, or I wait to be rescued” skiing’, and there is no one-size-fitsall. Those who have had injuries high up the spinal cord can still enjoy the adrenaline rush of whizzing down a mountain on skis. But they are most likely to do so strapped into a bob resting on two parallel skis, controlling their direction with their arms, with a guide helping them with the steering and slowing them down from behind.

Those with injuries further down the spine and more movement, like me, can ski using a monoski: basically a moulded bucket seat mounted on a spring and attached to a single, carving ski. I turn by flicking my hips and following through with the little outrigger ski poles I’m holding.

If I fall over, well, I don’t have far to fall — I’m already pretty close to the ground. Getting myself back up depends on whether I have fallen up the slope or down. If my wipe-out leaves me leaning up the hill, I can usually push myself back up with one arm braced against the slope.

But if I come to rest facing downhill I basically have two choices: either shuffle myself round like an upturned beetle so I face uphill — and probably skid further down the piste in the process — or I wait to be rescued.

Enough of the science. Suffice it to say that in the eight years since I relearnt to ski, I have been pushing myself to take on increasingly Ski+board

February/March 2015

challenging slopes, at least by my standards. So, fearful that Ryan might want to mollycoddle a visiting journalist like me, I insisted that as long as he promised to rescue me whenever I was in my beetle-like state, I was willing to take on whatever he wanted to throw at me.

Perhaps I was too insistent. Little did I realise how completely I was going to be pushed out of my comfort zone.

“We’re gonna take you up Big Burn,” said Ryan, “and you’re gonna take on some bumps.”

Clearly this man was speaking in tongues, but what I understood him to mean was “let’s take the chairlift up a 3,600m (11,800ft) mountain called Big Burn then ski down a mogul field”.

Spilling off the chairlift, in the thin, clear air of the Rockies, gazing down at the copper hues and snowdusted crags of Roaring Fork Valley below, I began to have distinct reservations about this mogul thing. I looked across to my buddy, the Dark Menace, for support but he was already ‘in the zone’: headphones clamped to his skull, skis snapped into place, psyching himself up to hurtle down the slope at Mach 2.

Did I have to do this? What happened to all those promises of soft powder?

Ryan was gently insistent. First, he showed me how to ski backwards, making it look easy, of course. That didn’t go too well for me, but still we progressed to the moguls.

“You need to pivot yourself over the summit of each bump,” he explained.

Again, it sounded effortless, almost

graceful. But being all top-heavy and balanced on a monoski brought its own challenges.

On my very first run I completely lost control. Picking up speed at a terrifying rate, my eyes flicked left and right, frantically searching for an escape route. There was none.

Faster and faster I hurtled down this nightmarish slope, desperately swerving to avoid piling head first into the mini mountains that reared up in my path. Someone was shouting in panic and I realised it was me.

And then, oh joy, I spied a beaten snow track that traversed the mogul field and I shot uphill at speed, coming to rest in a shower of sprayed snow.

Ryan pulled up noiselessly beside me.

“Maybe that’s enough for today,” he said with subtle understatement.

It was not until we reached Beaver Creek later in the week that I was ready to give powder a go. Beaver Creek is part of Vail Resorts and its 1,832 acres and 150 trails have satisfyingly Wild West monikers like Fool’s Gold, Tomahawk, Jackrabbit Alley, Sheephorn Escape, Tombstone Territory, Bald Eagle, Moonshine and Bootleg. It’s where the 2015 World Championships are taking place and, more importantly for me, also takes adaptive skiing seriously, unlike some European resorts I could mention.

Doug Morell, 55, has been coaching all forms of skiing for a quarter of a century and is Beaver Creek’s go-to guy for getting someone like me on to powder in a sitski. I didn’t know

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PHOTO: Beaver Creek/Richard Spitzer

days, 11 participating countries.” I was clearly in good hands.

“So what we’re gonna get you to do,” said Ryan Latham, their most experienced guide, “is to squeeze yourself into this sitski here. That’s it. And now I want you to find your balance by rocking back and forth.”

He placed a thin wooden rod at right angles on the floor beneath the ski so that I tipped either forwards or backwards, a few centimetres at a time. Was this a test? Probably, but since I didn’t fall or flail my arms wildly or grab the nearest person, I must have passed. I was ready for the mountain.

Disabled skiing isn’t called disabled skiing these days, it’s called ‘adaptive

Party time — fireworks over the 150 trails and 1,832 acres of skiing at Beaver Creek

skiclub.co.uk

PHOTO: Beaver Creek/Jack Affleck

A tiny flick of my hips and I drop into a turn. Then magically the ski adjusts beneath me as I sashay down the slope, carving gently from left to right like an ocean-going racing yacht.

This is a eureka moment for me, and within seconds I’m doing turns through the deep stuff without even having to think about it. After so many years of thinking “better not go off down there, that’s beyond me” a whole new world has been opened up to me. I am effusively grateful to Doug. With his help we have beaten the lizard.

Beano’s cabin at Beaver Creek offers a warm welcome when the Rockies turn cold

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it when we first shook hands at the bottom of the chairlift, but he was about to become my passport to another world.

“Think of the lizard” he said.

“The what?” I asked.

“Yep. That’s right. I want you to think of the lizard part of your brain. It’s the self-preservation bit that says ‘hang on, I’m not doing that’. Well sometimes we have to overcome the lizard.”

We rode up, dismounted and I stared down at my first powder slope — a deep carpet of the soft, fluffy stuff.

“You need to get your hips moving in three dimensions,” said Doug after a

Frank Gardner is the BBC’s security correspondent and president of the Ski Club. He travelled independently. British Airways (ba.com) offers return flights to Denver from £650. He stayed at the Westin Snowmass Hotel (westin.com/ snowmass) and Sky Hotel (theskyhotel.com) in Aspen-Snowmass (aspensnowmass.com) and at the Osprey (ospreyatbeavercreek. rockresorts.com) in Beaver Creek (beavercreek.com). Challenge Aspen (challengeaspen.org) offers all-day lessons or guiding with a ski pass and ski hire from $245 (£150).

practice run on a piste. “You obviously don’t like to be cotton-woolled and I see you attack the slope, leaning forward in your chair, which I like.

“But when the slope is gentle enough I want you to sit up straight in your chair and just drop your hip to turn. It won’t feel natural at first, but you’ll ski better. This is what I call overcoming the lizard part of your brain.”

We take to the powder and — oh my God — he’s right. This is amazing.

Suddenly I am floating on clouds, cushioned on air, purring silently through the softest, driest snow you could imagine.

Find comprehensive advice on adaptive skiing at skiclub.co.uk/disabilitysnowsports

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PHOTOS: Shahdag Resort

Azerbaijan is building two new ski resorts where everything sparkles, but will the former Soviet republic attract visitors?

Andreas Hofer reports

Ski+board

February/March 2015

skiclub.co.uk

The last time I was in Baku, Soviet tanks were positioned at crossroads in Azerbaijan’s capital, enforcing a strict curfew. The USSR was in its death throes, with nationalism fast supplanting Communist ideals of brotherhood and internationalism.

A dispute over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh was building to an all-out war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, with terrible consequences for ethnic Azeris and Armenians who found themselves on the wrong side of borders that had hitherto been nonexistent or unimportant. Mikhail Gorbachev was trying to hold back both sides in a last, desperate show of authority. That was in January 1990, when skiing was the last thing on my mind.

In April last year, I found myself again in Heydar Aliyev airport, this time with skis and boots, trying to convince the border guard that an Armenian visa in my passport, from a skiing trip there, did not make me an enemy of the state. I was in the booming seaside city, now home to four million, because an Italian friend had told me about two flashy new ski resorts being built in the oil-rich Caucasian republic, one being developed by his engineering firm.

“We decide where the best pistes should be, then the bulldozers start rolling,” he explained. “Nobody is bothering with complicated planning procedures. There is no way we could build in the Alps like that. And money is never an issue.” As long as oil keeps gushing from the ground...

Leaving the windy plains of Baku’s Absheron peninsula behind, with its countless oil derricks, and the vast, stilted cities of oil platforms built along the horizon of the Caspian Sea, we headed inland. I was travelling with Rufat Qocayev, a charming, athletic man, whom I had found through the Azerbaijan Mountaineering Federation, and Schorsch Schichl, an Austrian mountain guide. Together we were headed towards the mighty, snow-capped peaks of the Greater Caucasus Mountains.

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We planned to ski the brand new resorts of Shahdag and Tufandag, then stay for six days in the recently opened meteorological station of Bazardyusi at 2,600m (8,500ft) and ski tour the peaks surrounding the high plain on the border with restive Russian Dagestan.

Driving into Shahdag felt surreal.

Passing farmhouses built of mud bricks, with peasants herding shaggy sheep and navvies resting on their shovels, we turned a corner to be confronted with state-of-the-art Doppelmayr chairlifts, Leitner cable cars and hundreds of snow making machines, sitting above stylish hotels and swish shopping centres.

Nowhere have I seen a flashier array of ski shops and boutiques, stocking Volant, Bogner and Ferrari skis, with a few Atomic and Rossignol models for

The boutiques stocked Volant, Bogner and Ferrari skis, with a few Atomic and Rossignol models for the hopelessly destitute the hopelessly destitute. On perfectly groomed nursery slopes, ski instructors from Spain and France were helping a handful of beginners, looking enviously at colleagues showing off swift turns on more challenging terrain.

Only the guests were missing in any number. Azeris and Western Europeans have yet to hear about the skiing here, which is a shame for lovers of luxury, as the indulgence offered in Shahdag’s and Tufandag’s hotels comes at a fraction of the price of most B&Bs in France or Switzerland. A superior double room in the five-star Qafqaz Resort Hotel in Tufandag, for instance, is yours for £85 a night, with marble and crystal wherever you tread. A lift pass for the area costs £70 a week.

Tufandag has blue, red and black runs carved out of steep, forested slopes with five chairlifts and gondolas in action last season rising from 950m to 2,520m. It is planning to open an Austrian ski school.

Shahdag is the more snowsure of the two resorts, offering wide, treeless terrain with good off-piste possibilities served by 11 lifts out of a planned total of 22, reaching up to 2,525m, from its opulent base station at 1,435m.

Wealth is not new to Azerbaijan, despite the economic disaster of 70 years of Soviet rule. At the start of the 20th century, when more than half of

the globe’s oil was extracted from the desert plains around Baku, the world’s first shepherds-turned-oil billionaires were building extravagant mansions around the dainty, walled Silk Road City, with its narrow, cobbled streets and rickety minarets. One villa was even gold-plated, until its owner got fed up with replacing the gold stolen every other week.

Today these mansions look elegant.

Yet at the time these palaces were as nouveau riche as the resorts we were staying in, with the contrast made more marked by a lifetime of Communism in between.

Intrigued, I wanted to learn more about the country. Heading north, we passed through communities of remote tribes speaking Lezgian, Talysh, Avar, Khinalug, Udi and countless other tongues, the Caucasus being the world’s greatest repository of rare languages.

Our journey led through a peculiar landscape. Miniature volcanoes spewed bubbling streams of mud, and pools reeked of sulphur. Everywhere there was evidence of oil scarcely below the surface. On the roadside, gas flames licked from fissures in the rock, spontaneously bursting into balls of fire with a thud. In the late-19th Century some peasants had become astonishingly rich in weeks, simply by digging holes in their fields to unleash copious amounts of fuel.

The further north we went, the more foreboding the landscape became. The road from Qusar, the 19th Century garrison town of Russian hussars, to Xinaliq led through a snow-swept gorge with rock walls some 600m high. At any time, one of the frequent earthquakes might collapse the sheer cliffs upon us or an avalanche might come thundering down on us.

At a steep uphill we had to clear the road of snow with our avalanche shovels, looking down on the broken remnants of the old asphalt road at the bottom of the gorge, swept away by a massive landslide a few years earlier.

Xinaliq is the last check point to Russia and the gateway to a national park, so room rates are high for mattresses arranged on the floor around dung-fired iron stoves, served by a frozen privy.

“Maybe we should have stayed in Shahdag,” said Schorsch ruefully.

While Rufat was busy with paperwork for the border police, we spent the day skinning up the Gendarme and Xinaliq peaks, which rose up in front of the 300-odd farmsteads, and we covered

their slopes and steep gullies with neat powder tracks. This quite upset the border guards, yet fascinated the village youths, who queued patiently to have pictures taken with us that afternoon. None had seen skiers before.

The next day our transport arrived in the shape of a breadloaf-shaped, Soviet ambulance, which nonetheless could put any 4x4 to shame in the difficult terrain. Snow chains were mounted, the last checkpoint cleared, and we ploughed through fields of fresh-fallen snow in a landscape void of human existence.

We passed the Qizilkaya massif, topped by a blindingly-white glacier lake. Two of its pinnacles are named after the greatest sons of the Turkic peoples: Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, and Heydar Aliyev.

Aliyev is hailed as the figurehead of modern Azerbaijan (although he was also head of the Azeri KGB and a long-time leader of Soviet Azerbaijan) and his image lives on, Lenin-like, in every town and village, with Heydar museums, portraits and statues.

His family lives on too. His son is the current president, Ilham Aliyev, whose third term in office was announced with a landslide 73 per cent of the vote… to the embarrassment of officials, as polling stations had yet to open.

Finally, we reached the meteorological station — our base camp for a week of ski touring. Our housing consisted of neatly built log houses, with comfortable rooms for all of us, even if the pipes had frozen months ago and the scientists had to fetch water from the river for cooking, washing and incessant tea brewing.

The alternative would have meant staying in tents in temperatures as low as minus 15°C. But we were lucky with the weather. Generally, it would snow by night, while by day we could hike and ski under a resoundingly blue sky.

Not far are the blank slate stone tombs of the soldiers of Shah Abbas, Persia’s greatest emperor. Legend has it that when retaking Azerbaijan from the Ottomans, his army was led astray by local guides, who pretended to help him to bypass hostile positions on the coast, but led him into a blizzard on high mountain passes, where a third of his cavalry perished in the snow.

Blood feuds, Russian conquest and the revolution added yet more stones to the site, which we passed on skis.

We skied the northern ridges of Tufandag, the snow-covered peaks of

PHOTOS: Jimmy Petterson, Andreas Hofer

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A land of contrasts — top row, from left: a roadside poster for Shahdag ski resort; local children. Middle row: Hofer in powder; his transport to more off-piste; a balcony in the old town of Quba. Bottom row: inside a luxury hotel; the oil-rich, seaside capital Baku

the Bazardyusi massif and Bazaryurt.

Every day the snow was different. We had descents of more than a thousand vertical metres in knee-deep powder one day, coarse spring snow the other.

At 4,000m the slopes were sheer ice.

On our last day of skiing, we decided to explore the turrets of Mount Shahdag (4,223m), not far from the glitzy ski resort we had visited. Its pink and orange limestone face, with its dainty, gaudy pinnacles, reared from steep duvets of spotless snow.

From where we were, only a steep couloir of more than a thousand vertical metres would lead to the summit glaciers, or a hidden chimney further to the west, which we took in the hope of better snow. The sun bore down on us as we hiked in T-shirts, factor 50+ sunscreen and with trousers rolled up over our ski boots.

At 3,500m we rested on a rock. All the peaks and chutes we had skied in the past days stretched out in an Ski+board

February/March 2015

endless panorama in front of us.

A bearded vulture circled above our lookout, and a love-struck snow cock intonated a wistful tune. From a promontory behind us, a couple of peregrines took off in turns on reconnaissance flights over the blue river. Beneath them was a little, moving dot — hard to make out in the vastness of snow and rock — which was Rufat, our ski-less guide, who would faithfully follow us every day on foot, through deep snow, full of worry about us.

We did not reach the top of Shahdag that day. We discovered to our disappointment that the west-facing, wind-exposed slopes further up had meagre snow cover, with sharp rocks piercing through, and in the heat of April this fabulous winter castle of the Eastern Caucasus was melting away at astonishing speed.

Instead we skied weightlessly, as if defying gravity, in smooth, tidy turns over ever longer slopes of spring snow. skiclub.co.uk

Such is the unbearable lightness of skiing. We were the first skiers in this valley, yet certainly not the last.

Andreas Hofer travelled independently.

Turkish Airlines (turkishairlines.com), British Airways (ba.com) and Lufthansa (lufthansa.com) fly to Baku, where Hofer stayed at the Atropat Hotel (+994 12 497 89 50; atropathotel.com). He visited Shahdag (shahdagmountainresort.com) and Tufandag (tufandag.az) ski resorts and travelled with Rufat Qocayev (qocayevr@gmail.com) of the Azerbaijan Mountaineering Federation (aaf.az/eng), as well as Austrian ski guide Schorsch Schichl (sch.ge.64@gmail.com). Azerbaijan,

by Mark Elliot, is a bible for travellers, while Blood and Oil in the Orient, by Essad Bay, and Ali and Nino, by Kurban Said, both pen names of Lev Nussimbaum, the son of an oil billionaire, tell the story of Azerbaijan’s history.

Discover ski touring at skiclub.co.uk/touring

Book online at skiolympic.com or call 01302 328 820

The i nfo Our ‘regulars’ section showcases the latest fashions and gives readers a lowdown on the newest boots, skis, boards and gadgets. It also features exercises and skills for on and off the slopes, as well as resort recommendations and tips for taking better photos on snow.

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LIGHTWEIGHT FA S H I O N

BOOTS EXTRA

SKI CLUB SKI TESTS

Spring is a testing time for skiwear, as cold mornings are often followed by warm afternoons. But new, super-light designs are making life a little more comfortable

Is this the shape of things to come? Boot makers unleash some revolutionary new designs on the market. Plus the best new park and pipe models for hitting the jumps

Our crack team of testers shine the spotlight on the fattest skis on the market — big mountain planks — to see which will serve readers best in really deep snow

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BOARD re v iew

ski technology

H ealth an d F itness

Snowboard manufacturers are producing some crazily shaped boards, but it’s far from a case of just looking hip, our expert reviewer reveals

Feet come in all sorts of weird shapes, which may not match your boots, so we review products to make them more comfy. Plus a lowdown on sunscreen for skiers

New year, new you? For those preparing to get in shape for the slopes, our fitness adviser knows all the drills. And why hot baths after skiing might not be a good idea

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SKI TECHNIQUE

RESORT R O U N D-U P

PHOTOGRAPHY MASTERCLASS

You carry them around all day, but are you treating poles as a fashion accessory? Plus, the psychological traps off-piste that are as deadly as an avalanche itself

Ski+board

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A slow start to the season always prompts a spike in interest in highaltitude resorts. In our latest roundup, our impartial writers pick the best spots for snow reliability

skiclub.co.uk

In the final instalment of our series, a ski photography expert reveals the best ways to turn your holiday snaps into postcard-type pictures by making a few tweaks back home

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Photography: Melody Sky

Die Hauptstadt der Alpen und ihre Feriendörfer The Capital of the Alps and its holiday villages

Light fantastic This season’s fashions make cunning use of the latest lightweight materials to ensure you look hot on the slopes while never losing your cool. Maisha Frost reports

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It’s approaching the time of year when it can be hard to know whether you will shiver or swelter on the slopes. But it’s no sweat to travel light with this season’s fantastic array of jackets, from puffas and insulated parkas to soft shells and smart wool thermals, designed to put you in control of your comfort.

Mid-weight jackets come into their own in spring on the slopes. The latest ones featured here sport an urban or racy vintage edge that, when teamed with a pair of matching or patterned pants, will work a treat on the streets too.

[Catherine] Roxy Torah Bright Influencer jacket £265, insulated, waterproof, breathable, tailored fit, fixed helmet compatible hood, jacket-to-pant interface Roxy Bright Refined pant £165 waterproof, breathable shell, brushed tricot seat and knees, removable soft shell waist gaiter, mesh-lined vents Boots and sunglasses model’s own

[Andy] Quiksilver Act 3N1 shell jacket £300 waterproof, breathable, nylon ripstop liner, two-way adjustable hood Quiksilver Dark and Stormy pant £165 tailored, twill, waterproof, breathable, warm taffeta lining Quiksilver beanie £22 Quiksilver Hill gloves £60 Planks Eye Force One goggles £79.99, super light, comfortable and slamsafe, all-weather lens perfect for cloudy, flat light conditions Sorel Caribou wool snow boots all-purpose winter work and play £140 [Anna] Picture Dallas Avenue jacket £219.99 pant £189.99 from Picture Friends line, freestyle look, 50 per cent recycled polyester, and lining from factory offcuts otherwise headed for landfill, waterproof, breathable, taped seams, vents, street cuffs and goggle cleaner Picture Jam gloves £59.99 Manbi Amelia boots £49.95 super comfy with snow-proof upper Manbi Park Peak Piste Zen all-year, all-terrain sunglasses £19.95 Ski+board

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Die Hauptstadt der Alpen und ihre Feriendörfer The Capital of the Alps and its holiday villages

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[Anna] CLWR Slash jacket £199.99, stay dry, warm and comfortable in this two-layer durable fabric allrounder, with taped seams, pit zips, brushed knit chin guard, stretch cuffs at sleeve with thumb holes and removable snow skirt CLWR WTTR pant £144.99, waterproof, breathable, articulated knees, taped seams, loops for attaching jacket snow skirt SmartWool NTS mid 250 pattern glove, £22.99, merino wool and touch screen compatible Planks Eye-Force One goggles £79.99, light, comfortable, all-weather lens Coal The Parks chunky mohair knit beanie £26.99 Boots model’s own. [Andy] Mons Royale Hero hoodie £189.99, urban styling perfect for slope or street, water-resistant waxed denim keeps you dry, and brushed merino wool keeps you warm Horsefeathers Scout snowboard pant £144.99, slim fit all-rounder, waterproof, breathable Burton Pipe gloves, stretch fabric, light and low profile for spring days or when shovelling, driving or hiking, touch screen compatible £40 Planks beanie from a selection from £19.95 Oakley A Frame 2.0 goggles, sleek compact design reduces weight, increases visibility and helmet compatibility, flexible chassis fits to face even in extreme cold, expanded lens optimises peripheral vision, glare reduction and fog elimination £89 Sorel Caribou waterproof boots £140

[Andy left] Planks Stateside tech hoodie £99.95, top performing three-layer fabric, fully taped seams and soft brushed finish for all-day park missions Salomon Chill Out bib pant £200, stretch fabric and relaxed fit for extra comfort in the backcountry, water resistant, removable braces and thigh pocket, powder skirt, external mesh air vents, two hand zipped pockets and taped seams Planks Go Shred bobble beanie £24.99 Sorel Caribou boots £130 [Tony] Armada Carson jacket £179.99, waterproof, breathable, external music pocket and internal goggle pocket Horsefeathers Scout pant £144.99, slim fit, waterproof and breathable Planks Classic bobble beanie £24.99 Sorel Caribou wool boots £140

[Tony] Salomon Soulquest midlayer £150, light, comfortable, packs right down thanks to hollow fibre insulation, skin fit hood, harness and backpack compatible, thumb loops Salomon Question Motion Fit pant £300 lightweight, technical, three-layer pant for steep descents Salomon beanie from a selection starting at £18 Planks Eye Force One goggles £79.99 flexible frame, moisture-wicking fleece and foam combo increases wearability, helmet compatible

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Die Hauptstadt der Alpen und ihre Feriendörfer The Capital of the Alps and its holiday villages

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[Andy] CLWR Falk jacket £289.99, waterproof and highly breathable, taped seams, vent zips with mesh guard, brushed tricot chin guard, removable skirt and dropped tail CLWR SSP pant £134.99, waterproof, breathable, articulated knees, loop at waist for jacket and snowskirt, mesh vents, gusset with lock zipper at leg end Quiksilver Method gloves £35 Oakley A Frame 2.0 goggles £89 flexible frame for perfect fit, expanded lens for optimum peripheral vision, glare reduction and fog elimination Osprey Kode 32 backpack £100 engineered for optimum fit, comfort and accessibility with wet and dry gear compartments Boots and hat model’s own [Anna] Armada Gypsum jacket £199.99, waterproof, breathable, external access music pocket, mesh lined pit vents Smith Optics Virtue goggles £110 small female-friendly fit, highly durable, helmet compatible Eider Deer Valley gloves £65, lightweight, waterproof, touch screen compatible Boots and trousers model’s own

[Anna left] Helly Hansen Regulate midlayer jacket £110 versatile, ideal for changing conditions as a wind protection or heat regulating layer Helly Hansen Active Flow base layer £35 Eisbär Kilo faux fur pompom hat £69, merino and acrylic mix, very soft, warm and maintains shape [Catherine] The North Face Hi-Loft Radium fleece jacket £140, superb warmth to weight ratio in this light Polartec fleece, ideal for all-mountain activities, low density knit fabric reduces weight and maximises compression capability, high-loft fibres trap air to retain body heat, wonderful colour too Eisbär Leonora super-size pompom hat, £35, half merino wool, half acrylic, lined so extra warm and keeps shape

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Fashion Editor: [Maisha Frost] snow@ maishafrost.com Shoot Coordinator: [Rosie Barcroft] Photographer: [Melody Sky] melodysky.com/melodysky@timelinemissions. com Hair and Make-Up artist: [Gemma Low] makeupbyglow@gmail.com Models: [Anna Smoothy] annasmoothy@gmail.com, [Catherine Peck] sandrareynolds.co.uk/ catherinepeck@hotmail.co.uk [Andy Matthew] andywmatthew@gmail.com, [Anthony Walker] anthonywalker79@hotmail.com

[Catherine] Lole Giselle down fill jacket £209, plumps up like a dream after endless use and serious warmthto-weight ratio makes it a cold weather super star SmartWool NTS Mid 250 leggings £69.99 Olang Patti boots made for keeping you sure-footed on the ice with stylish Sherpa fleece and toasty aluminium footbed £60

Innsbruck is surrounded by a total of nine ski areas and up to 300km of piste, making up the Olympia SkiWorld Innsbruck (innsbruck.info).

From the Olympic slopes of the Axamer Lizum to glacier skiing on the Stubai to the city slopes of the Nordkette, all the ski areas are easily accessible using the free bus service and covered under one lift pass. These photographs were shot in Kühtai (kuehtai.info), only 30 minutes from Innsbruck, with skiing over 2,000m.

Daily flights are available from London Gatwick with easyJet (easyjet.com) and twice weekly with British Airways (ba.com). Direct flights are also available from Bristol and Liverpool to Innsbruck with easyJet and from Manchester with Monarch (monarch.com). Further information on Innsbruck: Innsbruck.info or about the Tirol region: visittirol.co.uk Thanks also to Ispo, Munich, international showcase for snow style: ispo-winter.com

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[Where to buy] armadaskis.com, freezeproshop.com and snowtraxstore.co.uk. Burton: burton.com. CLWR: clwr.com, armadaskis.com, freezeproshop.com and subvertboardstore. com. Coal: the riderslounge.com, 01732 866989.

Eisbär: snowandrock.com and specs4sports.co.uk, eider. com, hellyhansen.com, 0115 979 5997. Horsefeathers: theriderslounge.com, 01732 866989 and surfdome.com.

Lole: VP Fashion 07855 959551. Manbi: manbi.com.

Mons Royale: freezeproshop.com and subvertboardstore.com.

Oakley: uk.oakley.com. Olang: manbi.com, Ospreyeurope. com. Picture: picture-organic-clothing.com also absolutesnow.co.uk and carters360.com. Planks: surfdome.com and absolute-snow.co.uk. Roxy: roxy-uk.co.uk, surfdome.com and quiksilver.co.uk. Salice: manbi.com, salomon.com, Smartwool. com, 0800 032 6499. Smith Optics: ultrasporteu.com, Sorelfootwear.co.uk, snowandrock.com and thenorthface.co.uk, 01539 822155.

Boots extra

Boots that dare to be different

PHOTO: K2

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Some decidedly odd ski boots have come on the market this season.

Could they be the shape of things to come? Chris Exall reports.

Most ski boots come from a small gene pool. Though there are significant differences in detail, almost all inherit their DNA from just two boots.

Those boots are Lange’s XL1000 (a traditional four-clip overlap) and the Raichle Flexon Comp (a three-part shell

with an external tongue, still available from Full Tilt). Both boots were first seen on shelves in the late 1970s. Their descendants are more refined than their ancestors, but the connection is direct.

However, there are some boot makers coming on to the market who take a fresh look at design, starting by asking what does a ski boot need to do?

American brand Zay launched its ski boots in 2014, targeting performancefocused and all-mountain skiers. Initially, the boot appears to have a conventional ‘overlap’ design, but look closer and you see unconventional and clever features.

The top half, or cuff, is closed by two conventional buckles, but the lower half, or clog, is tightened by cables

boots extra surrounding the led by Denny from Finches Emporium, in Forest Hill, foot, closed Hanson, South-East London. by a lever on Lange’s Dahu, a Swiss start-up, has taken Zay the cuff. former head a similar approach, but its focus is on boots are fastened The use of research and comfort and convenience, rather than by a of cables to development. performance. The company started cable close the lower Hanson when designer Nicolas Frey’s girlfriend shell allows the originally struck couldn’t find pain-free ski boots. designer to vary out on his own to With more than ten years in product the thickness of form Hanson ski boots design, Frey started tinkering with the shell, as it no in the 1970s, when these prototypes in his garage. longer has to support were the iPad of the ski boot His approach is similar to Apex’s, traditional buckles world. Innovative and sleek, they but where Apex uses a carbon-fibre and rivets. As the cables looked like no skeleton, the Swiss company relies on are tightened, they wrap the other boot. They a nylon injection moulded frame shell around the foot closely and were cool. that resembles a traditional shell evenly, without the crush associated However, Hanson with sections cut away. with many race designs. Connecting the boots crashed in The Monsieur Ed is aimed at cables to the cuff also tightens the clog the 1980s, though advanced skiers, with the softer as the skier flexes, limiting lower shell Denny Hanson Lady O and Doc D targeting less deformation. remained active performance-orientated customers.

The toe box is a little larger than in the ski trade, Vermont-based Dodge makes its in most race boots and the shell is holding many of shells from lightweight, stiff carbon made of a polyurethane that does not the key patents for fibre, instead of injection-moulded stiffen in the cold, as many other shell ‘flo’ liners. thermoplastics used by most materials do. The boot-to-ski ramp Now Hanson’s manufacturers. A carbonangle is 6.2 degrees and the middle of Apex ski fibre shell means the the bootboard has foam to let the foot boots take an Dodge boot is significantly dip on the big toe side for better grip. approach that stiffer in lateral flex than a The power strap comes in two is very different conventional boot so that versions, standard velcro or a ratchet from most Dahu’s Monsieur Ed has a nylon injected it can direct more power frame with strategically placed voids style system. In addition, the sole has others. A rigid to the ski. It also makes both rubbery and hard segments for carbon fibre exoskeleton supports a the boots much lighter. As with Zay walking. In tests the 140 flex version removable snowboard boot-type liner, and Apex, designer Dave Dodge has felt powerful, and in side-by-side tests which is closed by cables. an extensive skiing CV, with time spent gripper than other models, though the Essentially the boot completely in product development for Rossignol. softer 125 will appeal to more skiers. separates the support, flex and fit The boot is highly customisable and The design works and skis well, functions of a traditional ski boot. In comes in flexes from 100 to 150 in thanks to Rex Deitesfeld. He worked on most ski boot designs the tighter you five-point increments. it with Ed Chalmers, whose pedigree of close the shell, the more the boot flex The carbon shell is difficult to 15 years at Lange is impeccable, taking stiffens. In the Apex design they are stretch and modify, and the boot is responsibility for high completely separate — the flex is only available on a factory-direct basis performance constant irrespective of how tight from Vermont, though it comes designs, the boot is closed. with a downloadable ‘remote including the Apex claims that the boot fit’ kit and offers a 30-day XL1000. offers high performance money-back guarantee.

Then there thanks to the rigid exoskeleton Modesty, however, is not the is Apex, a shell, while still providing the company’s forte, describing firm that is comfort and warmth of the its product as “the best boot softer snowboard-type liner. in the world, period”.

Apex’s four models run Become a registered Ski Club user from the MC2C, for highand find free advice on buying ski performance, aggressive boots at skiclub.co.uk/kit skiers to the all-mountain Dodge uses carbon MC1. They are available in fibre rather than plastic to create the UK — though only in a lighter, stiffer, The Apex MC2 inner sits in an exoskeleton limited sizes and models — powerful boot Ski+board

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Park and Pipe Boots Park and pipe

PHOTO: Les Deux Alpes/B Longo

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Most ski boots are compromises, designed to cope with a variety of conditions, on and off-piste.

Until now, the only exceptions were full race boots and full Alpine touring boots — and it would be possible to fill this magazine with reviews of telemark and touring boots.

However, one new category that requires specific footwear is park and pipe. So if you find you spend much of your skiing day on tricks, there are now boots to suit you.

Head Show 1

Salomon Ghost FS 90

DalBello RDP

£195

£300

£530

Head’s three-buckle Show 1 takes a similar route to many of Salomon’s three-buckle offerings. However, it also adds a super high liner to distribute loads over more of the calf. And it is closed precisely by a double powerstrap. As with many trick ski boots the liner sits on a shockabsorbing boot board.

Salomon brought what was arguably the first park-specific boot to market with the SPk. Light and simple it gave skiers greater movement between foot and ski. The Ghost 90 continues that philosophy, with a super-soft heel insert to cushion hard landings and a more flexible rear spoiler to take the sting out of coming down on your tails.

Dalbello’s RDP freestyle boots are based on the Krypton series and use a three-piece shell with a ribbed external flex tongue and wraparound Intuition custom liner. The RDP Il Moro is stiff enough for support, but flexible for hard landings. Dalbello’s design is a more refined version of Full Tilt’s more hardcore park and pipe models.

The poor skier had jumped straight out of his boots It is rare to get such a surprise that you jump right out of your boots, particularly ski boots, but that is what instructor Cameron Hall from Cumbria witnessed as an instructor and patroller at Ski Dubai.

When you build a ski centre in a desert, visitors aren’t always au fait with the gear, as I found out working there.

One day, as I looked down from the chairlift, I saw a man in his mid-30s looking even more awkward than most

as he shuffled his way across the top of the slope.

It seemed quite clear he had never been on skis before, but had taken it upon himself to tackle the world’s first indoor ‘black’ run on his maiden journey. And it made me anxious in a centre brimming close to capacity, especially when I saw him take off, skis pointing fall line to the mid-station.

Of course, a spectacular wipe out followed, but when I skied down to recover his skis I found to my surprise that both boots were fully locked in each ski. Not only that, but the dazed

man was lying flat on the snow — wearing trainers.

I’m not sure which one of us was more shocked. It’s common for people to double eject from their skis, but this took the biscuit. Somehow the rental team had allowed a slim-built novice to hire the largest size of ski boot so he could wear his shoes inside.

Needless to say, he was politely escorted back to the front desk and asked to book himself into a class, and given a little etiquette lesson in the correct attire for the ski hill — as was the ski rental team.

SKIBOOTSFOREVERYSKIER At Surefoot, we have a relentless drive to make every ski boot we sell the best fitting, best performing ski boot possible. Which means tirelessly working to improve fit, performance, comfort and warmth. Whether it's your first time on the slopes or you are a seasoned expert, Surefoot has the perfect boot for you and your ability. We carry all the top brands including our legendary Surefoot Custom Boot which comes complete with our custom liner and computer-fit insole. And the only thing more comfortable than our boots are our prices which fit every budget.

So come into Surefoot today where a ski boot made just for you is waiting.

Skier: Russ Shay, Owner, Surefoot

surefoot.com LONDON

Turn radius If you run a marker along the length of a flat ski, it will trace a curve. If you continued this curve it would draw a circle, the radius of which is called the turn radius. A smaller turn radius produces tighter turns and vice versa. In practice, you can make tighter carving turns than the stated radius, because the skis flex when they are tilted on edge.

Sidecut

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Sidecut shows the width of the tip, the waist and the tail of a ski in millimetres.

Generally, a wide shovel will move through to a narrow waist, and then flare out again through the tail. These three widths are indicated in millimetres by each ski, for instance 135-108-123, creating the turn radius. But these figures reveal something else. Skis designed for deeper snow have an overall wider shape for better floatation, while a narrower shape overall makes them more reactive, moving faster on to the edge, which suits piste performance.

Binding plate On high performance piste and race skis, a plate on which the binding is mounted will allow the ski to flex naturally, without hindrance from the binding. Also because the boot is mounted higher off the ski it gives greater leverage and gets more power down to the edge.

Freeride and big mountain skis usually have a simpler set-up to keep weight down.

Camber When you put your skis together to carry them, you may notice a gap between them at the waist. This is because they have a camber, which means they lie flat under your weight. In contrast, many freeride and big mountain skis now have flat camber or full reverse camber, which gives greater float and ease of steering in deep snow.

Rocker Rocker is when the tip or tail of a ski rises earlier than on a traditional camber ski, making it easier to pivot and float in deep snow. Piste-orientated skis generally use a small amount of tip rocker to help initiate turns, while retaining traditional camber through the rest of the ski to keep good contact with the snow.

At the other end of the scale, full reverse camber skis have huge tip and tail rocker, giving massive float in deep snow, but minimal contact with the snow and control on piste.

Sidewall The sidewall is the side of the ski, above the metal edge. Some skis have cap construction, where the top layer is pulled over the side of the ski down to the metal. It makes the top sheet less vulnerable to damage and allows the ski to be lighter and easier to turn, but torsional rigidity is not strong so levels of grip are lower.

Sandwich construction and ABS sidewalls are where each layer within a ski is flat and their sides protected by a vertical sidewall. This is typical of race and high performance skis, resulting in a more sensitive interaction between snow and skier. The semi cap hybrid combines the two to give good levels of grip while keeping softer flex patterns and lighter weights.

Our testers...

Ski User Rating...

We rate each ski by the type of skier it would suit. So in the example below, the ski would suit early intermediate to advanced skiers, but it’s not so well suited for beginners or experts. Generally, the skis tested are aimed at those who have skied before.

Beginner

Intermediate

Advanced

Expert

Al Morgan

Pete Davison

Rowena Phillips

Mark Jones

Ski Club head of Member Services and ex-ski service manager

Owner of LD Mountain Centre and exaction model

Co-director of Matterhorn Diamonds

Director of ICE training centre in Val d’Isère and trainer for Basi

skiclub.co.uk

ldmountain centre.com

matterhorndiamonds. com

icesi.org

SKIS Big mountain models create a major sensation

Big mountain skis represent a specialist end of the market. Most of these skis are focused on one thing, and one thing only — deep powder. In this respect, they are far less mainstream than the three other categories we test, which are piste performance, for near-exclusive piste use; all-mountain, for predominantly piste use, while allowing for forays off the side into fresh snow; and freeride, for those who spend more of their time off-piste.

Whereas the other categories might serve the skier who only has one pair of skis, these are more likely to be a second pair for a skier to grab after a big snowfall.

They focus on deep powder by using super-wide platforms, crazy rockered shapes and lightweight constructions, all to give great floatation. And the results can be incredible. The new wave of skis in this category are able to create a whole new sensation in powder skiing. They give you the feeling of surfing down the mountain, rather than working hard to make turns.

This means that you can ski a big open face at serious speed, working with the terrain as a canvas rather than

stringing together a set of linked turns and it’s a great adrenaline hit.

Because of the conditions these skis are designed for, it takes time to test each pair. We had to hike into the backbowls, rip up the powder stash, hike back to the resort, pick up a new pair of skis and repeat the process.

We’re not complaining — there are worse jobs in the world! However, the downside is that we were only able to test a certain number of these skis.

Nonetheless we are confident that the selection of the skis we have tested represent some of the best models in the category. And we were able to test some of the new women’s models coming on to the market. With so many women’s skis launching in this category, for once the number of ladies’ models selected outnumber the men’s.

If, after reading the reviews, you’re still not sure which skis you like, check out our tests online, where you can compare past winners, see star ratings and read full test results at skiclub.co.uk/skitests

Lynn Sharpe

Chris Taine

James Allen

Steph Ede

Derek Chandler

Tess Swallow

Owner of Target ski training and ski race coach in Val d’Isère

Ex-Canadian instructor and contributor to Ski Club website

FIS circuit racer turned coach

Alpine chef turned ski instructor

Director of Marmalade ski school in Méribel

Basi Level 4 instructor for New Gen ski school

targetski.com

Ski+board

skiclub.co.uk

jamesallen skicoaching. com

FEBRUARY/MARCH 2015

stephede@ hotmail. co.uk

skiclub.co.uk

skimarmalade .com

skinewgen. com

ski tests These are testing times for our team At this point in the season our testers are already heading out to Kühtai, in Austria, to try next season’s skis. Although it sounds like a dream job, it takes years of experience to make the team.

Because our focus is on the more advanced skier, our testers are all full-time ski professionals, including elite instructors and ex-racers.

All ten have an amazing ability to interpret every sensation they feel through their feet and relate it to the performance of the ski. And that is no small feat, given they test 100 of the more than 700 different models that manufacturers take to the annual event in the Tirolean resort.

This means the results of our tests are eagerly awaited by the industry... and, we hope, by our readers in all four issues of Ski+board in 2015-16.

Questions you may be too afraid to ask:

What should I do with my old skis?

Do you have unused skis languishing at home? If so, you could try selling them via eBay, Amazon or Gumtree, if they are recent and in good nick, but factor in the cost of postage.

Skis are too big to be sent by Royal Mail’s regular parcel service so you have to use another delivery service.

If you plan to buy a new pair, look for retailers offering trade-ins — Snow+rock, for instance, ran a deal for a fortnight last winter. It uses the old skis for staff training, and is looking to give them to charities that work with porters and guides in Nepal and Pakistan. Snow+rock also offers year-round trade-ins on children’s skis which it has sold.

You may be able to donate skis in good order to a dry ski slope or charity such as DSUK, which can use them on sitskis. Call 01479 861 272 to find out where to drop them off.

If all those options fail, why not add a bit of chalet chic to your home or garden by using them for shelving or to make a bench?

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Men’s Big Mountain skis

On the face of it there haven’t been any radical changes to the design of bigmountain skis for this winter. Fat shapes and full rocker are the standard fare.

However, scratch below the surface and you will find that, like many of the skis in the other categories we have tested this year, there is a general reduction in weight thanks to new materials being used and new methods of construction coming into play.

The Head Cyclic and Scott Scrapper are great examples of these new designs, enabling skiers to ride fast, while still being able to play with the mountain.

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HEAD CYCLIC 115

ATOMIC AUTOMATIC 117

This combines tip and tail rocker with regular camber underfoot to create a ‘surf’ feel in powder while retaining hard snow versatility. In powder this feels silky through the turn, flowing from arc to arc, and it’s easy to alter direction, making it no effort to get through tree lines and choppy snow. It’s solid at speed, but lacks the locked down feel of the really big chargers. Nonetheless a brilliant all-round performance overall.

The revamped 117 is now stiffer and has camber underfoot for hard snow. A standout ski last year, it continues to impress, suiting hard-charging riders who need stability and confidence at speed. It feels solid when pushed, locks into the line nicely but still allows quick pivoting. It smashes through crud and chopped snow with ease if going hard and fast.

At slower speeds and for quicker manoeuvres it’s harder work.

Build

BUILD Lite Woodcore/Titanium reinforcement/ Powder Rocker

£660 with bindings

Tester Profile:

AL MORGAN Al is head of member services at the Ski Club of Great Britain and selects the skis on test, picking over a hundred leading models from the hundreds on the market.

His in-depth knowledge of gear is a real asset in ski testing — he ran a ski rental/ service centre in the Alps and managed one of the busiest ski departments of any retailer in the UK. As a fantastic all-mountain skier, he has limitless enthusiasm for the task, particularly for big mountain skis, as he loves nothing more than playing around in the deepest powder. skiclub.co.uk

E A I B

Sandwich Cap Construction/ Tuffwalls/TNT Rocker

£500

SIDECUT (mm)

148-113-131

RADIUS

19m (181cm)

RADIUS

19m (186cm)

LENGTHS (cm)

171, 181, 191

LENGTHS (cm)

179, 186, 193

Easy to use, playful and very smooth Could be more stable at the highest speeds

WE SAY: Smooth all-rounder, deals with chopped snow well (James Allen) Good edge grip on piste, but ample float in powder (Chris Taine)

SIDECUT (mm)

E A I B

140.5-117-129.5

Solid at speed, comfortable, stable in crud Harder work at slower speeds

WE SAY: Although quite heavy, it’s nicely balanced and very stable (Chris Taine) Gives strong skiers confidence at speed (Mark Jones)

PHOTO: Ross Woodhall/rosswoodhall.com

What’s new in men’s big mountain skis?

Men’s big mountain skis

B

£500

Build

BUILD

Twin Tip Rocker M/Sandwich Sidewall/3D Sidecut

LENGTHS (cm)

I

Totally redesigned, this features more taper and rocker in the tail.

It feels like a ski to trust off-piste, instantly strong, well connected and perfectly balanced in long arcs, where its shape and flex give it stability. But it’s able to blast out short turns easily too.

On harder snow it fairs pretty well, and for a big mountain charger it can be cruised in big turns on the piste quite easily.

Overall, a great all-rounder.

SIDECUT (mm)

A

£475

This continues with the 3D sidecut, sandwich sidewall and twin rocker profile. It’s a big ski, with its width making itself felt in powder where it is awesome.

In deep snow the float is instant, making big open slopes easy to dominate, while it’s effortless to smear and pivot in the trees. On harder snow and piste it feels tricky, with low levels of grip and a lack of stability. But for big mountain riding it’s amazing.

RADIUS

E

K2 ANNEX 118

147-122-138

18.5m (180cm) 180, 190

Playful, easy, floats really well, solid at speed.

Not much grip or stability on hardpack

WE SAY: What an amazing ski — incredible performance in powder (Mark Jones) Awesome in any depth of powder (Derek Chandler)

Adrien Coirier / Revelstoke jkt / Ski trip Utah.

E A I B

Triaxial Braid/TwinTech Sidewall/ Wood Core

SIDECUT (mm)

145-118-135

RADIUS

23m (184cm)

LENGTHS (cm)

177, 184, 191

Solid, dependable, well balanced in long turns Could be more playful

WE SAY:

Beefed up wood core makes it strong and stable (Al Morgan) Surprisingly versatile in short turns (Derek Chandler)

Should I buy freeride touring bindings?

Are freeride touring bindings the holy grail for off-piste, combining great downhill performance with the ability to ski-tour? Almost, but not quite. They ski well, the release function works well, and they have a touring mode for hikes, but they do have limitations.

All non-pin touring bindings have stiff rails linking toe to heel. In ski mode this creates a slight dead spot underfoot, changing the ski flex and altering the skiing sensation.

Your boot is higher over the ski too, while the trend in downhill freeride bindings is to get closer to the ski. And if you are seeking a very light freeride ski, remember they are heavier than non-touring bindings.

We love freeride touring bindings but do weigh up the pros and cons.

To read a full article go to goo.gl/B4fjed.

Ski Club members can also ask an expert on 020 8410 2009 or at info@skiclub.co.uk.

F. Marmsater©

SCOTT SCRAPPER

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woMen’s big mountain skis What’s new in women’s big mountain skis?

PHOTO: Ross Woodhall / rosswoodhall.com

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The development in women’s big mountain skis is particularly exciting this season, with quite a few allnew designs, such as the Völkl One, Salomon Rockette and Line Pandora.

As with men’s big mountain skis, the predominant design continues to be rockered profiles and fat shapes, but with the weight still falling.

With so many women’s skis launching in this category, for once it’s very much ladies first when it come to choice of new models.

VÖLKL ONE PINK

Tester Profile:

TESS SWALLOW Tess is a British Association of Snowsport Instructors (Basi) Level 4 instructor and works for Basi as a trainer.

To gain her qualifications she trained in Switzerland and France, before settling down in Tignes, in France’s Espace Killy, to work for New Generation Ski and Snowboard School.

Tess is another skier who has had a huge amount of training — and it shows in her fast, accurate and powerful technique, as this really allows her to put skis through their paces. skinewgen.com

£425

This has huge tip rocker for floatation with a light core. It’s a big ski for girls who want something fat to slay the powder.

It looks huge, but its build makes it surprisingly light and it skis easier than you’d think. In deep stuff it feels fantastic, floaty, with an easy-to-steer, surf feel on big open faces. But it has the capability to deal with steeper, trickier terrain. At slower speeds it can feel cumbersome.

BUILD

BUILD Poplar Light Wood Core/Fibreglass and Carbon Wrap/Nose Va-Tech

Tapered Shape/Tough Box Construction/Sandwich Sidewall

RADIUS LENGTHS (cm)

A I B

£595

With full rocker, this is Völkl’s first women’s powder surf ski, made for women who want an easy, drifty ski in deep snow. It floats easily and instantly feels super simple to use in deep snow. It’s very much a ‘surf’ ski with that ability to manoeuvre and adjust making it extremely playful. At high speeds it gets a bit twitchy with the radical shape giving it less stability, and it feels even more twitchy on hard snow.

SIDECUT (mm)

E

MOVEMENT SUPER TURBO GIRL EVO

138-116-130

19.7m (166cm) 156, 166, 176 Playful, easy, looks amazing

Less stability at speed and on hard pistes

WE SAY: Floats well, manoeuvrable in all turn sizes (Rowena Phillips) Easy to use, fun, but too short for long fast turns (Lynn Sharpe)

SIDECUT (mm)

144-115-129

RADIUS

21m (178cm)

LENGTHS (cm)

E A I B

178

Big, floaty, loves the powder Trickier to manoeuvre at slower speeds

WE SAY:

Playful, floaty, fun, despite its size (Lynn Sharpe) Stable and strong at speed, a bit heavy going in short turns (Rowena Phillips)

Women’s big mountain skis ARMADA VJJ

B

BUILD

BUILD Capwell/Thin Tip/Maplelite Wood Core

5 Dimensional Sidecut/Sandwich Construction/Tip and Tail Rocker

SIDECUT (mm)

136-115-132

RADIUS

15m (165cm)

Flappy and slow on to the edge on piste

WE SAY: Loves deep stuff, fun for big fast turns, changes of terrain and pillows (Steph Ede) Awesome in powder, floaty, fun (Lynn Sharpe)

14m (162cm)

E A I B

Hard to fault

WE SAY: Versatile, solid, grippy on steeps (Steph Ede) Really capable in all conditions, plus great graphics (Rowena Phillips)

SCOTT VANISHER

£475

152, 162, 172, 179

Fantastic all mountain capability, awesome graphics

£450

BUILD Full Wood Core/Honeycomb Tip/Twin Rocker

BUILD

SIDECUT (mm)

140-106-128

RADIUS

RADIUS

10m (173cm)

LENGTHS (cm)

157, 163, 173

144-115-127

20.3m (170cm) 156, 164, 170, 178

Very easy to use, quick at smearing

E

Would work at its best in longer lengths

WE SAY: Great for short turns and steep pitches, loves to bounce in powder (Rowena Phillips) Light, floaty, fast into turns (Lynn Sharpe)

Ski+board

FEBRUARY/MARCH 2015

E A I B

TwinTip Rocker L/Light Sandwich Sidewall/3D Sidecut

Easy to use, quick in changes to turn shape Shape feels tight for big, fast turns in powder

WE SAY: Handles crud well, floats and does well at speed (Rowena Phillips) Feels great for medium shaped turns in crud (Steph Ede)

skiclub.co.uk

Where can I find these skis?

Because of their specialist nature, big mountain skis can be hard to find. A good place to start is the retailers that offer discounts to Ski Club members. They are: Absolute Snow: 10 per cent off absolute-snow.co.uk Craigdon Mountain Sports: 15 per cent off craigdonmountainsports.com Edge and Wax: 10 per cent off edgeandwax.co.uk Ellis Brigham: 10 per cent off ellis-brigham.com Freeze Pro Shop: 10 per cent off freezeproshop.com Glisshop: 10 per cent off glisshop.co.uk Lockwoods: various discounts lockwoods.com Sail and Ski: 10 per cent off sailandski.co.uk Ski Bartlett: 10 per cent off skibartlett.com Snow & Rock: 10 per cent off snowandrock.com Snow Lab: 10 per cent off, 15 per cent for servicing snowlab.co.uk Snowtrax: 10 per cent off, 15% off for servicing snowtrax.eu Surfdome: 10% off surfdome.com

Ski test sponsors

New this season, this uses Scott’s Punisher shape, but has a light wood core. It’s another big mountain ski which is surprisingly versatile dealing with a mix of conditions and terrain. On hardpack, it gives good grip, feels stable on the edge, and is comfortable at speed. In deep powder it floats well and the sidecut can feel very reactive, almost oversteering through the turn.

LENGTHS (cm)

B

142-110-125

RADIUS

The new Rockette has twin rocker for maximum float. The light, rockered tip and tail mean it’s easy to use in steep terrain and tricky spots. It spins on a sixpence and makes direction changes and turn adjustments in an instant, so is perfect for ripping around trees and through variable terrain. Its width gives it good stability yet it’s surprisingly quick edge to edge in shorter turns.

Overall a great backcountry ski.

SIDECUT (mm)

I

SIDECUT (mm) LENGTHS (cm)

165, 175

Amazing in the powder, loves big, fast turns

SALOMON ROCKETTE

A

£420

Totally redesigned, this has plenty of early rise tip for powder and a deep sidecut and reliable flex for control on firm snow. Versatile for its width, this has surprising grip laying out long fast turns on hard pack. In deep snow it floats up quickly, while the early rise tip makes it a surf-like, easy ski to manoeuvre and especially strong for fast turns in crud. A great big mountain ski surprisingly capable for all-mountain use.

E I

£520

Inspired by the men’s JJ, this uses a blend of rocker and positive camber underfoot. With lots of float, its rocker surfs up instantly.

In big, fast turns it’s in its element, feeling stable and supportive through turns, while still being possible to redirect and adjust.

On steep terrain it feels solid and stable. On piste its width and profile make it flappy, cumbersome and limited. However for big mountain riding, it’s awesome.

LENGTHS (cm)

A

LINE PANDORA

Thanks to Eider, Salomon and Scott who provided clothing for our test team in Kühtai, as well as for the Ski Club’s brand photo shoot 2014. Ski Club members can get savings on Eider, Salomon and Scott through the many shops in the UK which offer member discounts.

See skiclub.co.uk/discounts EasyJet flies to Innsbruck from London Gatwick, Bristol and Liverpool. Flight prices start from £32.99 per person (one-way, including tax). Visit easyjet.com to book.

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men’s BIG mountain boards

PHOTO: K2

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Large noses, odd-shaped tails — big mountain boards have always stood out from the rest of the snowboarding family in their quest to give riders the purest powder experience possible. But this winter manufacturers have pushed the limits yet further, reports Tristan Kennedy.

Big mountain boards are built specifically for riding powder and have long been marked out by their unconventional shapes. Large, spoon-like noses and split tails that might seem unwieldy on hardpacked pistes really come into their own in soft snow.

While these boards have always boasted unusual outlines, recent seasons have seen brands taking the experimentation further and this year has seen several manufacturers tweaking the tails of their powder guns in new and interesting ways.

Ride’s Alter Ego, designed by powder specialist Jake Blauvelt, combines a cutaway tail with a split that can be locked shut or opened depending on the conditions. Lock it shut for stability when carving down icy pistes. Open

it up — and open up your boarding — when you are riding deep powder.

No less eye-catching is Burton’s new Pile Driver. It features a splayed fish tail to give it good floatation in powder, and sports a shape the likes of which haven’t been seen since the late 1980s.

Meanwhile, Yes Snowboards has embraced a revolutionary silhouette for the 420, giving it a pin tail and doing away with the conventional thin waist as part of its aim of reducing the overall length of the board. But despite the differences in the shape of these snowboards, all are designed with one thing in mind — to make riding powder as much fun as possible.

Find comprehensive advice on buying boards and boots at skiclub.co.uk/kit

Ride Alter Ego

£460

Flex: Lengths (cm): Profile: Shape:

155, 159, 162 Combo Directional

Pistes: Powder: Jumps: Rails:

Designed with input from Jake Blauvelt, one of the most talented backcountry freestylers snowboarding has seen, the Ride Alter Ego is a powder-slaying machine.

Its cutaway tail has a split down the middle which can be locked giving it a rigid feel that’s great for carving icy pistes, or opened, making it looser and easier in powder. Ride has combined this with a setback stance and carbon inserts in the sidewalls to give it extra pop. If you want to straightline couloirs like Jake, then this is your board.

men’s BIG Mountain boards Yes 420

£395

Flex: Lengths (cm): Profile: Shape:

Rocker Directional

£380

Flex: Lengths (cm): Profile: Shape:

Camber Directional

Shape: Pistes: Powder:

Jumps:

Jumps:

Rails:

Rails:

£480

Lib Tech Travis Rice HP Split

£875

Flex:

Lengths (cm): 156, 159, 162, 165

Lengths (cm):

Profile:

Profile:

Shape:

Rocker Directional

Shape:

Pistes:

Pistes:

Powder:

Powder:

Powder:

Jumps:

Jumps:

Jumps:

Rails:

Rails:

Rails:

FEBRUARY/MARCH 2015

K2 has invested a lot in researching and developing its backcountry line in recent years, and it shows with boards such as the Peacekeeper. It features BC Shaping technology, meaning the sidecut widens towards the nose and tail giving it a larger surface area than a regular board, and so helping it float in powder. It has a largely flat profile, rising sharply at the tip and tail, which helps keep the nose up in powder.

The core has bamboo stringers and a carbon ollie bar, giving it extra pop. skiclub.co.uk

Combo Directional

Similar to the Yes 420, the Burton Pile Driver is shorter than most powder boards, but its wide waist and split tail mean it still floats in deep powder. The splayed tail is reminiscent of the surf-inspired boards seen in the 1980s, and it is said to have been designed with the help of legendary rider Terje Håkonsen. Rubber pads on the top of the board allow you to ride it for short stretches without bindings — like a surf board — while the short length means it’s great for trees. Sure it can carve on the piste, but really this board is for powder.

Pistes:

Bataleon launched this board last season, but the limited edition graphic is new for this year. Its full name is the Bataleon Bill Stewart Camel Toe because visually it’s an exact replica of a prototype made by the legendary surf board shaper in the early 1980s. Like all Bataleon boards it features the brand’s triple base technology, which means the edges are lifted and thus harder to catch.

Its scoop tail and nose mean it rides powder beautifully, rather like a surf board, in fact.

Ski+board

Profile:

Powder:

Flex: 153, 158, 162

LengthS (cm): 140

Pistes:

K2 Peacekeeper

£480

Flex: 148, 152

The revolutionary shape of this board created a storm when it was launched last season. Based on a ‘fish’ surfboard, it is much shorter than most powder boards, but its wide waist gives it a similar surface area, which means that the 152cm-long model floats as if it were a 166cm-long model. The short shape makes it easily manoeuvrable and particularly good for tight lines around trees. It’s not as quick edge-toedge as narrower boards on piste, but if you’re after a fun, playful powder stick then this is a great option.

Bataleon Camel Toe

Burton Pile DrivER

161.5, 164.5 Combo True Twin

Travis Rice is arguably the best-known backcountry snowboarder in the world, largely thanks to his two mega-budget movies.

Riding on this success, each season Lib Tech produces a range of Travisendorsed pro-models. This special splitboard version — it comes apart to form two skis — enables you to attach skins and ski tour to otherwise inaccessible lines. Split-boarding is becoming increasingly popular and this adapted backcountry stick, although expensive, is a great way to get into it.

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women’s big mountain boards GIRLS GO BIG

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Historically, women have never had the same wide range of big mountain boards to pick from as men. There just hasn’t been the demand to make it worth the while of most brands to invest in powder-specific women’s boards, so for years the best they could hope for were the stiffer all-mountain models.

Recently, though, that has started to change. Last year Burton introduced the Day Trader, a women-specific backcountry board, as part of its Family Tree range, and this season several of the larger brands have followed suit.

Tristan Kennedy is editor of action sports and adventure website Mpora.com and former deputy editor of Whitelines Snowboarding magazine. He has reviewed boards for the past five years at the Snowboard Spring Break event in Kaunertal, Austria.

What it all means Flex:

Like all our star ratings, this is from one to ten, with one indicating soft and ten meaning a board is stiff.

Profile:

Camber profiles rise up between the rider’s feet and have four contact points — two at the nose and two at the tail at the end of the effective edge. Rocker or reverse camber profiles are the opposite — the main contact point is between the rider’s feet, while the ends of the effective edge are lifted. Combo profiles combine elements of the above, and flat profiles are flat under the feet, with the board rising only at the tip and tail.

Shape:

Directional boards have a setback stance, true twin boards have a centered stance with an identical nose and tail, while directional twin boards combine elements of both.

Length:

The ‘W’ signifies that the length of board that precedes it comes in wide, so is suitable for riders with big feet — UK size 11 or over.

Burton Day Trader

£480

Flex: 145, 150

Profile:

Flat Directional

Lengths (cm): 146, 149, 151, 154 Profile: Shape:

Pistes:

Pistes:

Powder:

Powder:

Jumps:

Jumps:

Rails:

Rails:

Released with little fanfare last year, this board is actually rather revolutionary. It was certainly the most explicitly powder-focused women’s board that our test team had ever seen.

Its wide nose and narrow, tapered tail helps keep the tip up in deep snow, while the flat profile makes it responsive and easy to carve on piste.

It also boasts features such as Burton’s Squeezebox core and carbon highlights that make it feel solid and snappy. An excellent choice for advanced riders.

Gnu Ladies Choice

£510

Flex: Lengths (cm): Profile: Shape:

£435

Flex:

Lengths (cm): Shape:

K2 Wowpow

Flat Directional

New for this season, the Wowpow offers much of the same technology as K2’s men’s boards, but in a female-friendly package.

This includes the same ‘Tweekend’ profile, with large lifted sections at the nose and tail, allowing it to float in soft snow. Otherwise the profile is completely flat, making the board feel more solid at speed than a pure rocker board. It also allows the Wowpow to handle hardpack well. It may specialise in off-piste, but it’s perfectly good for cruising round the resort too.

Capita Birds of a Feather

£380

Flex: 145.5, 148.5, 151.5, 153.5 Combo

Asymmetric Twin

Lengths (cm): 140, 142, 144, 146, 148, 150, 152, 154 Profile: Shape:

Pistes:

Pistes:

Powder:

Powder:

Jumps:

Jumps:

Rails:

Rails:

This board is not a powder-specific stick per se, rather it’s a stiff, high-end all-rounder.

Designed with input from Olympic slopestyle gold medallist Jamie Anderson, it’s made for tackling jumps as much as handling speed. Of course most riders will never be hitting anything as big as Anderson does, but it’s still possible to appreciate the stiffness of the board in powder. Other features include the asymmetric twin shape and flex pattern in the core, designed to make carving easy.

Combo

True Twin

As with the Gnu Ladies’ Choice, this isn’t purely a powder board — Capita doesn’t make a women’s powder stick. Instead, its best riders use this beast off-piste. With its camber between the bindings and rocker at the tip and tail, the board felt floaty in powder without sacrificing the pop of traditional camber boards.

It has a fast, sintered base and a ecologically sustainable ‘reforestation core’ reinforced with carbon inserts so this board isn’t just high performance, it’s responsibly made too.

Members’ benefit

There’s a world of snow out there Discover it with the Ski Club

As a Ski Club Member you’re part of the UK’s largest snowsports community. We’re here to help you plan your skiing adventures, save money and make the most of your time in the mountains.

And with big money-saving discounts on leading retailers and brands such as Snow+Rock, Ellis Brigham, Mark Warner, Crystal and Neilson, you can make back your membership fee in just a few clicks.

Here’s what your membership card unlocks for you Get snow savvy with our leading Snow Reports (including 9-day weather forecasts), Info & Advice and Ask the Experts Receive Ski+board – your membership magazine (4 printed issues, and 1 online issue every season) Access hundreds of discounts on everything to do with snowsports, from high-street and online retailers, to holiday companies and travel providers Ski with our resort Leaders, meet up with our Ambassadors, or go on one of our inspirational Freshtracks holidays Find extra peace of mind with Ski Club+, including FOGG Medicard and free transceiver hire Get winter and mountain sports specialist policies with Ski Club Travel Insurance

NEW – arrange to ski with other members with Ski Club CatchUp NEW

– Caxton FX currency card with an extra £10 pre-loaded to start your travels

Join the Ski Club online at skiclub.co.uk or call 020 8410 2015

77

Ski technology

Great FEET OF ENGINEERING 78

Painful feet can be the bane of a holiday. Poorly fitting boots can induce blisters and, even if you’ve found the perfect fit, your extremities are the first to suffer when temperatures plummet. Thankfully, manufacturers are always looking for new ways to keep your feet happy.

Technology editor Gabriella Le Breton investigates.

Zipfit Boot Liners

Gabriella Le Breton

from £ 210

Those of us who regularly have problems with off-the-shelf ski boots can now have custom-made boot liners fitted by a specialist retailer. If you’re struggling to justify the expense, remember that a snug-fitting liner will not only keep your feet comfy, but should also improve your skiing by helping align your stance. There’s a wide selection on offer, but Zipfit’s liners have a reputation for lasting a long time. Made from cork and ceramic clay moulds, they are heated and moulded to your feet, but they can also be remoulded should your stance change, or if you buy new boot shells. zipfit.com

COMPEED Blister Plasters FROM £5.25 By packing a tiny box of these into your suitcase — they are widely available from pharmacists such as Boots — you can save yourself hours of discomfort. If you get a blister, these plasters effectively form a second skin and will last up to a week. The hydrocolloid gel dressing adheres to the skin to support the natural moisture balance and speed up the healing process, while cushioning the wound. They are particularly vital to pack if you are going ski-touring. For a seriously low-tech solution, pack a roll of Duct tape (£4.50 from gaffatape. com). Known in Finland as Jesus tape, thanks to its miraculous capabilities, it’s a tried and tested way of preventing blisters. If you tape up your feet in areas prone to blisters — heels, toes, ankles — before skiing, the chances are that you will never get one. compeed.co.uk

SOLE Insulated Footbeds

£ 45

One option for skiers who are getting cold feet are Sole’s insulated footbeds. The Canadian foot specialist has joined forces with 3M Thinsulate to create mouldable footbeds with Softec cushioning and an insulating layer to combine orthopaedic support with warmth. If you’re uncertain about investing in a custom liner, try this first. You mould them at home by warming them in the oven before inserting them into your boots. The footbeds take the shape of your feet as they cool, giving you a customised fit, with equalised pressure distribution that supports your arches and cushions your heels. yoursole.co.uk

HIT OR MISS? power MONKEY explorer 2

Sidas Pro Heat Socks & Pro S Battery £199 Virtually every skier suffers from cold feet at some point.

From cashmere socks to boot warmers, there’s now an extensive range of boot warming devices available to the cold-toed skier, but the newest option is heated socks. Made by foot specialist Sidas, Pro Heat Socks are warmed by a rechargeable lithiumion battery, which is attached to the sock cuff. The sock itself features cushioning at the shins, toes, instep, heel and Achilles tendon, and is fashioned from wicking fabric containing metallic fibres, which transfer heat from the battery to the sole of the forefoot. There are three heating levels, which are easily adjusted at the touch of a button. sidassport.com

Shin Shields

£16.99

Known to racers as ‘shin bang’, the pain caused by ski boots pressing on your lower leg can be excruciating.

Happily for shin splint sufferers, a young British company, Shin Shields, has developed ergonomical, super-thin pads from patented cushioning material to absorb the impact and prevent bruising. The pads have been developed to fit the contours of the leg and are 3mm thick at the centre to protect your shin, tapering to just 1mm at the edges, ensuring the boot’s performance is unaffected. You wear them against your skin so that the smooth surface reduces rub while the outer layer creates friction against your sock, keeping it in place. The design means no boot customisation is required before use. We highly recommend them for people hiring ski boots, as they can make a world of difference and are cheap and easy to pack. shinshields.com

Ski+board

February/March 2015

skiclub.co.uk

£79

Camera and mobile phone batteries last half as long as usual in cold climes, with phones particularly prone to dying, especially if you’re getting them out regularly, as the slim case of a phone offers little insulation. One tip is to keep your camera or phone close to your body — in a plastic bag if you want to avoid perspiration getting to it. A good, thick case also helps, and will protect your phone if you fall. But if that isn’t enough, there are various devices that let you charge on the go.

The PowerMonkey Explorer 2 is one of Powertraveller’s large range of portable battery chargers. Measuring 87mm long and 45mm in diameter, it fits in your pocket, holds enough power to charge an iPhone three times over and can itself be recharged back at the chalet.

The firm also makes the heavier duty PowerGorilla and various solar panel rechargers too. It’s worth noting that if you’ve used your phone in the cold, or dropped in the snow, warming it gradually is key.

Too much heat risks damaging its internal workings. powertraveller.com

Ski Tracks app £0.69

It sounds cool, we’ll admit — an app that maps and analyses your skiing in terms of total runs, distance covered, vertical drop and top speed, then lets you share the data on social media sites such as Facebook. The problem, however, is the top speed function.

This encourages some users, against the company’s warnings, to ski faster than is safe in a desperate attempt to clock top speeds. The irony is that these are often hugely inaccurate anyway. GPS devices calculate speed based on how far they have moved since the last measurement.

This process is significantly slower in mountainous terrain, and results in your phone often suggesting you’ve travelled much faster than you have, with many recreational skiers claiming race-type speeds.

Our verdict: Ski Tracks is fun and informative, but don’t get sucked into the dangerous trap of going too fast in an attempt to beat your mate’s speed. Both your figures are probably wrong anyway. itunes.com

79

Ski technology

LET IT SHINE...

Most of us like to come back from the mountains with a healthy holiday glow, but at what price does that tan come? With the sun more powerful at high altitude, and greatly intensified by harsh reflections off the snow, is it enough to settle for ordinary sunscreen at the chemist, or should we fork out on expensive creams that promise to offer something more?

80

It’s easy to forget to apply sun cream while skiing, especially when it’s cold and you don’t notice you’re burning. However, you’re more prone to sunburn when you’re skiing than when you’re doing many other sports. The higher altitude means you get less protection from the earth’s atmosphere, in addition to which the reflective power of snow significantly increases ultraviolet radiation — by up to 80 per cent, according to the World Health Organisation.

The result? Without effective sunscreen, winter sports enthusiasts can put themselves at a significantly higher risk of skin damage or even skin cancer. There are more than 100,000 cases of nonmelanoma skin cancer diagnosed in the UK each year.

Sunscreens are big business for the cosmetics industry, with manufacturers continually looking to develop new and more effective protection. In so doing, many manufacturers are using nanotechnology in their products. This is essentially manipulation of materials at an incredibly small scale.

Nanotechnology came in about ten years ago and now virtually all major cosmetic brands, including Avon, Soltan, L’Oréal, Nivea, The Body Shop and Unilever, rely on such technology, transforming materials such as zinc oxide and titanium dioxide to make particles a few millionths of a millimetre wide. This makes them transparent rather than white, as in the past, when these compounds gave users the unflattering white-out look once common in the Alps.

When buying sunscreen, there are important things to look out for. It must be ‘broad spectrum’, offering protection against both lower energy UVA rays, responsible for ageing, as well as higher energy UVB rays, responsible for burning.

The SPF (sun protection factor) is the measure of the product’s ability to block or absorb UVB rays.

Despite the fact that UVA rays have recently been shown to contribute to skin cancer, they don’t cause sunburn, so they don’t feature in the SPF calculation at all, although you may see products carry a rating of its effectiveness against UVA measured in stars out of five. The way SPF is calculated is that a lotion

which allows you to spend 40 minutes in the sun rather than the usual 20 before burning has an SPF of 2, for example. Due to the intensity of the sun’s rays at altitude and its reflection on the snow, an SPF of at least 20 is recommended by skincare experts, and many advise going for the maximum factor 50.

Ensure you apply enough sunscreen — at least a teaspoon-full for your face alone. Manufacturers calculate the SPF of their products by testing them under conditions in which very generous amounts are applied. And don’t ignore calls to apply your sunscreen 15 to 20 minutes before heading outside.

If you apply it in direct sunlight, sunscreen can evaporate before it bonds with the skin.

Do more expensive lotions and sprays offer better protection from the sun’s powerful rays? Dr Veronique Bataille, consultant dermatologist at the Princess Grace Hospital in London, told Good Health magazine: “More expensive suncreams may smell nice and feel less greasy, but in terms of efficacy, deep down all these products are very good and you’re not putting your health at risk by choosing cheaper products.”

While buying cheap shouldn’t put you at greater risk, there’s certainly an argument for opting for a sunscreen that won’t leave you shining on the slopes.

Putting decades of expertise and local knowledge to use, Swiss firm Ultrasun has developed a range of products that are free of perfume, oil and emulsifiers and require application just once a day. Ultrasun’s SPF50 face cream (£24) is ideal for spring, when longer, sunnier days greatly increase the risk of sun damage. It offers long-lasting protection, as well as an anti-ageing enzyme Ectoin and hydrating liposome formula, helping avoid that leathery mountaineer look.

Danish brand Riemann P20 (SPF50, £24.99 at Boots), which was launched in the 1970s, pioneered daily application, high-factor sunscreen and remains a favourite with many athletes and skincare specialists. It is non-greasy, fragrancefree, highly water-resistant and its products promise — and in our experience deliver — ten hours of protection from UVA and UVB. Officially the jury is out on once-a-day sunscreen, so it’s probably best to top-up at lunchtime.

As already noted, we shouldn’t shy away from less fancy products. Soltan by Boots (SPF50, £11) offers all the protection of more expensive brands at affordable prices. Sunscreen is a vital ski accessory as cancer continues to claim lives whatever your age, with more than 900 people aged 15 to 34 diagnosed with melanoma in the UK each year, making skin cancer the second most common cancer in this age group.

Taking precautions to prevent skin damage has never been more crucial. So make sure you slap on sunscreen — and plenty of it — before you hit the slopes.

Wondering how much sun you’ll catch? Check the three-day ski weather forecast at skiclub.co.uk/weather. Registered users can access forecasts of up to six days. Ski Club members can get forecasts of up to nine days.

Ski mojo Luara 148x105

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Health&Fitness

Health&Fitness

Health&Fitness

Health&Fitness

power up to ski If you are a member of a gym, but don’t know what equipment to use or drills to do to prepare for skiing, this workout will help. It takes many familiar exercises and shows how to augment them using weights and other equipment. But remember not to exceed your limits. Start with small weights, such as 2kg to 5kg dumbbells, and build up from there.

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1. THE SPLIT SQUAT (OR LUNGE) The weights used to assist these split squat can be hand-held dumbbells, as shown here, a Smith machine (a guided squat rack) or free weight bar-bell placed on your shoulders.

Now A. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart.

B. Put one foot forward, flat on the ground, letting your other heel rise off the ground. C. Lower yourself straight down in a controlled manner, ensuring your weight is shared equally between legs, then steadily rise again. Repeat ten times per leg and do three sets.

1.

A.

B.

C.

You’re doing it wrong if your spine curves forward, or you let your front knee fold beyond 90 degrees (photo ‘C’ shows a point slightly beyond the absolute maximum) as this puts too much pressure on the knee.

Myth busters

4

A long, hot soak in a bath will help your legs recover

Craig McLean The chiropractor and fitness expert has been in the ski industry for 15 years, working with ex-Olympians Konrad Bartelski and Graham Bell, and consulting for the Warren Smith Ski Academy.

2. The Step up This exercise, with the addition of weights, really builds strength for your skiing action. Use either hand-held dumbbells or, if you’re feeling strong, a 20kg bar on your shoulders.

A. Start by lifting one leg on to a bench, low stool or high step. Ideally, your knee should be at a 90 to 120 degree angle, but try different heights of step to find what is right for you. B. Lift off the back leg. C. Bring it up to join the other one on the step. Then return it in a controlled manner. Repeat this movement for each leg ten times (alternating legs if desired) and do three sets.

2.

A.

B.

C.

You’re doing it wrong if your knee is so bent it makes an angle of less than 90 degrees, in which case find a lower step.

If, after a hard day’s skiing, you dream of nothing more than slipping off those heavy ski boots and running an extra hot bath to soothe your aching feet, tender calves and painful thighs, then look away now, because what I’m going to say is only going to upset you.

There are two main reasons why a hot bath at the end of a day is a bad idea. First, it promotes the post-exercise inflammatory process common in legs and joints. Second, it promotes further dehydration, after all that exercise at altitude (and possibly drinking too much).

Let’s talk inflammation first. Any exercise results in the tiny fibres in your muscles being ripped apart and repaired in

Health&Fitness

3.

Health&Fitness

3.

A.

A.

B.

Health&Fitness

B.

Health&Fitness

C.

3. THE LEG PRESS MACHINE The leg press is a great way to strengthen those skiing muscles (especially the gluteal, thigh and quad muscles). If you are not familiar with this machine seek the assistance of gym staff.

A. Start with very little weight on it and get used to the ‘press’ action. B. Straighten your legs fully, and C. Allow the knees to bend to about 90 degrees. Once confident in this action you can start to add weight, aiming to get up to and beyond your own body weight. This can be done as three sets of ten repetitions or, to mix it up, use just one leg and a much lighter weight.

4. Plyometrics or ‘Jump Training’ For this drill, set up two platforms or ‘plyoboxes’ — they need to be sturdy.

Their height is important.

Start low until you get used to the action and build up strength. A. Assume the correct ‘skiing posture’. B. Jump on to the box on one side, trying not to swing your arms too much — use your legs only. C. Stay strong on landing. Then return to the ground and the start position, ready to jump in the other direction.

For variety, jumps can also be done facing the box.

Try to do three sets of ten repetitions.

5. the squat

4.

A.

As with the split squat, the weights used to assist the squat can be handheld dumbbells, a Smith machine, or free weight bar-bell on the shoulders.

A. Start in a neutral posture with your feet shoulder width apart. B. Simply bend your knees, keeping your head and lower back strong. C. Be sure to keep your lower spine in a neutral position.

B.

5.

A.

B.

C.

C.

You’re doing it wrong if you let your body collapse forward, possibly in an attempt to bend your knees too far, or your spine is allowed to bend or curve forward, out of the neutral position.

You’re doing it wrong if you swing your arms too much. Here I am swinging them backwards. Also don’t collapse your body, or let your knees come together — hold them strong.

a process that creates bigger and stronger muscles in the long term. But in the short term, this process creates an inflammatory response, with increased blood flow to the area bringing pain-producing substances.

Guess what? A hot bath promotes this, drawing yet more blood to the area, creating further inflammation and causing an increase in the swelling of muscles and joints in the legs and lower back. Over a Ski+board

You’re doing it wrong if you let your knees and hips compress beyond 90 degrees. This places far too much stress on those joints.

february/march 2015

week’s skiing this may lead your legs to ache more and feel tired.

As to dehydration, a hot bath is the perfect recipe for concentrating all those inflammatory toxins in the system to give you a full body hangover. The reason it feels so good is that it helps the brain block the transmission of pain signals.

So now for the bit you’re really going to hate. At the end of the day have an skiclub.co.uk

ice bath. Okay, so I lost you there. At the very least, if you want to use the hotel spa, jump in the sauna briefly then use the plunge pool. If even that’s too painful, use bags of ice over painful areas of your thighs, legs, knees, feet or lower back.

You see? I said you wouldn’t like it…

Get expert advice from a surgeon, as well as chiropractor and fitness expert Craig McLean, at skiclub.co.uk/asktheexpert

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Health&Fitness

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Health&Fitness

Me and My injury Snowsports fans are far less likely to injure themselves than even they believe, with most boarders overestimating their chance of an accident by a factor of more than four.

However, nasty accidents still happen, as Lauren Lidford can recount only too easily.

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Lauren says: It was a sunny morning in Serre Chevalier, France, last March. I’m 31 and had been at the gym and doing yoga in preparation for our annual mates trip, so I felt ready to take on the world. It was the first day of our holiday and, looking down from the chairlift, I saw the T-11 boarder cross track and remember thinking how smooth it looked.

I wanted to extend my comfort T-12 vertebra zone, so I let my friend Chris take the lead. I soon found myself gaining on him, at which point he took a little tumble, so I went ahead as he got up.

T-13 It felt good. I was landing the kickers well and was on the final stretch when I saw something appear from my blind side. It was Chris. I ride T-14 goofy and he rides regular, so Chris and I were back-to-back and were going very fast.

It all happened very quickly. Chris and I knocked boards and found ourselves tangled, almost hugging. I remember using all my strength to push him away — it was the only way we could slow down. As I pushed, the heel edge of my board dug into the snow and I hit the ground.

I instantly knew something was wrong because the vision in my right eye was blurry. I was winded and in the midst of a panic attack felt a hot, intense pain ripple through my spine. I knew it was bad, so the first thing I did was wiggle my toes. I had feeling in them. I turned — and screamed in pain. I should have stayed still, but I thought I was just concussed so I got up and Chris helped me walk away.

My friend Alan, who didn’t want to race, met us and recognised this was serious. I needed to stop saying “I’m fine”. Mountain rescue appeared out of nowhere, and I was taken in the blood wagon to the gondola.

My vision cleared in the ambulance on the way to see the doctor in Chantemerle, but the next few hours were excruciating. I was alone, as Chris and Alan had to board down, and I struggled in pigeon French. I was very frightened. Something wasn’t right and they wouldn’t tell me what. I was transferred to the hospital in Briançon, where doctors and nurses were waiting. I was given painkillers, but they didn’t help, and had more X-rays. Finally a surgeon confirmed I had broken my back. The shock of the news, the pain, thoughts of my family hundreds of miles away were all too much. For once I was quiet. I was given morphine and could finally start to take in what I had been told.

I learnt that as I fell, I landed on my head, arching my back, which caused a whiplash effect to travel through my

spine, leading to a compression break. My T12 vertebra had compacted on itself. But it could have been so much worse.

If that vertebra had been knocked backwards two millimetres I could have needed a wheelchair for life.

I lay completely still and straight. On my second day I was measured by the nurse for a back brace. The next day a specialist fitted it and I could get up and walk about, though I had to stay another night for monitoring. The pain was still intense, so I was given painkillers every six hours. I’d often wake up screaming, thinking I was paralysed because the painkillers had worn off, and reassured myself by wiggling my toes. I can see how people become addicted to painkillers. Once the pain takes hold of your body, you will do anything to make it go away.

I was fully covered by my insurer, though everything had to be paid in cash until I could claim. Luckily, Alan came prepared to pay the bill. My Ehic card covered the medical fees, but the bill still totalled £1,400.

After I was released, I stayed in France for three days, but couldn’t do much, so Alan stayed with me watching DVDs. Another friend, Ben, was up with me in the night when I was in pain and comforted me when I was upset. I am very grateful to Ben, Alan and Chris, who was obviously extremely upset by the accident. We flew home together and I was referred by our local walk-in GP centre straight to the accident and emergency department in Colchester Hospital.

I didn’t find the fracture clinic there helpful, so I visited my osteopath Edward Jones, who was treating me for a shoulder niggle. He told me what to expect during recovery and when I could start rehabilitation and yoga. For 12 weeks, I had to wear a back brace 24 hours a day. I went back to work parttime in June and could get back to the gym in July.

My spine is now fully healed, and I am ready to strap my board on again. I am heading to Whistler in Canada this winter and, although I am nervous, I will ride with my very first snowboard instructor, so I am excited. This freak accident has let me see how life can change in an instant — but also that you are sometimes given second chances.

THE osteopath Edward Jones is clinical director of The Point Clinic, Colchester.

Jones says: Lauren suffered a vertebral wedge fracture and a rib fracture. But during recovery, the biggest problem was the soft tissue damage at the base of her spine. The impact strained and sprained the muscles and ligaments that distribute force through her hips and lower extremities.

Careful manipulation and rehabilitation exercises allowed Lauren to make a full recovery over six months. Without her hard work and her employer’s co-operation it would have taken longer. Ongoing strength and conditioning work has allowed her to exceed her pre-injury fitness levels. With continued adherence to her treatment plan, I don’t anticipate that Lauren will suffer any long-term problems.

Members’ benefit

When you’re heading off to the mountains, it’s important to know that you’ve got the cover you need. By choosing Ski Club travel insurance you’ll be sure you’re getting a policy designed by knowledgeable snowsports experts. All of our policies cover on and off-piste skiing and snowboarding (with or without a guide), plus a variety of other winter and summer sports activities – so whatever your travel plans this year, get covered with Ski Club insurance.

Policies include: + Single or Annual Multi-Trip + Skiing and snowboarding off-piste without a guide + Individual and family policies available

IMPORTANT INFORMATION + Age limits and loadings apply + Certain hazardous activities may require a supplement + Insurance is subject to completion of a medical declaration + Not available to residents outside the UK, Channel Islands or the Republic of Ireland SKI CLUB INSURANCE IS ARRANGED

BY PERKINS SLADE LTD Information about our providers: Ski Club travel insurance is arranged by Perkins Slade Ltd and issued and fulfi lled by P J Hayman & Company Ltd. Ski Club of Great Britain Ltd is an Introducer Appointed Representative of Perkins Slade Ltd, Tricorn House, 51-53 Hagley Road, Birmingham, B16 8TP which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Perkins Slade Ltd Financial Services register number is 302886. P J Hayman & Company Limited, Stansted House, Rowlands Castle, Hampshire, PO9 6DX are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Their Financial Services register number is 497103. Sections 1-13 of Ski Club travel insurance is underwritten by AGA International SA and is administered in the UK by Allianz Global Assistance.

Allianz Global Assistance is a trading name of Mondial Assistance (UK) Limited, Registered in England No 1710361 Registered Offi ce 102 George Street, Croydon CR9 6HD. Mondial Assistance (uK) Limited are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. AGA International SA is authorised by Autorité

GET THE COVER YOU NEED THIS YEAR 5% DISCOUNT when you buy online Visit skiclubinsurance.co.uk

or call 0845 601 9422

+ Quick online medical screening for pre-existing medical conditions + Covers summer activities as well as winter sports

de Contrôle Prudentiel et Résolution in France and authorised and subject to limited regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority. Details about the extent of our authorisation and regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority are available from us on request. Allianz Global Assistance acts as an agent for AGA International SA for the receipt of customer money, settling claims and handling premium refunds. P J Hayman & Company Limited acts as an agent for AGA International SA for the receipt of customer money and handling premium refunds. Section 14 of Ski Club travel insurance is underwritten by Lloyds Syndicates and is administered

by International Passenger Protection Limited, IPP House, 22-26 Station Road, West Wickham, Kent BR4 0PR. International Passenger Protection Limited and Lloyds Syndicates are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. International Passenger Protection Limited will act as agent for Lloyds Syndicates for the receipt of customer money and settling claims.

On behalf of International Passenger Protection Limited, Allianz Global Assistance and AGA International SA and P J Hayman & Company Limited will act as agent for the receipt of customer money and handling premium refunds.

You can check this on the FCA’s Register by visiting the FCA’s website www.fca. org.uk or by contacting the FCA on 0845 606 1234. Policy details correct at time of going to press. Rates valid until 31 July 2015.

SKI INS/JAN 15 SBGET

Technique:POLES

Technique:POLES

Technique:POLES

Technique:POLES

What are poles for?

If you only use your sticks to scrape snow off your boots and help you through flat bits, you are missing a chance to transform your skiing, says Mark Jones.

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PHOTO: Rupert Tildesley

After contact keep both arms up and forward

There are some skills that are clear landmarks in learning to ski — your first parallel turn, linking some turns in powder, your first black run. However, making your first pole plant probably doesn’t feature high on the list. Yet good pole planting is a skill that can make a huge difference to your skiing.

Once you get it right, it will make an immediate, powerful change to your skiing. Moving from turn to turn will be easier, your control on steeper terrain will be much stronger — in fact it ought to be a eureka moment. Yet, for most skiers, pole plants are off the radar and a skill that too often gets overlooked.

In fact, good pole planting is a surprisingly tricky skill to learn. If you don’t get the timing right, it can seem more of a hindrance than a help, which can be deeply frustrating. But getting it right is definitely worth the battle, so here’s where to start.

THE EQUIPMENT First, ask yourself whether your poles are the right length. I see many skiers lumbered with wrong-sized poles, and this can make a huge difference to the effectiveness of their pole plants, as well as their ability to stay in balance.

Bring the new pole forward, ready for contact

rotational forces, or where you need the support to help with balance. Good examples of this are short turns on steep slopes, skiing moguls and turning off-piste.

WHY POLE PLANT? To check that you have the right sized pole, turn it upside down and place it vertically on solid ground. If you hold the pole directly underneath the basket your elbow should be a right angle.

WHEN TO POLE PLANT Pole planting really helps when you’re making turns that have strong

If you break down the physics of what is going on during the pole plant it is clear it controls rotational forces. So as you move through the end of the turn there is a certain amount of momentum driving you through the turn.

As soon as the tip of the pole makes contact with the ground it puts torque through your body and makes it much easier to switch into the new direction.

Technique:POLES

Technique:POLES

Technique:POLES

Make contact and use the pole for support as you make the edge change

Technique:POLES

Keep your hands up and forward, ready for action

Start bringing the pole forward, use more wrist than elbow Aim for the right spot to make contact

This is why it is particularly useful in short turns on steep terrain where the movements and direction are changing rapidly. It also helps with your balance, anticipation and timing.

HOW TO POLE PLANT First of all you have to make sure you have good arm carriage. This means that when you’re skiing you keep your hands up and forward and ready to move. If you are used to keeping them relaxed, hanging by your sides, then it will take a fair bit of movement and energy to move them and it will be difficult to get the timing right.

If they are in the right place then you can get started. As you move through the turn, bring your lower hand forward to start swinging the tip of the pole forwards. This means that near the end of the turn the pole is really close to the snow and can make instant contact.

When you stand against the top ski to start the new turn that should be the exact point when you make the pole plant. This is crucial. Get it right and the start of the turn will feel smooth and effortless. Get it wrong, and you will probably feel that you have been waving your arm around for nothing.

There should be a solid contact with Ski+board

february/march 2015

the snow that is maintained in the short time frame as your skis roll over on to the new edges to start the change into the new direction.

It is in this moment, as you move across and start to topple over your skis, that the contact with the snow will give you extra support for balance.

Once you are moving into the new turn the process gets repeated again.

ADAPTING TO THE TERRAIN The terrain that you are skiing, or the type of turn that you are making require adjustments to the pole plant which can make big differences to the quality of the turn.

Short turns on steep slopes: This is the type of turn and terrain shown in the photo sequence above. For this type of skiing you need to reach out with the pole and make contact further below the ski than you normally would.

This really helps in controlling speed at the end of the turn, because reaching

out will keep you balanced over the lower ski.

Fast, long turns on groomed runs: For this type of skiing, the force of the contact is less critical. However, it can still be really helpful for balance.

Try to match the speed of the swing of the pole with the time it takes to travel around the arc. When you make contact, keep it closer to the lower ski than on the steeps and make sure you have a solid platform by standing against the top ski.

Bumps: It’s vital to use the pole plant when skiing moguls. It makes a huge difference to balance, while making it much easier to achieve those quick changes in direction. Use more wrist than elbow to keep arm movement to a minimum. Try to plant the pole just on the lower side of the bump. This will make it easier to keep a constant speed and will stop the reaction from the pole throwing you off balance.

Mark Jones is a director and coach with ICE, a performance training centre and instructor course provider based in Val d’Isère, France.

He is a trainer for the British Association of Snowsport Instructors.

His other ski tips can also be accessed at icesi.org skiclub.co.uk

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Technique:OFF-PISTE

Technique:OFF-PISTE

Technique:OFF-PISTE

Technique:OFF-PISTE

avalanches: the human factoR Avalanche deaths are in general avoidable. But can we protect ourselves from our own worst instincts? In the last of his current series on avoiding hazards off-piste, expert Henry Schniewind looks at the greatest risk of all — us.

PHOTO: B Longo

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If most avalanche accidents are preventable, why is it that so many experienced skiers and snowboarders still get caught out?

In my article in the previous issue of this magazine, I outlined a practical approach to avoiding avalanche danger.

This involved working out where you go, how you go and how well prepared you are.

Essentially, I pointed out that as long as the slopes below you and above you are less than 25 degrees — equivalent to the steepest part of a French red run — there is no avalanche danger. If you are in steeper terrain, you can reduce the risk by keeping a good distance between yourself and other skiers, but staying close to their tracks. You can also minimise the risks by avoiding skiing above terrain traps, such as cliffs, holes and troughs.

And if you are well prepared with a transceiver, shovel and probe and if you know how to use them, you stand a good chance of effecting a rescue. If — that tiny, two-letter word, which can prompt a lifetime of soul-searching.

If we all followed these rules, virtually no one would be killed in avalanches. However, we are no more reasonable in the mountains, than anywhere else we go. We all make basic errors of judgment that leave our friends and colleagues wondering: “What were they thinking?”

Indeed, the vast majority of avalanche and off-piste accidents happen to people who frankly should have known better. They should have seen the clues indicating that what they were doing was a bad, or at least very risky, idea.

That is easy to say in hindsight, so how should we learn to avoid the psychological traps that lead to such errors of judgment, to which we are all vulnerable, especially if we consider ourselves to be intelligent and well educated.

Ian McCammon, a researcher based in Utah, looked at 598 avalanche accidents in the States and concluded that four common ‘heuristics’ — mental shortcuts — led novices and experienced skiers and boarders alike into high-risk avalanche terrain, even when obvious hazards were present.

The first is commitment, or rather over-commitment, to a goal. Groups in this category were actively pursuing a goal because of timing issues, such as approaching darkness, or other constraints, which they gave precedence.

Familiarity with the terrain was another shortcut that again saved skiers going through the time-consuming process of assessing the risk, on the grounds that if they had done it several times before it must be okay.

Scarcity was the third factor, with McCammon noting how “powder fever would lead skiers to throw caution to the wind” in the knowledge that the backcountry would remain untracked only for a limited amount of time.

The fourth factor was social proof. McCammon cites research suggesting that seeing that other people had done a run, with its very limited value in reducing risk, is probably

Powder fever led skiers to throw caution to the wind in the knowledge that the backcountry would remain untracked only for a limited time the greatest danger. He notes that of the 598 cases, which include snowmobile accidents: “In 204 cases, the slope that avalanched either had tracks on it, or there were tracks nearby. Only 94 cases were reported where there were no tracks on the slope or nearby.”

McCammon says that even though people are capable of making decisions in a thorough and methodical way, most of the time they don’t, opting instead for the mental shortcut.

So assuming I have convinced you of the benefits of going through a checklist of avalanche dangers, perhaps I should add one final question to ask yourself at the end of list.

It is: “Am I trying to find a way of ignoring all of the above to tell myself that everything will be just fine?”

You can find out more about dealing with avalanche danger on the henrysavalanchetalk.com website and at skiclub.co.uk/safety

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Why there? Plenty of easy skiing, despite altitude

Resort Guide:Snowsure REsorts

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Snowsure

Resorts

In the fourth of our series of recommendations, we look at resorts that promise good snow, as well as varied skiing and an entertaining holiday.

Some of the upper slopes of this high-altitude Swiss resort are ingeniously superimposed on a living and very conspicuous glacier, with some magnificent offlimits crevasse-dotted vistas between Felskinn and Längfluh that can be admired from the pistes. The ski area — ringed by some of Switzerland’s highest peaks — reaches its peak at Allalin, at 3,500m (11,480ft) where there’s the world’s highest revolving restaurant.

This is reached by a fast funicular which bores its way through the rocks. There’s plenty of easy skiing here, as well as more challenging terrain, and the village itself is car-free and suitably rustic. Intermediate skiers should head for the cruisy reds below Allalin.

Can’t ski, won’t ski: There’s plenty to do here for non-skiers, including walking, snowshoeing, tobogganing, and — if you’re up for it — paragliding.

The leisure centre has a pool. AW √√ A new youth hostel makes it more affordable ×× Fewer pistes for expert skiers than nearby Zermatt saas-fee.ch

What we think…

Snow Lifts Lack of queues Restaurants Mountain food Charisma Ski schools Low budget Off-piste

60% 20%

20%

How much?

Lift pass £220 Ski hire £140 Transfer 135mins

Altitude 1,800m-3,500m 5,910ft-11,480ft

Pistes SAAS-FEE Lifts 21 Piste 100km/ 62miles

When the season gets off to a slow start, as this winter did, skiers will often seek to book themselves into the highest resorts to be sure of snow — but there are other factors to consider too.

Although Austria’s resorts are generally lower than French and Swiss ones, the country has invested more in snow making, as has SouthTirol in the Dolomites and Andorra in the Pyrenees.

Microclimates also have a large part to play in determining snowfall.

And the lure of glaciers and high altitudes should not lead skiers to forget about the overall charm and accessibility of a resort.

Writers: Rosie Barcroft, Ben Clatworthy, Colin Nicholson, Arnie Wilson Pistes Our icons show how resorts grade pistes according to difficulty, showing what percentage are black, red, blue or green (but Austrian, Swiss 15% 30% 33% 22% and some Italian areas don’t have green runs).

Ski hire We put the list price of six days’ ski-only hire at Skiset, but Ski Club members can get up to 50 per cent off if they book online.

Lift pass Prices are for a six-day adult pass during high season.

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN Why there? Lots of history, a glacier and easy to reach by train

Germany’s foremost ski resort is a town with a past. Adolf Hitler held the Winter Olympics here in 1936, while US and British servicemen frequented it during the Cold War. A rack railway carries you straight to Germany’s highest peak, the Zugspitze. But while there are now 22km (14 miles) of pistes and nine lifts on the glacier, open until May, the Olympic events took place in the ‘Classic’ area, a quaint network of runs with 37km of mostly intermediate pistes and 13 lifts through charming woods. The historic town centre has bierkellers with bottom-slapping dancers in lederhosen, and you can still see the art deco stadiums of the Games. CN √√ Direct trains from Munich airport ×× The two ski areas are not linked gapa.de

What we think…

Snow Lifts Lack of queues Restaurants Mountain food Charisma Ski schools Low budget Off-piste

45%

30%

25%

How much?

Lift pass £148 Ski hire £65 Transfer 90mins

PHOTO: Cristof Sonderegger

Zermatt

What we think…

Snow Lifts Lack of queues Restaurants Mountain food Charisma Ski schools Low budget Off-piste

Altitude 1,620m-3,820m 5,310ft-12,530ft

Pistes zermattcervinia Lifts 54 Piste 360km/ 225miles

61% 18

%

21%

How much?

Lift pass £280 Ski hire £105 Transfer 150mins

Ski+board

The resort: With the largest and highest summer ski area in Europe — 22km (15 miles) of pistes and eight lifts — Zermatt’s snowsure credentials are strong. But its greatest boast is that its highest slopes are not in one cluster.

Notable high spots among the area’s impressive 200km of slopes (mainly above the tree-line) include skiing from Rothorn (3,100m), Stockhorn (3,405m), and Trockener Steg (2,950m). Not only does Zermatt have high skiing, it also accesses the highest slopes of the neighbouring Italian resort of Cervinia, which reach 3,480m.

There are three main areas on the Zermatt side of the mountain alone and it makes sense to head in a different direction each day. The sunniest slopes are accessed by the Sunnegga lifts — furthest from the Matterhorn, but with wonderful views of it — which take you to a vast expanse of skiing from Blauherd and Rothorn across to Rote Nase and Stockhorn.

Another route to the slopes — unmissable, even for non-skiers — is the railway which takes passengers all the way up to the Gornergrat, where there’s a big hotel, complete with restaurant, shops and an observatory. The view across the Gorner glacier is outstanding, and takes in the major peaks of Monte Rosa, Lyskamm, Breithorn, Klein Matterhorn, and the Matterhorn itself. Altogether the panorama includes more than 20 peaks over 4,000m.

From the Gornergrat there’s an assortment of mainly gentle blue runs down to Riffelberg, where the hotel was the location for some of the most powerful scenes in the 1969 film version of DH Lawrence’s Women in Love.

The three-stage Matterhorn Express gondola offers access to Schwarzsee, the third sector. The cabin first stops at Furi — where it’s possible to take another lift to go to Gornergrat — before continuing to Schwarzsee

February/March 2015

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and finally up to Trockener Steg. This is the gateway to the glacier slopes, where there are plenty of gentle reds and some super easy blue slopes, and also to Klein Matterhorn — from where you can ski down to Cervinia.

Below Trockener Steg is the Schwarzsee area. This is by far the smallest of the three sectors, but has some interesting red runs, most notably the Weisse Perle, which makes for a scenic end of the day run, and means you avoid the often crowded black run from Furgg to Furi. And it has some of Zermatt’s famous ‘itineraries’, which allow you to go off-piste without a guide.

Pros and cons: Many people choose to ski over to Italy for lunch, where you can eat well for half the price of Switzerland. But, be warned, missing the last lift back to Zermatt leaves you facing a six-hour taxi ride home.

Suddenly lunch isn’t so cheap after all…

Though pricey, the mountain restaurants are one of Zermatt’s highlights. There are over 50, the most notable of which is Zum See at Furi.

Can’t ski, won’t ski… When the British climber Edward Whymper made his historic but disastrous first ascent of the Matterhorn 150 years ago, Zermatt was a tiny mountain village. These days Zermatt has more things to do off the slopes than most resorts. There’s a cinema, a fascinating museum, a graveyard with the names of many great mountaineers (sounds morbid, but it’s very absorbing), and excellent, but expensive, retail therapy. A ride up to the Klein Matterhorn in the cable car is a must, but take it easy at the top as the air at 3,820m is noticeably thinner. And that trip to the Gornergrat is a must too. AW zermatt.ch

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Resort Guide:Snowsure REsorts

Why there? With winter skiing until early May, Zermatt has slopes as high as 3,820m (12,530ft) at the top of Europe’s highest cable car, and offers access to the Italian resort of Cervinia as part of a vast network of shared slopes.

What we think…

Snow Lifts Lack of queues Restaurants Mountain food Charisma Ski schools Low budget Off-piste

Altitude

Val d’isère Why there? Traditional village in a huge area with great off-piste Together, Val d’Isère and its neighbour Tignes form the world–famous ski area of l’Espace Killy. You can’t go far wrong in your quest for snow here. Val d’Isère — the more traditional of the two — has high-altitude skiing on the Pissaillas glacier, with wonderfully wide-open slopes. Tignes has the Grande Motte glacier.

Val d’Isère is home to some of the best liftserved off-piste in the world, as well as some equally challenging piste skiing.

The Face de Bellevarde black run is the resort’s premier attraction. Used in the 1992

What we think…

Snow Lifts Lack of queues Restaurants Mountain food Charisma Ski schools Low budget Off-piste

Altitude 1,380m-2,870m 4,530ft-9,415ft

Pistes ISCHGL Lifts 41 Piste 238km/ 148miles

65%

19%

16%

Lift pass £160 Ski hire £140 Transfer 70mins

Olympics, it is steep, icy and often mogulled from top to bottom. Intermediates will find the red pistes testing enough, and should be wary of the steep and icy runs home to the resort.

Can’t ski, won’t ski... There’s a sports centre with two pools, as well as an ice rink, plus plenty of shopping opportunities. AW

Pistes espace killy Lifts 85 Piste 300km/ 186miles

√√ Extensive piste and off-piste skiing and access to two glaciers ×× Slopes can be exceptionally busy during school holidays valdisere.com

43% 14%

26% 17%

Lift pass £200 Ski hire £105 Transfer 160mins

Ischgl Why there? High skiing meets hip party town It is said that one can hear Ischgl before it comes into sight when the après-ski party is in full swing. But it’s not all about nightlife: there’s 238km (148 miles) of mainly red and black pistes, which span the Swiss border.

And the slopes are high too — reaching up to 2,870m (9,415ft) — which all but guarantees good snow until the end of the season.

This winter saw the opening of the €40 million Pardatschgratbahn gondola, which whisks skiers from the village to the Pardatschgrat peak at 2,624m. This follows the opening of the Piz Val Gronda cable car

last season, giving access to 100 hectares (250 acres) of freeride terrain, previously only accessible to ski tourers. Intermediates will love the immaculately groomed red runs that wind their way down the mountain.

Can’t ski, won’t ski... In the shade during the day, Ischgl really is a skiers’ village, but off the slopes there are other activities, from walking trails to a 7km floodlit sledging run. BC √√ Great skiing and lively nightlife, but… ×× … eschew if après isn’t your scene ischgl.com PHOTO: Andre Schönherr

Resort Guide:Snowsure REsorts

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1,500m-3,460m 4,920ft-11,350ft

Why there? Super-high altitude ski area newly extended

Snow Lifts Lack of queues Restaurants Mountain food Charisma Ski schools Low budget Off-piste

It’s well known that Colorado gets some of the best snow in the American Rockies, and with many of the highest slopes in the US — up to 3,690m (12,100ft) — the picturesque old gold-mining town of ‘Breck’ is a pretty safe bet for snow. The resort’s five ski peaks are surrounded by a host of Colorado’s famous “fourteeners” — mountains in excess of 14,000ft — which increases the chance of fresh powder. And with its newly opened Peak 6, which includes some excellent ‘hike-to’ terrain, it’s easy to see why Breckenridge remains the American resort of choice for so many British skiers. AW

Altitude 2,960m-3,690m 9,700ft-12,100ft

Pistes breckenridge Lifts 23 Piste 155km/ 96miles

√√ Even lowest slopes are snowsure ×× Altitude sickness can be a problem 45%

breckenridge.com

29

%

26%

How much?

PHOTO: Nick Pease

Lift pass £430 Ski hire £160 Transfer 90mins

What we think…

Snow Lifts Lack of queues Restaurants Mountain food Charisma Ski schools Low budget Off-piste

20

%

31%

49%

How much?

Lift pass £180 Ski hire £125 Transfer 60mins

Sölden Why there? Ski from October to May — it’s as snowsure as they come With 150km (93 miles) of pistes, two glaciers, and the ‘Big 3’ mountain peaks all above 3,000m (9,800ft) — Gaislachkogl 3,058m, Tiefenbachkogl 3,309m and Schwarze Schneid 3,370m — the snow reliability is excellent. The resort is ideal for those seeking a late ski break or weekend on the slopes — thanks to its proximity to Innsbruck airport — and doesn’t close until early May. There’s ample terrain suited to intermediate skiers with plenty of mellow blacks and interesting red runs with big vertical descents, while experts can tackle the off-piste — the best is into the Rettenbachtal. BC √√ Glacier skiing guarantees somewhere to ski ×× Lack of extra-curricular activities will leave non-skiers listless soelden.com

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February/March 2015

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Val Thorens Why there? Highest ski resort in Europe, with many north-facing slopes that hold the snow

As with many 1960s-built resorts, Val Thorens isn’t pretty. But things are changing. New developments have to meet stricter design guidelines and use traditional materials. This can be seen especially in the design of Europe’s highest five-star hotel, the Koh-I Nor, which opened last season. Although most runs face north — helping them retain snow well into May — the resort actually faces south, so benefits from the sun. Head for the Three Valleys’ highest point, at 3,420m, by taking the Bouchet chairlift, from where there is some challenging terrain, and also panoramic views of the mountains. The runs to the resort do become particularly crowded during peak weeks — so best to head home early or late.

Can’t ski, won’t ski... For a breath of fresh air try snowshoeing, or head to the Aqua Club Spa with two swimming pools. Nearby St Martin de Belleville — a bus ride away — is pretty. RB √√ Highest point of the huge Three Valleys ski area with 600km of connected slopes ×× The runs to the resort can be very crowded valthorens.com

What we think…

Snow Lifts Lack of queues Restaurants Mountain food Charisma Ski schools Low budget Off-piste

Altitude 1,110m-3,420m 3,640ft-11,220ft

Pistes 3 VALLEYS Lifts 180 Piste 600km/ 375miles

How much?

Lift pass £220 Ski hire £95 Transfer 120mins

35%

9%

40%

16%

How would you rate the resorts you’ve visited? Read details of the hundreds of resorts alongside Ski Club members’ reviews at skiclub.co.uk/skiresorts then post your own review

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Resort Guide:Snowsure REsorts

What we think…

PHOTO: C Cattin

Breckenridge

Photography Masterclass

H w t take better ph t s Ski shots are hard to get right first time, so even professional photographers rely on postproduction editing to add final touches, writes Finn Pomeroy.

94

One of the wonderful things about photography is that we all see pictures differently, so there are no set rules to editing pictures. It’s worth having a play on your computer to see how you might be able to improve your shots.

Advances in technology mean most computers come with image editing software as standard, and apps are available for phones. So now everyone has the ability to tweak photos.

In this article, I pick five useful tools available in all mainstream programs.

Whether you’re using Photoshop, iPhoto, Lightroom, or Instagram on your phone, you should be able to find these functions easily.

top

tip

The best way to learn is by trial and error, so try all the different tools. I still go back to pictures I took years ago and edit them

Finn Pomeroy is a sports and lifestyle photographer, spending his winters in Europe travelling with athletes and working with many ski and snowboard brands. You can see his work at finnpphotography.com

[1] before

[1] after

[1] CROP

This is one of the easiest editing tools to use and one of the most effective.

It could be that you’ve taken the shot of the season, but on closer inspection there’s a piste marker, pylon, or ski instructor in the corner. The simple answer is to crop the object out of the image. Within the crop tool you’ll also find the gradual rotate tool, in case the picture has been taken at an angle. Use it to rotate the image until it is vertical, measuring this against a vertical marker, such as a stationary person or tree, or a horizontal marker, such as the horizon.

[2] before

[2] after

[2] BLACK AND WHITE

Like most photographers, I shoot virtually all my images in colour, but I also know I can convert them to black and white later. You may well find — once home — that switching a few images to monochrome will create strong contrast in your picture. Try it particularly with photos taken on dark, stormy days and landscape shots. You may find the lighting and shadows look incredible.

[3] EXPOSURE

[3] before

[3] after

This can be one of the fundamentals in photography, as it dictates how bright or dark your shot will be. It’s also one of the most likely things to go wrong in the mountains because of the extreme glare of the snow. Setting your camera on auto will help, but even on bluebird days it may struggle. In this case you may have to rely on editing software to work its magic. For shots taken on bright days take the exposure down a tad, while for shots taken on stormier days, bump it up a notch.

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[4] before

[4] after

[4] SHARPEN

Technology has moved at such speed that even phones can now take incredibly sharp images. That said, it’s always possible to enhance your image by increasing the sharpness a little. But be careful, it’s easy to ruin a photo by pushing the sharpness to the maximum. Nudge it up in small increments until you have a clean, crisp image. You will know if you have gone too far if you see harsh, visible lines appearing around objects in the picture.

[5] CONTRAST

[5] before

If there’s one thing you shouldn’t lack in the mountains, it’s contrast. Look around and you’ll see it in abundance — from white peaks set against blue skies, to bright snow on winter trees.

It’s the key component of an image, and nudging it up or down when editing will help the look of a picture. Don’t go over the top or you will lose some of the finer details that make your image unique. If your finished picture looks dark, decrease the contrast a little.

Ski+board

February/March 2015

skiclub.co.uk

top

tip

check the app store as there are some brilliant apps that will allow you to try all the tips on these pages, plus many more.

[5] after

Arnold Lunn, Ski-mountaineer Extraordinary

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By John Collard Hardback £42, paperback £32 Skiers from Alpine nations are often astonished, even incredulous, when they learn that an Englishman was the pioneer, not only of skimountaineering, in which mountain climbers took skis with them to facilitate their descents, but also invented the modern slalom, first held in January 1922.

John Collard’s scholarly tome, which includes some illustrations, tells the story of how Lunn “released the genie of Alpine skiing from its bottle” — drawing on many extracts from the British Ski Year Book, which Lunn edited for half a century.

Not only was Lunn a prime mover in the battle to persuade the Norwegians that downhill racing would eclipse cross-country skiing and ski-jumping, he also successfully promoted speed as a measure of technique over points awarded for style. He wrote: “A man who can get over the ground at a greater speed and with less effort than another and control his skis equally well is better even if the other candidate can do more swings or perform them in neater style.”

Of course, success in his mission came at a price, as the early British flair for downhill skiing was eclipsed by the Alpine nations. As Lunn said ruefully: “Britain invents most of the good games and trains up other people to beat her...”

Arnie Wilson To buy the book send a cheque to John Collard, 38 Hillgate Place, London W8 7ST. The price includes postage and packing.

Powder: The Greatest Ski Runs on the Planet

By Patrick Thorne Published by Quercus Hardback £25 It’s hardly surprising that when he’s not writing about resorts, ‘Snowhunter’ Patrick Thorne — “hunting snow since 1964” — even dreams about them.

Twelve years ago, Ski+board asked: “Who is he, and where did he come from — this man who spends night and day scouring the globe for hitherto unknown ski areas? What strange forces drive him in his quest to put thousands of ski areas — from Algeria to the Antarctic, from Kazakhstan to Kitzbühel — on the map?”

Now Thorne’s splendid 224-page coffee table book provides some insight. Though it includes Kitzbühel’s Streif, Jackson Hole’s Corbet’s Couloir,

the backside of Verbier’s Mont-Fort, and the run from St Anton’s Valluga down to Zürs, it’s by no means all derring-do. There’s the stunning Diavolezza Glacier near St Moritz, the Parsenn to Küblis run in Davos and Mary’s Slide at Australia’s Mount Hotham, all with informative fact files and maps.

Thorne, a genial man living in Inverness, spends much of his time running thesnowhunter.com, a website that is one of the world’s biggest ski resort databases, and he sends weekly ski news bulletins to clients worldwide.

The book is arguably slightly less encyclopedic in its approach. Regarding his selection criteria, Thorne writes: “There is no real definitive list. The book is a selection of some well-known runs, some off-the-beaten-track options and some personal favourites.”

Thorne has skied half of them himself and relies on reports for the others. In reply to the inevitable howls of outrage at his choices, he says: “I expect everyone in Chamonix will feel most of the 50 runs should be there.”

Similarly, Americans will be upset that only half a dozen runs in the US are included when, according to several American ski magazine, 90 per cent of the world’s best runs are in the States.

Arnie Wilson

Books new editions

Captivating images in The Art of Skiing span the years from the 1890s to the 1950s

The Art of Skiing: Vintage posters from the golden age of winter sport

By Jenny de Gex Published by Palazzo Paperback £16.99 In his History of Skiing, written in 1927, Sir Arnold Lunn said: “Skiing is not merely a means of locomotion. It is an art, and a beautiful art.”

How better to define that art than with this compilation of captivating, colourful skiing images, which span 60 years from the 1890s to the 1950s?

Skiing, and posters designed to lure travellers to the Alps and Rockies, were one way of cheering them up Ski+board

February/March 2015

after two world wars, with the Wall Street Crash in between. Quite a few were produced much earlier at about the time the Ski Club of Great Britain was started in 1903.

This paperback version features 150 colour illustrations. Yet the wave of nostalgia this reviewer felt was tinged with a sense of déjà-vu — and not, I hasten to add, because I was around in that period. Heading to my bookshelf I found an almost identical hardback edition, published in 2006.

In response, a spokesperson for the skiclub.co.uk

publisher said: “The new edition allows us to update and correct a few points and to allow enthusiasts who were unable to obtain the book first time out to purchase it in its new finery. It is common practice for a paperback edition to follow a hardback edition of the same book — particularly when the hardback has been successful.”

Well, yes, but not usually eight years later. On the plus side, this paperback edition costs just £16.99 — a saving of £8.01p on the price charged back then...

Arnie Wilson

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In your next issue – online only seven resorts in seven days Roll over Route 66: We go on a road trip through Austria, freeriding in Andorra, plus a host of other features...

regulars Exposure More stunning action shots Technology What’s new in touring gear and accessories 98

Plus The latest news, fashion and resort recommendations

How to read THE Ski+board online ISSUE...

The next issue of Ski+board will be published in March and will be free online for both Ski Club members and non-members at skiclub.co.uk/skiandboard. Alternatively download it free from the Apple Newstand (search for Ski+board magazine).

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