Derailled

Here's a sat photo of the Czech field I was skiing at last weekend. There are actually three fields here, all within spitting distance of each other. I skied the one with the clearing extending to the south east.

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&ie=UTF8 ... 77162&z=14

Apparently they're all open to hiking and biking in summer. With both chairs and T bars. The prospect of riding a T bar uphill on a bike is an interesting one, but it's gotta be easier than be towed uphill in tramping boots.

I also ran the GPS to check my speed. Interestingly skiing speeds are pretty much biking speeds. 30km/h is a sedate downhill cruise, 50km/h is no problem if it's open. I'll need a bigger and steeper field than this one to hit triple figures.

Two more days to add to the tally, both in Germany and an easy train ride from Munich.

Lenggries on saturday.
First time I've ever taken a closed in gondola up to the lifts.
The snow was hard at the start, but softened up as the day went on. Plenty of sun and very warm. The snow got very heavy and we were very broken at the end of the day.
The rental gear was crap. Skis were blunt and mine had a big gouge out the base (found out after that gondola ride), Sean's poles had a detached basket, that was the avalanche probe if we needed one.
They didn't ask our weight or skiing ability, they stuck a caliper across your knee and came up with a patheticly low DIN rating as a result. I wanted DIN 7 and got it, the others got between 3.5 and 5.

I claimed best crash of the day, going from 76km/h (GPS) to zero in 2m. Lump of snow took off one ski, followed by a gracefull fall to the right and high speed barrell roll. Bonus points gained fro doing it within sight of 40 people on the T bar.

Bayerischzell on sunday.
The gear hire in the town at the bottom was fantastic. The skis were sharp, flat and decent quality (K2 Hell Fire). The hire guy was happy to give you what you wanted and the boots for those who needed them were pretty new and in good nick.
The entrance to the field is 10min walk from the hire shop in town (12 minutes from the train). From there you take a single seat chairlift up to the middle of the field. Don't let the dodginess of this chair fool you, the lifts and T bars on the actual field are great. They've got the comfiest, best padded 4 seater I've ever been on.
Snow was good, it was very warm and getting bare in patches, but it was still soft and very grippy to ski on.

I took a rough video skiing down through some trees, I hung my camera around my neck. I'll see if I can upload it later. No-one skis through trees here so it was 1m of very heavy snow that was pretty hard to ski. No flow but it had to be done.

I'm green. A little bit of me wants Winter to hurry up

Weather months I like -

December - March - Yes!
April - July - Boo, boring months.
August - October - Yes!

Will you have enough "points" to go outside by then?

I will happily risk divorce for powder

Now in Zell Am See.
AUSTRIA.

Now you're getting annoying.

About time you got your priority's in order!

It's funny, europeans don't seem to seek out powder the same way kiwis do. Large parts of the fields are untouched where in NZ they'd be tracked out.
Like the small jump I took off a cat-track to find the snow I landed in had never been skiied on. So on landing I sunk in about a foot into the heavy snow, my skis stayed put while I rolled forwards.

But I skiied out of it, so technically it's not a crash, right?

That's okay, the snow here is pretty much done-for. It's been due to snow for two days and hasn't, the fields need more. You can still ski down below the access gondola, but it's purely man-made. The hills either side are bare.

Quit Austria a couple of days ago, headed to Serre Chevalier in the French Alps.

Yesterday was the best day skiing I've ever had. Crystal clear blue sky, squeaky dry snow and more terrain than I could ever conquer.
Skiied 52km total on the GPS (including lifts up) which was a new record and just kept feeling better. It was sunny but still -10C so the snow stays fresh.

Unfortunately to ski in france you need to deal with french people. The ski rental guy was typical. How hard is it to sharpen your rental skis?
Quite hard apparently. Pretends not to understand until I tell him that if the skis are sharp tomorrow I will hire them, if they are not I will go somewhere else.
They did a light base grind and wax, so they were a little sharper, but still average.

The french lifts are amazing too. They have a platter lift (AKA Poma) which has such a snatch that it lifts me clear off the snow.

Had a cruisey day today, skiied with our Swedish friends and their kids. Their 6 year old fell over trying to copy me skiing backwards.
Was very cold today (-17C) and was starting to snow on the tops. Tomorrow will be a day of relaxing, which means not trying to deal with french ski hire turkeys.

A yes, the French. As I'm technically of French derivation I should perhaps have known, but I was amazed to find just what a pack of difficult wankers they are at times. Not as bad as the Swiss though

I've just noticed there is no snow in your google map link,...

How's this then?

The Euro's don't get so excited about powder cause they get so much of it, that and it spoils there perfect turns & technique. We get 1cm of semi dry snow and tegh powder alerts go out

To get the French to understand you, you need to talk like Renee off Allo Allo. of course in any foreign country it helps to shout at them too, just take you cue from any yanks you see around the place.

nice shot btw.

The swedish guy we stayed with bought the same thing at a bakery every day for a month. Every day they pretended to not understand what he was asking.
Then one day he handed them a 50 euro note, they said in perfect english "I can't change this, do you have anything smaller".

Apparently getting angry improves their understanding immensely.