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South Tyrol seeks dolce vita skiers.

South Tyrol seeks you.

Discover South Tyrol – the Alps’ best-kept secret. You’ll find 1,000 km of perfect pistes in this stunning winter wonderland, where the sun shines 300 days a year. And when you’re finished skiing for the day, bask in the midst of the Dolomites while you sample some of the area’s sensational food and drink. www.suedtirol.info/dolcevita

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Photo: Stefan Schlumpf/Davos/Switzerland Tourism

EDITOR’S NOTE

EDITOR Colin Nicholson colin.nicholson@skiclub.co.uk

I

have been skiing for 47 years now — only marginally longer than Ski+board has been in existence. But perhaps the greatest skill I’ve ever learnt from French ski instructors is the Gallic shrug, a sort of ‘que sera, sera’ in the face of uncertainty, whether that be knowing where they will take us or what the weather holds.

Uncertainty seems to be the watchword of the day as, whichever way you voted in the referendum, skiers start to notice the impact of the decision to leave the European Union.

The first effect was the dramatic fall in the value of sterling. Of course, we feel this every time we pay for a meal or drink in the mountains. But when you wince at your credit card bill, it’s worth reminding yourself that throughout the three winters from 2008 to 2011 sterling was scarcely higher than it is now.

In many ways we have been shielded from the pound’s fall. As Ski+board reported in its first issue of this season, tour operators tried to raise prices in line with costs, but had to pull back, fearing they would lose business in an intensely competitive market. And it is true that the price of ski gear sold in British stores has now risen after a year’s hiatus, but buying at home still offers some savings on buying abroad.

A second effect has been the referendum’s impact on various court cases in France. Nick Morgan, who has led the legal challenge against the ban on British ski hosts, squarely blames the Brexit vote for its failure. But others will argue it merely ends the charade that the French were ever going to play fair on the slopes. Certainly that seems to be the conclusion when one considers the treatment of Simon Butler, who

even won a crucial court case over the status of British instructors in France, only to be stymied from hiring the staff he is entitled to employ.

There may be more effects to come. What will happen to roaming charges? Will walkie-talkies become de rigueur on ski lifts again? Surely not.

But border controls are unlikely to get easier.

So there we have it. Hardly good news, but perhaps worthy of a Gallic shrug. Morgan told me that last season was his best ever in terms of bookings. The ski industry is proving itself wonderfully resilient to everything from rising costs to climate change. So, as long as we count the pennies and cents, and don’t go hell for leather down the slopes, we should continue to enjoy ski holidays for some time to

Some will argue this merely ends the charade that the French were ever going to play fair on the slopes

come. As the French say: “Bon ski!”

I shall be taking a brief break from writing this column, as the next issue of Ski+board will have Chemmy Alcott as a guest editor to guide readers on who and what to watch as the Olympics head to Korea (now there’s a country that knows about uncertainty).

Britain won its first on-snow Olympic medal at the Sochi Games and has reason to hope for even better results in February.

Uncertainty? We might even grow to enjoy it.

The cover shows some of the 199 past issues of Ski+board, formerly called Ski survey. Its history is charted on page 22

Colin Nicholson Ski+board Editor Ski+board

December 2017/January 2018

skiclub.co.uk

DEPUTY EDITOR Harriet Johnston harriet.johnston@skiclub.co.uk DESIGNER Amanda Barks MEDIA SALES Madison Bell madisonbell.com jack.daly@madisonbell.com 020 7389 0859 OVERSEAS MEDIA SALES Martina Diez-Routh martina.diez-routh@skiclub.co.uk +44 (0) 7508 382 781 PUBLISHER Ski Club of Great Britain London SW19 5SB skiclub.co.uk | 020 8410 2000 DISTRIBUTION Jellyfish Print Solutions Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Independently audited circulation of 19,907 (January to December 2016) Issue 199 © Ski Club of Great Britain 2017 ISSN 1369-8826 Ski+board is printed by Precision Colour Printing, Telford TF7 4QQ All material is strictly copyright and all rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written permission of the publisher.

All prices are based on information available at the time of going to press. Opinions expressed in Ski+board are not necessarily those of the Ski Club of Great Britain, nor does the publisher accept responsibility for advertising content.

6

CONTENTS

22

8 EXPOSURE Don’t wait till you’re on the slopes to get that mountain feeling — let these photographs transport you

14 YOU SAY Did we have it better in the 1980s? Plus a query on how objective ski tests can be, and a youthful correspondent in Korea

15 SKI CLUB NEWS At an action-packed AGM there was an update on the new chief executive and chairman, and the French Leaders’ ban

17 NEWS Britain’s Olympic hopes, how the hosting battle was lost and why British ski instructors are still fearful in France

FEATURES

22 SO LONG, FAREWELL...

As the Ski Club moves home, we prepare to say hello to Ski+board’s 200th issue and goodbye to the White House

34 HUT TO HUT, PISTE BY PISTE We try out a new type of holiday that ditches the week-long stay and lets you hostel hop without leaving the slopes

40 BLIND FAITH One writer undergoes a Damascene conversion as he joins a holiday leading visually impaired skiers on the mountain

46 A MASS OF OPTIONS In the second part of our journey through the Western Balkans, we discover how to ski for next to nothing in Macedonia

40

34

7

Photo: Marco Zaffiri

46

THE INSIDE EDGE 54 TECHNIQUE Our three-step guide to skiing the steepest slopes will help you save face on sheer pistes and scary escarpments

57 OFF-PISTE By befriending a guide, you’ll do more than find a new ski buddy. You could transform your backcountry experiences

58 FITNESS Squeeze in exercises at the end of the skiing day to ward off freezing muscles, plus a new dry slope fitness class

60 SNOW WEAR Peel back the layers and years, as technological leaps make ski clothing both lighter and warmer

68 SKI TESTS Beefed up piste skis will ensure you have a blast on even the most innocuous runs with 25 of this season’s best models

78 BOOTS The latest piste boots embrace a racing heritage dating back to the 1970s to speed you into skiing’s new era

82 GEAR We review the latest goggles and look at ways to protect lenses from the hurlyburly of lunches and layer changes

86 SNOWBOARDS For beginners, traditional entry-level models are reassuringly stable, like their prices. Plus profit from our DVD giveaway

90 RESORT INSIDER With new lifts opening up more slopes, we cover seven areas with new connections and plenty of pistes to lap up Ski+board

December 2017/January 2018

skiclub.co.uk

8

9

LOCATION

St Anton, Austria PHOTOGRAPHER

Finn Pomeroy They call it der Weisse Rausch or ‘the White Thrill’ but the chaos at the start of the famous ski race in St Anton at times better resembles a ‘Where’s Wally’ picture. The skiers line up at the top of the bowl, a canon goes off and then it’s something of a free for all, as UK photographer Finn Pomeroy discovered in April this year. The race takes its name from the 1931 movie filmed in the Arlberg region, which charts the adventures of a young woman learning to ski. She is played by Leni Riefenstahl, who infamously went on to make documentary films covering Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies, to which the less carefully orchestrated antics in St Anton are a refreshing antidote.

Ski+board

December 2017/January 2018

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schoeffel.de For stockists information call:

01572 770900

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LOCATION

Engelberg, Switzerland PHOTOGRAPHER

Oskar Enander SKIERS

Henrik Windstedt and Johan Jonsson Many instructors will snort if you complain about ‘ice’ on slopes, telling you that ice is something they have in their G+T. But this was one particularly large ice cube to tackle.

Swedish photographer Oskar Enander had been eying up this spot for a while, but hadn’t been able to persuade anyone to do it, until he found two of his countrymen who were prepared to give it a try.

Enander says: “It was pretty scary because the run-in was super steep, so they gained a lot of speed. Then there was obviously no chance for them to brake when you got to the ice, so they just had to hope for the best. Happily everything went fine in the end.”

Ski+board

December 2017/January 2018

skiclub.co.uk

THE UNSUNG SNOW SURE RESORTS With snow conditions becoming more unpredictable as the effects of global warming take a firm grip, skiers and boarders are increasingly heading for higher pistes in snow sure ski areas to get their fix.

The big names usually get all the glory: Val Thorens, Cervinia, Saas Fee etc. but they all come at a price. Mountain Experts Neilson Holidays have come up with three resorts that have plenty of the white stuff without the crowds or the cost.

PENIA DI CANAZEI, ITALY Sitting in the Val di Fassa at the heart of the Dolomites is Penia di Canazei. It’s a laid-back resort just 3km from lively Canazei so it’s nicely off the beaten track. It’s quite possibly one of the most picturesque resorts in Italy too.

The 1220km ski area fans out to provide more pistes than you could ski in a season let alone a week’s holiday. A new cable car in neighbouring Alba (2 minute bus ride) drops you straight on to the 40km Sella Ronda loop. From there it’s a just a couple of lifts to guaranteed snow on the Marmolada Glacier at 3,342m.

An incredible 90% of the Dolomites is covered by snow canons, so as long as the temperature drops low enough, they can make snow to keep the pistes in pristine condition.

LIVIGNO, ITALY With a top lift height of 2,800m, Livigno doesn’t have a glacier, but it does have one of the best snow records for a non-glacier resort. It certainly has one of the longest seasons as you can enjoy almost six months of skiing between November and May. At 1,815m, it’s high by Italian standards but crucially, it stays very cold. Livigno’s position in the Alps means that whichever direction the snow is coming from, some is sure to make its way on to Livigno’s slopes.

When the snow does need to be topped up by the snow cannons, they have the perfect conditions to make the white stuff all night long. But you’ll be too busy partying in the 100+ bars to notice that!

MONTGENÈVRE, FRANCE On the French-Italian border is one of the most picturesque ski resorts in France; Montgenèvre. It’s also one of the oldest resorts in France and another in this list that doesn’t boast a glacier, because it really doesn’t need one to be snow sure.

Montgenèvre is essentially a masterpiece of geography! Snow clouds get channelled up the valley it sits in, dumping the white fluffy stuff all over the slopes. The clouds then hit an unpassable mountain, bounce off and head back down the valley, once again dumping snow on the slopes.

Even though you have the beautifully cruisy 400km Milky Way to explore, you’ll often find the best snow right on your doorstep. Although it’s always worth popping over the border for a spot of lunch in Italy...

Visit neilson.co.uk/ski or call 0330 057 3849

14

YOU SAY

My snowboarding son argues he has made a smart Korea move

Richard Norton

Photo: Les Bronzés Font Du Ski

I always read Ski+board with great interest and, while I enjoyed your feature on skiing in North and South Korea last season, I have yet to spot any reference in this season’s issues. As the Olympics are coming up fast, readers may be interested in a website created by my snowboarding son Simon, who lives there. He aims to make snowguidekorea.com a “definitive guide to Korean skiing”.

The heady days of skiing forty years ago are captured in the French film Les Bronzés Font Du Ski

Your survey comments:

Oh, where did the Day-Glo go?

I would like to see more in Ski+board for boarders, and better, fuller reviews.

They always seem sparse compared to ski gear reviews. It feels like you’re deliberately trying to alienate boarders.

Thank you for your editorial in the last issue. I’m not sure what came over me, but it took me straight back to my holidays in the 1980s in the ‘heyday’ of skiing — Dad driving straight after school on Friday to the cross-channel ferry and us arriving in a huge, ugly resort by 11am on Saturday, with everyone knackered but raring to go.

I wore a fluorescent all-in-one outfit, which made going to the loo hell. And the zinc or slimy yellow sunblock made

Ski+board writes: We’re sorry to hear that. Even the skiers on our team love editing Tristan Kennedy’s excellent snowboard reviews. It is true that last season we dropped snowboard boot reviews, but that was largely on his recommendation, as their merits are so subjective. And this season we are giving away instructional snowboarding DVDs.

Snowboards — Page 86 As I always rent skis it is difficult to relate tested skis to what is available for hire.

Perhaps the tests could highlight those skis that may be available to rent.

Ski+board writes: Many skis we test should be available for hire, if only in fairly high-end shops. But we take your point, and in this issue cover budget alternatives to rental skis on page 77.

Got something to say?

Share it with us at: @TheSkiClub

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

Lucy Leslie

Our rival’s picks are so last year As a long-time subscriber to both Ski+board and Fall-line, two excellent ski magazines, I’m wondering how objective and reliable your ski tests are.

Your November issues cover the vital all-mountain category. Fall-line rates the Scott Slight 93 and Völkl RTM 86 as winners, but Ski+board picks the Dynastar Legend X88, Black Crows Orb and Nordica’s Navigator. Women’s tests show similar disparities.

Your testers are clearly skilled and experienced. So why such wildly different results?

Peter Mitchell

/theskiclub

skiclub.co.uk

me feel sick, yet I always managed to get sunburnt anyway. We would stay in a tiny Pierre et Vacances apartment, with me sleeping in the hall, alongside all the ski boots, and my snoring uncle in the bottom bunk. And we would prepare meals for six on a two-ring electric oven.

They were wonderful holidays, and I shall check out the film Les Bronzés Font Du Ski for another nostalgia hit. Thank God it’s not like that any more, mind you!

Ski+board writes: In fact the Völkl RTM was a Ski+board winner last season. While we cannot speak for Fall-line, all our reviews are done by impartial, independent testers.

Given there are 799 skis available

to UK buyers, out of a total of 2,000odd, perhaps it is reassuring that not everyone reaches the same conclusion.

Picking skis is a perennial problem, as re-reading my 1974 edition of Ski survey (sad, I know) shows with its review of the ‘Ski Caddy’. But was it a joke?

Stuart Brandreth

15

SKI CLUB NEWS

Ski Club updates its members at a news-filled annual meeting

Chemmy Alcott limbers up for her new role as honorary president

It was all change at the Ski Club’s 110th annual general meeting, which this year took place at the City of London Club.

The meeting, held on November 16, was Rob Crowder’s last as chairman. Having served for five years, he was presented with lifetime membership by incoming chairman Malcolm Bentley, whose role as treasurer will be taken by Ian Holt, an existing Council member. Dave Davenport and Joanna Milner Percy were voted in as new Council members.

Rob Crowder gave a presentation in which he announced that the club had found a new chief executive, after the tragic passing of Frank McCusker in June. Details will be made public shortly.

Updates were given on the new website, the club’s charitable work, the White House sale and the new offices.

The club’s memorabilia and library are to be catalogued, curated, and preserved by a leading British university, giving a chance to digitise publications and allowing greater access to an international audience. Some items will also be displayed in a unique Alpinethemed gastropub, due to open in the City next year, which will become a more easily accessible venue for club events than its old Wimbledon base.

Rob Crowder also gave an update on

Four-time Olympian Chemmy Alcott has been appointed honorary president of the Ski Club after several years working as an ambassador for the club.

The new position replaces the role of president, which has been filled for the past seven years by the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner OBE. Chemmy Alcott’s infectious energy for skiing has seen her produce new ski fitness videos for the club (see page 97) and she will guest edit the next issue of Ski+board ahead of the Olympics.

The AGM was held at the City of London Club

the French ban on Ski Club Leaders, explaining that on June 13 the supreme court in Paris had upheld the ban, and denied the opportunity to appeal to the European Court of Justice. So the club will look to expand its Instructor-led Guiding programme and investigate long-term solutions, possibly involving accreditation of the Leaders’ course.

Malcolm Bentley presented a summary of the club’s annual report, available at skiclub.co.uk/annualreports.

Most questions centred on the White House sale and the decision not to reinvest in property. Malcolm Bentley responded that the Council had debated the issue at length, and concluded that it was in the best interest of the club to separate its operational and investment needs and diversify its assets.

Alpine safety advisor appointed Bruce Goodlad is taking over as the Ski Club’s alpine safety advisor, as Nigel Shepherd steps down after 18 years.

Recruitment began in spring with a formal application process and interviews.

Goodlad has been technical director of British Mountain Guides for the past four years and has been training guides for the past 12 years. He has worked with the club since he qualified as a guide in 2001, leading Freshtracks holidays.

Bruce Goodlad will advise on safety on Leader and Refresher courses. He said: “Nigel’s so well established it’s daunting.

It will be an interesting adventure.”

Bruce Goodlad on a previously unclimbed peak in Antarctica

Off-piste tips — Page 57 Ski+board

December 2017/January 2018

Moving moments at club’s headquarters The Ski Club is due to have commenced its move to its new headquarters by the time this issue of Ski+board is published.

The move to the new address at Ground Floor, Connect House, 133-137 Alexandra Road, London SW19 7JY, is due to start in December.

However, members should not be affected as a redirect service should ensure that correspondence sent there or to the club’s old address at the White House will go to the right place. All phone numbers will remain the same.

Farewell to the White House — Page 28

New website solves mystery of ski carriage The Ski Club’s new website has untangled the Gordian knot of working out which airlines charge travellers for taking skis.

While upgrading the website, the club’s online team compiled a comprehensive guide to which airlines let you take a ski or snowboard bag in addition to another bag free of charge, which accept it as your main hold luggage, and which charge you up to €90 one way. You can see the table at skiclub.co.uk/flightfees.

It is just one of a series of improvements the team is making to the site. For a full update on how the upgrade is progressing see page 97.

skiclub.co.uk

17

Photo: Matt Georges

Photo: Sport in Pictures

NEWS

Snowsport chief hopes to go out in blaze of glory after Olympics

Former Ski+board deputy editor becomes torch bearer in Korea

Harriet Johnston

Ben Clatworthy

The man who is widely credited with transforming British competitive snowsports has announced that he will be stepping down after the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February.

Dave Edwards took on the “shortterm assignment” of stepping in when the former governing body Snowsport GB went bust, leaving Olympic athletes stranded shortly before the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010.

He established British Ski and Snowboard, restored funding and support for winter athletes, and has been chief executive of BSS ever since.

It was announced in February that BSS hopes to achieve several British medals in the PyeongChang Games and become one of the top five snowsports nations across all disciplines by 2030. Much of the hopes are pinned on performance director Dan Hunt, who was hired by Edwards a year ago. Ski+board asked him about this plan. He said: “Once you’ve established your vision and how you are going to achieve it, you have to deliver.

“One of the key things we’ve brought in is performance data and analytics to fundamentally understand what it takes to win in certain events. In all races, there’s a way of winning, using data to present your argument in the face of negativity and myth and tradition.

Most of us get offers on our phones, but this one from Samsung was a bit different. As former deputy editor of Ski+board, I was invited to carry the Olympic Torch on its 100-day journey around the country. This involved donning a brightly coloured suit to jog all of 250 metres with the flame in the city of Busan. It was a surreal experience, but too good an offer to turn down.

Performance director Dan Hunt brings a wealth of experience after transforming British cycling

“What we’re good at as a nation is sport science, strength and conditioning, technical innovation, understanding fabric, airflow and friction.”

Hunt has been credited with transforming British competitive cycling, overseeing Olympic and World Championship golds and developing Team Sky. He is now responsible for all on-snow disciplines, including Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, freestyle, snowboarding and ski jumping events.

Those disciplines have 48 potential medals up for grabs at the Games.

Spirit of hope remains at Games As tensions remain in the Korean peninsular, the United Nations has agreed a truce aimed at ensuring a secure Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

A draft resolution was presented to the UN General Assembly last month and agreed by both North Korea and the US. The resolution, which has been a feature of the Games since 1993, urges member states to observe the truce from seven days before the Olympics begin on February 9 until seven days after the Paralympics end on March 18. However, Russia annexed Crimea shortly before

Nigeria is putting forward a bobsleigh team

December 2017/January 2018

Katie Ormerod has said she ‘likes the pressure’ of carrying British medal hopes ahead of her first Winter Olympics.

This season got off to a flying start for the 20-year-old from Sheffield, who secured silver in the first Big Air World Cup of the winter in Milan.

Last year she won gold at the World Cup Big Air event in Moscow and Slopestyle bronze at the Aspen X Games.

British aerial skier is back after horrific crash

the Paralympics in Sochi had finished.

New countries are urged to compete in the Games and Nigeria will field a bobsleigh team, sparking memories of the 1993 film Cool Runnings about the 1988 Jamaican bobsleigh team.

Ski+board

Ormerod likes pressure of being medal hopeful

Britain’s only competitive aerial skier hopes to qualify for the 2018 Olympics despite his crash in Switzerland in August. Lloyd Wallace caught an edge attempting a triple twisting backflip and had to be placed in an induced coma.

Incredibly, the 22-year-old from Shaftesbury only suffered concussion and is “very lucky” not to remember anything of the day of the crash. Of his return to snow, he said: “There were a few butterflies in my stomach. But as soon as I got back upside down and landed it, there was a moment of pure euphoria.”

skiclub.co.uk

18

N EWS

Chris Madoc-Jones Airbnb is transforming the ski holiday, as Ski+board reported in its online edition earlier this year (below). But an unexpected side effect has been on saisonaires, who are struggling to find a room, leading to possible staff shortages.

The problem is acute in Whistler, where staff lodgings are oversubscribed, and rooms that once housed lift attendants, instructors and chefs are now let to weekend visitors.

Owners say they can earn more by letting accommodation at weekends than by letting it for a whole season.

Credit card fees will be banned next month From January 13, airlines and other travel firms will no longer be able to charge skiers fees for paying by credit card. At present, some charge up to 2.75 per cent.

Though firms say they are simply passing on costs, in December 2015 new European Union rules capped the fees banks can levy on firms at 0.3 per cent.

A study by Consensio Chalets found a third of luxury chalet firms would absorb the cost, a fifth would not accept credit cards, with many yet to decide. Credit card bookings have greater protection under the Consumer Credit Act.

Cost of snow chains as high as £110 in Geneva A new study has confirmed Ski+board’s findings in the last issue about the problems around hiring snow chains.

Insurance broker iCarhireinsurance. com found that ‘winterisation’ which can usually only be paid for at the rental desk, is as high as £110 in Geneva.

The average fee in six airports (Geneva, Grenoble, Innsbruck, Barcelona, Turin and Sofia) was £35, but skiers could pay £110 with Europcar, Enterprise and Sixt in Geneva, falling to £53 with Hertz in Barcelona and £24 in Sofia with Avis, all for a week.

How the sun set on ski hosting battle Colin Nicholson

Photo: Ross Woodhall

Rise of Airbnb hits saisonaires looking for cheap accommodation

Ski hosting is only possible outside France, now the battle fought by Nick Morgan, below, has been lost

Nick Morgan, the director of Le Ski, has explained to Ski+board why he took the decision not to pursue the legal battle to lift the French ban on ski hosting.

For decades, the staff of many British tour operators showed guests around French slopes, taking them to the best pistes and restaurants. But in March 2012 a group of Le Ski guests and their host were questioned by police while skiing in Méribel. In February 2013 the practice was ruled illegal in a test case in Albertville brought by the French authorities and the Ecole du Ski Français against Le Ski. Since then, Morgan has fought the case, taking it first to appeal in Chambéry then to the supreme court in Paris. But on April 4 this year the court upheld the ban, denying Le Ski leave to appeal.

Morgan told Ski+board that normally there was a mechanism by which he could ask the European Commission to request the supreme court in Paris to refer the case to the Court of Justice of the

European Union, but the UK’s imminent departure from the EU had made this a waste of time and money.

“One of my guests was very angry at me for blaming Brexit for this,” he said. “But I told him that that was the advice of my lawyer — who was the only person who stood to gain from an appeal!”

Under the ruling, hosts must hold an instructor’s qualification to lead groups. But Morgan said: “It is disturbing that no relevance was given to the fact that French civil servants, teachers and members of the armed forces are exonerated from any qualification requirement to lead on ski slopes.”

Le Ski was backed in its case by Alpine Elements, Crystal Ski, Esprit Ski, Inghams, Mark Warner, Neilson, Ski Olympic, Ski Total and Skiworld.

Resort guide rises from the ashes The popular resort guide Where to Ski & Snowboard has been reborn in a new format. When the publishers announced a year ago that the book was taking a sabbatical, this magazine advised readers to snap up the 2016/17 edition.

At the time, it was feared it had fallen victim to the internet age. However, this autumn a 192-page guide covering Austria has been released detailing 80 resorts. Editor Chris Gill is planning one on France and Italy next season, and possibly North America and Scandinavia the following season. By excluding restaurant tips, Gill expects each to have

a shelf life of three years.

Gill told Ski+board: “I think that if the internet had always been around, and print was the new thing, people would say a printed guide book like this was a fantastically useful, innovative idea.”

Readers can get £1 off the usual £11.50 (which includes p&p) at wheretoskiandsnowboard.com/skiclub.

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20

N EWS

New app promises to become ‘Uber of the slopes’ for ski lessons

British instructors still fear French arrests despite court victory

Harriet Johnston

Colin Nicholson

A new app could transform how we find ski instructors this season. SkiBro aims to become the Uber of the slopes, giving a live view of instructors nearby, setting meeting points and listing prices.

The app is due to be launched this month in Val d’Isère and Tignes, before expanding to cover other French resorts.

Other sites include maisonsport.com, run by three British instructors, which lists over 300 ski teachers in the Alps, and Ongosa, which says it has a pool of 4,000 professionals worldwide.

Ropedup.com allows like-minded skiers and snowboarders of a similar ability to get in touch with each other and hire instructors and mountain guides together to keep prices low.

Simon Butler, who has led the fi ght for equal treatment of British ski instructors in France, says the Britons he’d hoped to employ this season are still too fearful to work, despite his legal victory.

In November last year a court in Lyon found there was no substantial diff erence between the qualifi cations of British Association of Snowsport Instructors (Basi) Levels 2 and 3 ski teachers and some practising French instructors. Under European Union rules this clears Butler to rehire the staff he employed in Megève until February 2014, when they were arrested on piste and kept in police cells.

Though Butler could have re-employed them last season, he said he did not want to renege on arrangements he had

made with more qualifi ed instructors before the surprise ruling. But last month he told Ski+board that the Basi Level 2 and 3 instructors had still not been issued with their Cartes Professionelles, and were unwilling to work fearing arrest.

In its February/March issue, Ski+board covered the case of Alex Casey. He said that after the arrests and physical threats from other instructors, he had given up on the £20,000 he had spent trying to teach skiing in France, and was back working in a sandwich factory in Kent.

Poor snow blamed for rise in piste collisions Chalet bookings are up on last season.

Consensio Chalets said 60 per cent of respondents to its survey reported a rise on 2016-17 bookings, 21 per cent saw a drop, and 19 per cent saw no change.

But many said these were for trips later in the season, especially Easter, with Christmas and to some extent New Year suffering due to fears of lack of snow.

Questions as to the size of the UK ski market as a whole remain. It was 1.5 million according to a recent Ski Weekends survey, but just 900,000 when Crystal did its last Ski Survey in 2013.

Over-55s ‘least likely to check ski insurance’ The over-55s are the least likely to check that their travel insurance covers them for winter sports, according to new survey.

The study was commissioned by Abta, the Association of British Travel Agents, and confi rms similar fi ndings last year.

Ski+board queried the fi ndings with Abta, which said: “We asked skiers, ‘how often do you ensure you have travel insurance that will cover winter sports activities and the equipment required?’

“Some 38 per cent over the age of 55 answered ‘never’, compared with just 14 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds.”

Alex Casey, pictured with two young clients in Megève, had to give up on his ski instructing career

Will duchess swap skis for a sled?

The Duchess of Cambridge is expected to forego skiing in favour of sledging if she goes on a winter trip this year. Though a keen skier, when she was pregnant with Prince George in March 2013, she took to a sledge in the Swiss resort of Arosa.

The NHS says exercises with a risk of falling, such as downhill skiing and cycling, should be done with caution when pregnant. But as Ski+board reported in its February/ March issue, sledging is not without hazards. The Duchess’s third child is not due before March.

Ski+board carried cautionary tales of sledging

The SYNERGY helmet features a hybrid shell (ABS at the top for maximum impact resistance and In-Mold at the bottom for lightness), an air extractor and adjustable ventilation for o p t i m a l a i r f l o w p l u s o u r C l i c k - t o - F i t TM a d j u s t m e n t s y s t e m f o r a perfect fit.

The SYNERGY matches perfectly with the EMPEROR goggle which features a ventilated, spherical, anti-scratch and antifog treated dual lens.

22

200TH

ISSUE OF SKI+BOARD… Next month the Ski Club will publish the 200th issue of its magazine, but the shift from newsletter to consumer title was not an easy one Words by Arnie Wilson

T

here are few magazines that receive letters from readers which begin: “Having read your publication for the past 45 years...” But Ski+board (formerly Ski survey) is one of them, having launched its first issue in 1972.

In fact, the Ski Club’s publication can trace its origins much further back. The story starts in 1905, two years after the club was founded, when the first issue of the club’s Year Book was published.

It included articles on where to ski, and help on equipment and clothing.

This was the year the club organised its first holiday — to the Jotunheimen range in Norway. The Year Book advised readers to take a few bottles of whisky with them... and to beware of bears.

But many more of the tips still hold true over a century later. Sadly such down-to-earth advice was unlikely to survive the ravages of officialdom. By 1920, what was now the British Ski Year Book appeared, having assimilated no fewer than four other titles: The Alpine Ski Club Annual, The Scottish Ski Club Magazine, The British Ski Association Annual and The North of England Ski Club Annual. It was published on behalf of the austere-sounding Federal

Ski Council and was described by the celebrated cartoonist Alan ‘Deggers’ D’Egville as “a little grey tombstone, mostly written in Greek”.

It was jointly edited by the redoubtable Sir Arnold Lunn (the man who invented the sport of slalom ski racing) and Captain HCH Marriott, with Lunn also editing the Year Book’s more frequent companion Ski Notes and Queries, which had been going since 1911.

After an astonishing 52 years in charge, the by-now frail Lunn reluctantly accepted it was time for change in 1972.

The two books would be merged into a single magazine called Ski survey.

There were many advantages to this approach. The new A4 format allowed the magazine to sit alongside other glossy titles and carry adverts that would not only interest readers but would help fund the magazine, allowing it to carry more articles. But, most importantly, the focus of a more commercial publication would be on articles that appealed to

IN 1905, THE CLUB ADVISED MEMBERS TO TAKE WHISKY ON ITS FIRST WINTER TRIP the vast swathe of recreational skiers who made up the silent majority of club members, rather than the most dedicated few, with their special interests.

How painful it must have been for

24

In the early days of the magazine, printing in colour was a costly luxury, so most pages were still printed in black and white, as this issue from 1986 shows

The magazine has always covered innovations, such as monoskis, which were so ‘up and coming’ in 1986 that a device was invented to link outmoded conventional skis

Ski+board’s annual round-up of new cable cars, gondolas and chairlifts is now a regular feature, but in 1988 the new funicular railway at Les Deux Alpes was the talking point

Lunn, who organised the first slalom race in 1922, to see a letter published 50 years later from the Honourable Neil Hogg (brother of the then Lord Chancellor, no less) appealing for the club to recognise the decline of British ski racing, and to stop “straining our resources to the limit to achieve something patently beyond our powers, thereby purchasing ridicule”.

Though Lunn was editor in chief of Ski survey, with Richard Hennings as editor, one feels Lunn’s heart wasn’t in it. The commercial opportunities didn’t excite him. In 1972 he wrote: “I am, of course, distressed the Year Book, whose annual appearance even the World War could not interrupt, should be a casualty of increasing costs, but I am confident that the best features of both publications will be retained in Ski survey.”

Lunn’s boast of wartime publication was not to be taken lightly. During the Second World War copies even found their way to Field Marshal Montgomery in the North African desert and prisoners of war in the dreaded Changi jail. Said Lunn: “If England could produce this in spite of the dark days of seemingly hopeless disaster then England was not and could not be beaten.”

Of the inception of Ski survey, he wrote: “Let me begin with ‘Farewell to the Year Book’ by way of preface to a confident ‘Hail’ to ‘Ski survey’… not as a funeral tribute, but as a challenge to the editors of Ski survey, and their successors, to maintain a reputation which has taken some earning. Ski survey must continue after I have disappeared from the scene to give a good idea of international ski-ing politics.

“The editors may need collaborators.

Personal contacts are also essential, not only with discreet officials of the International Ski Federation, but also with indiscreet private individuals who are a source of well-informed gossip.”

Disappear Lunn did, two years after Ski survey’s appearance, at the age of 86, with a warning to future editors that visiting skiers were often regarded as tourists, “whom it is best to keep happy by telling them what they want to hear… but future editors should discover English correspondents who have spent enough time in Switzerland to have emerged from the mere tourist category”.

The task fell to Elisabeth Hussey, who edited the magazine from 1974 to 1992 and was a key figure in bridging the gap between ‘then’ and ‘now’. In an interview

25

One-piece ski suits and headbands used to be de rigueur, while rear-entry boots were all the rage in 1988 — so much easier to put on! While the magazine still refers to a ski’s ‘waist’, back in the day advertisers went a bit further with their anatomical similarities

Technique tips are always popular, but they went truly ‘freestyle’ in 1984. And resort reports reveal a week with Crystal in Schladming in 1985 cost £239, against today’s £619. In 1984 the club was backing our Olympians heading to Sarajevo in Yugoslavia

with me for Snow Crazy, my book about the Ski Club’s centenary in 2003, she recalled her early days working for Lunn.

“I can remember going into the club’s Eaton Square headquarters and getting in that rickety lift. As I was going up, I wondered what was going to happen.

“Arnold was rather apt to do strange things. On my first day, while I was concentrating on my shorthand, I heard him climbing on to my desk. He started dictating a race report and, without hesitating, took the bulb out of a light, plugged his razor in, and started shaving.

It was rather like Churchill dictating to his secretary from his bath.

“Although he was very determined and could be abrupt, he was good fun to work for, though he used to turn my office into a shambles when he came in.”

Hussey was equally accommodating when it came to another upset in the tidy world of skiing, saying: “At the beginning we were a bit worried about the snowboarders because they tended

to crash into people. This, I think, was because they started by being skateboarders and they were young and they were energetic. But we always felt it was going to bring about an expansion of the sport and that’s good. You have got to have something new for the young to do.”

If the club’s editorial staff were moving with the times, their workplace was not. By the mid-1980s the club’s HQ had become so run down that Hussey’s deputy Felice Hardy, who arrived after working as a sub-editor at Vogue, remembers: “For much of the year it was so cold I had to wear gloves at work.”

Caroline Stuart-Taylor, then ‘Winter Arrangements’ director (later chief executive), adds: “We had moveable electric fires and a kettle on the floor of the office... with no switch-off mechanism. It got left on one weekend.

Luckily it only burnt through the carpet.”

In the best ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ tradition of British life, such wear and tear was not seen by visitors and Hussey

Ski+board

December 2017/January 2018

encouraged American resort directors to come and market skiing in the States to the British in the mid-1980s.

“It was very exciting,” Stuart-Taylor recalls. “They came over in a delegation of 30 or more. We all entertained them in the grand rooms at Eaton Square and they were mightily impressed by the status of the Ski Club of Great Britain — this became an annual trip for them, and began very strong relationships with them which have lasted for decades.”

The commercial links opened up new publishing possibilities. Stuart-Taylor says: “In the early 1980s it was decided to have a few coloured pages in Ski survey.

Printing in colour was expensive, so these were just the centre pages full of photos and the cover.”

Hussey had been working for years at getting a good distributor to put the magazine on news-stands, thereby getting a good circulation that could be independently verified by ABC, the Audit Bureau of Circulations. It seems the Ski

skiclub.co.uk

26

The magazine catered to young readers on its ‘mode’ page; while features have always had a strong sense of adventure, with Caroline Stuart-Taylor reporting on heli-skiing in Russia and newly independent Georgia in 1992. And in 1983 Gore-Tex was a big thing

In 1993 women-only training camps were already mooted. In 1990 the editorial team disassociated themselves from “the lunatics in this photo” trying out an unusual form of heli-skiing. Such antics would not have made it into the events calendar

‘I ONCE PASTED A MOUNTAIN ON TO THE PAGE UPSIDE DOWN BUT NO-ONE NOTICED’ Club’s Council wanted the magazine to maintain its amateur status, but Hussey didn’t. She came from a background in journalism, having worked for a motoring magazine, unlike her staff.

She recalled: “The assistants I had during my 18 years in the editorial chair were often quite inexperienced as journalists but learnt quickly, worked hard and enjoyed the job. They changed all the time, usually to get married.”

She passionately wanted the magazine to go forward, but the club’s budget was tight, so selling advertising was vital to fund improvements such as using colour.

Felice Hardy recalls her own part in this. She says: “I first met Elisabeth while I was a club rep in Flaine. I came back, then applied for the job at Ski survey.

Because I’d been at art college studying illustration she told me I could have the job as long as I did the layout of the magazine as well — not something I’d

ever learnt at art college, as I hadn’t studied graphic design.

“I said I’d do it, but I had absolutely no idea where to begin. There was no-one to teach me, either. So I learnt by trial and error. In those days it meant cutting and sticking pictures and words on to the page, then sending those pages off to the printer. I once pasted a mountain on to the page upside down, by mistake, and it went to press without anyone noticing.”

After Hardy left in 1986, Tessa Coker was, in her own words, “graciously taken on” by Hussey, despite her lack of formal journalism training… and Coker was soon in the hot seat. She recalls: “Very unfairly, most people thought, Hussey was pensioned off. I held the fort for three or four issues until a replacement, Roland White, was found.”

Says White, now the face behind the Atticus column in The Sunday Times: “Following Elisabeth Hussey was a bit

like taking over from Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United. My brief was to make Ski survey less of a club magazine and more of a news-stand title that could sit proudly alongside the Daily Mail Ski magazine. It was a bit of an upheaval. I completely reorganised the way we worked. We took on an in-house designer, bought Macintosh computers and redesigned the look of the magazine.

“And after all that fuss, I left after just one season for The Sunday Times. I can’t imagine I was all that popular.”

White was replaced by Jane Slade, who also edited the magazine for just a year before it drove her to drink — well, the drinks industry. She explains: “After that I went off to edit Whisky magazine.”

Next came Gill Williams, who brought a much-needed period of stability, settling in for a seven-year tenure until I took over in 2001. She says: “I came from a mainstream newspaper and consumer magazine background. I felt we had to draw in a different type of reader if the magazine was to sell on news-stands.

That meant appealing to young skiers and snowboarders who had probably never heard of the Ski Club.”

Stuart-Taylor agrees: “There was

27

In times past, we wore what were known as ‘ski suits’, which seems apt, given they were sold by Simpson in Piccadilly, among others

The snow wear pages — or ‘mode’ pages as they were known in the 1980s — featured the colourful skiwear of the decade

a time when I was against anything old in the magazine, although it was rather fun, because we were working to update the image of the club for the new millennium. After brainstorming names in the office the magazine was redesigned and became Ski and Board, as snowboarding was growing fast and attracting many young people.

“A radical redesign meant we could make better use of amazing photography. At the same time, the editorial moved from being heavily technical to putting more emphasis on inspirational adventure stories written by some of the best winter sports and outdoor writers in the world.

“The new format worked. The old guard who’d resisted change liked the results, but the transition wasn’t easy.”

So there we are. By the time I got my hands on Ski+board I was inheriting a pretty impressive title. I’d like to think Colin Nicholson might say the same about his take-over from me in 2014. But rather more importantly, I hope that readers, including those who have faithfully read the Ski Club’s publications over the past half century, will continue to appreciate the changes.

Ski+board

Snowboard sales were booming at the turn of the century and Ski+board was keen, as always, to explain their intricacies

In November 1985 headbands were a must for all models in a ski shoot, while helmets were nowhere to be seen

The layout of the ski tests has come a long way since 1994, but prices are comparable — £430 for Blizzard skis and £379 for Head

Using top photographers such as John Norris, Ski+board started featuring eye-catching action shots in its ‘Exposure’ pages

December 2017/January 2018

skiclub.co.uk

Photos: Jonny Cass

28

Bid bye-bye to the White House We look back at 20 years at the iconic club house as the Ski Club moves to modern offices Words by Harriet Johnston

I

s there any part of London more associated with summer sports than Wimbledon Village?

But just down the road from the AllEngland Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club lies a rather more modest looking establishment. It is the White House and it is a place that another historic British sporting club, the Ski Club of Great

29

Britain, has called home for 20 years.

When, in early 2017, it was announced that the club had sold its headquarters, I had been working there for just six months. But I had already become attached to its aura of faded glory and set about researching its history.

It’s an odd building — with dimly lit corners, huge murals of skiers by artists Vicky Chitty and Johny Midnight painted on the walls, and a library filled to the brim with books and antiques. In a quirky courtyard on the first floor lies a rusting gondola cabin. In all, it has the sort of feel that I’d associate with a childhood teddy — a little battered

around the edges, threadbare in some corners, but well loved over the years.

The White House has hosted at least 172 events for members in the building, though fewer and fewer as the years passed. This decline was duly noted by the Ski Club’s governing Council, which has met here 152 times. But the offices are always busy with the club’s two dozen or so permanent staff, on hand to answer members’ queries or help them with bookings of Freshtracks holidays.

Some 170 Ski Club staff have passed through the doors of the White House (of which I calculate I am about Number 160) and its carpets have been walked

Ski+board

December 2017/January 2018

upon by some of the very best skiers in the country (and it shows — they are looking pretty worn). If the walls could talk, one can only imagine the secrets they would reveal…

With the move from the White House down the hill to Connect House, the club finds itself in a period of change. But that is nothing new. When the club moved from Eaton Square, in Belgravia, to Wimbledon, it was as great an upheaval.

Ironically, given that the club has just relaunched its website, the earlier move was right after the club had launched the very first version of its website.

Perhaps looking to that period can help

skiclub.co.uk

30

us understand more about our present times as the parallels are striking.

In his book Snow Crazy, which details the history of the club up to its centenary celebrations in 2003, Arnie Wilson writes: “The club house at 118 Eaton Square was a tremendous asset.”

Along with its three floors of offices, the club house was equipped with reception rooms, a restaurant, bar, Council room and drawing room, all tucked away in the four-floored corner house on Eaton Square. While initially it was a popular meeting place — Wilson reports that “the bar was always busy” — it seems that by the mid-1990s, times had changed, with members visiting the building less often as the old idea of “popping down to one’s club” fell victim to modern working practices.

Though the lease on Eaton Square still had more than 20 years to go, the building had become so run-down that there was a tremendous amount to do by way of plumbing, wiring, painting and general refurbishment. After an extraordinary general meeting, it was decided the Ski Club should move home.

Caroline Stuart-Taylor, then in her first year as chief executive of the club, oversaw the move. The sale of Eaton Square was well underway, and her first mission was to find a building that could operate as both a club house and an office for the 25 year-round staff. The task wasn’t easy. With prices rocketing in the capital in the late-1990s , the club could not afford to buy centrally. So it was in a suburb that she set out to meet her challenge — of obtaining the freehold of a “building of character”.

The White House was certainly that. It served as a headquarters for the British Red Cross and is a distinctive sight on Church Road. Of the offers that estate agents lined up, it was the only one that Stuart-Taylor felt appropriate. She says: “It met every criterion I had — the brief set by members was completely fulfilled.

It was a fantastic find.”

Where Eaton Place had been a rabbit warren of corridors and offices, the White House allowed Ski Club staff to work in a large, open-plan space. As Stuart-Taylor walked through the building, she could imagine the space adjusting to the club’s needs. Alongside the essential office space, the Council had specified there had to be room for a library and bar.

The White House had this, and more, as folding doors on to the courtyard

Isn’t it about time you upgraded yours? created a space that, weather permitting, could be made big or small as desired for members’ events. The Arnold Lunn library, as it was named, allowed the club’s memorabilia to be kept in one place, separate but not too far removed from the offices to allow a fresh, forwardthinking club to evolve and grow from the inspiration of its heritage, without being weighed down by the past.

Meanwhile the bar, though never as popular as the one in Eaton Square, saw many a merry evening. StuartTaylor, recalling lunch time trips to the common, said: “I found that people did like coming here.”

Nonetheless, visitors have become fewer over the years — whether they are put off by the steep, 15-minute walk up the hill, or prefer the transport connections of central London. With this in mind, some of the memorabilia will be moved to an Alpine-themed gastropub in the City of London, due to open in early 2018, and this is where the C club will hold certain events.

M The library is also on the move to ensure greater access for club membersY and the public alike. From the dusty CM shelves of the Arnold Lunn library, the tomes will travel to an international MY centre for sporting history at a leading CY British university.

CMY The Council’s preoccupations 20 years ago with owning a physical space K have changed in an electronic age. It argues the Ski Club must be more than a building if it is to remain at the heart of skiing culture.

In my experience, the atmosphere and lunch time activities haven’t changed much from those Stuart-Taylor describes of 20 years — staff can often be found on the common at lunchtime — but neither has the office space. It’s outdated and unable to function as it did then. While I shall miss the murals and bar, I certainly shan’t miss the rhythmic thumping from upstairs, as one of the club’s tenants, a physiotherapy centre, put its clients through their paces. Nor will I miss the loud banging when people got stuck in the lift. It was not just its own staff that the club had to think of, but all its tenants, which included a law centre on the ground floor, and an architect’s firm, in the south-west wing of the building.

Like a childhood teddy, the White House has not changed, except to grow more careworn. And like my teddy, it will always hold a special place in my heart.

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Savouring

Austria‘s

skiing gems and its

Gemutlichkeit!

There’s something very comforting and yet exciting about the thought of skiing and snowboarding in Austria! Whichever part of the country you’re visiting this winter, you just know it’s going to be exhilarating — and huge fun. You’ll find the skiing exciting — and comforting in the knowledge that you’ll be well looked after, with plenty of Austria’s unique cosy and welcoming Gemütlichkeit (warmth, friendliness, and good cheer) to pamper and charm you when you’re off the slopes. Even when the lifts close, it’s far from over! The après-ski festivities can be almost as good as the skiing. You’ll find Gemütlichkeit in abundance in pubs and bars in just about any Austrian ski resort. But be careful not to let late-night high spirits compromise your early arrival on the slopes the following morning!

Carinthia

Let’s start our tour from the sunny but snowy south and work our way up. The name of Kärnten (Carinthia), often known as the “sunny side of the Alps”, may have its origins in the Celtic word “karantos” meaning “friend, or ally”. You’d better believe it!

Carinthia is home to Austria’s highest mountain, the Grossglockner, as well as many Alpine lakes and medieval buildings such as Hochosterwitz Castle. The region’s capital of Klagenfurt sits on the shores of the huge Lake Wörthersee, surrounded by vineyards.

Apart from having some terrific ski areas such as Nassfeld, the celebrated spa resort of Bad Kleinkirchheim, and Heiligenblut, Carinthia has perhaps the most famous ski ambassador in the world: Franz Klammer. The all-conquering “Kaiser”’s 25 World Cup downhill victories – and stunning 1976 Olympic downhill gold medal – mean he is still a national hero all these years later. And of course he learned to ski in Carinthia – in Bad Kleinkirchheim’s neighbouring resort of St Oswald.

Inevitably Klammer has a downhill run named after him. It starts gently at Strohsack before the testing steeper section down to the bottom

at Kaiserburg. You are allowed to turn!

The Römerbad Thermal Spa complex has several pools and 13 different saunas...plus a good view of the slopes, including the Franz Klammer run!

This season, travel to the area is even easier with EasyJet’s London Gatwick to Klagenfurt connection launching on 16th December 2017, taking you straight to the Carinthian slopes.

The Hotel Trattlerhof

Don’t miss the attractive Hotel Trattlerhof with its scenic location, close to the centre of Bad Kleinkirchheim.

Many hiking and biking trails pass close by the hotel, and the Trattlerhof is only 150 yards from the lifts to the Bad Kleinkirchheim and St Oswald Ski Areas.

Zell am See-Kaprun

Zell am See is not only a beautiful lakeside town, it has excellent skiing too, with the local mountain Schmittenhöhe reachable from the city centre. The region has a great bonus: glacier skiing even in autumn on the exciting Kitzsteinhorn just above the small town of Kaprun. All together, Zell am See-Kaprun offers with one ski pass - 138 km of pistes.

Many of Zell’s slopes are steeper than you might expect, with an exciting roller-coaster feel. The Trassabfahrt, for example, is an exhilarating black run

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Photo: Joe Wörgötter

Zillertal

Photo: Saalbach/Christian Wöckinger

more than two miles long, with a vertical drop of 1,000m and a gradient of up to 70 per cent.

Zell am See is one of Austria’s oldest and prettiest villages and has a 12th century castle as its most prominent landmark, along with many scenic winter-walking footpaths along the beautiful lake with clear water, sometimes even frozen. The nearby community of Kaprun has nursery slopes in the village, a medieval castle, plus a small ski area on the Maiskogel, which is the perfect mountain for families.

And it’s only a free 12-minute ski-bus ride to Zell’s main ski area on the Schmittenhöhe. Zell itself, with its traffic-free medieval centre, is refreshingly different: the après-ski is enhanced by being town-based, with many more options than you’d get in a mountain village. Kaprun’s Kitzsteinhorn is worth visiting just for the stunning scenery over Austria’s highest mountains from the panoramic platform on more than 3,000 m above sea level and the thrilling high-altitude runs on the splendid glacier.

With over 515 km of groomed pistes, Zillertal is the world’s largest ski valley, and that’s even before you take the extensive off-piste opportunities into account. Just around the corner from Innsbruck, it’s home to 4 ski areas which offer up all manner of variety for every type and level of skier. Advanced skiers can conquer the heart-pounding drop of the Harakiri, Austria’s steepest slope, and test their mettle on one of the 65 freeride runs, all of which abound with waist-deep powder.

Fun times for the whole family await at Action Mount Penken. There you can shred in the Penken Park, one of Zillertal’s seven snow parks, or set yourself a timed or speed challenge on three different courses. Little ones will love Pepi’s Kinderland, where they can play with Pepi the giant teddy bear and benefit from professional ski supervision while their parents relax and indulge in culinary delights at the Granatalm Ski Hut. In recent years, Zillertal has been continuously investing in environmentally friendly snow-making equipment, fed by crystal-clear mountain

water, to ensure perfect piste conditions.

With snow cannons across 80% of the slopes, and as the home to Hintertux Glacier, Austria’s only glacier that is open 365 days a year, Zillertal is as snow-sure as it gets. Zillertal really does make it possible to enjoy the snow around the clock. Early birds can experience the joy of being first on the slopes at 6.55am during the spring in the Zillertal Arena, whilst night owls have a treat in store, with weekly floodlit skiing possible until 10.30pm in the Hochzillertal ski area.

The Skicircus Saalbach Hinterglemm Leogang Fieberbrunn

The renowned Skicircus Saalbach Hinterglemm Leogang Fieberbrunn is one of the biggest and most highly rated ski circuits in the world. They’re famous for their lively après-ski too! Almost, but not quite, joined at the hip (they’re about two miles apart), both Saalbach and Hinterglemm villages have traffic-free centres. At 1,100m, Hinterglemm is marginally higher than Saalbach (1,000m). Between them (and the charming little resort of Leogang, plus the recently gondola-linked ski area of Fieberbrunn) they have a really extensive network of mainly intermediate/upper intermediate runs but with plenty of choices for more cautious skiers too. The beautiful long blue run from Schattberg Ost (2,020m) down to Vorderglemm (930m) is a real gem. By skiing down to Leogang, you can experience the vertical drop from the top of the Asitz gondola down to the peaceful community of Leogang in a neighbouring valley - an impressive 922m.

The attractive ski and freeriding area of Fieberbrunn joined the Skicircus – its “dream” for decades - at the end of 2015, thanks to the construction of a 10-seat gondola. Along with creating a 270km ski area served by 70 lifts, the connection linked the two Austrian provinces of Salzburgerland and the Tirol.

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For confident intermediates in search of adventure, a new holiday offers the chance to cross the Dolomites without hiking or heavy backpacks Words by Neil English

W

Photo: Helmuth Rier

hen I signed up for a group ski holiday in the Dolomites, I felt confident in making new friends — however I never thought I’d end up sleeping with our instructor.

But then this was a trip with a difference. Until now, ski holidays have fallen into two camps. You can either stay in a hotel, chalet or apartment, as almost all of us do. Or, if you are a hardened ski tourer, you can don climbing skins and ski from hut to hut, carrying your luggage on your back.

This raises an obvious question. Why are piste skiers denied the satisfaction of waking up in a new bed every morning?

Why can’t they experience the delight of overnighting at different refuges on a grand tour of the mountains?

That is the basis of a new holiday offered by tour operator Neilson.

Its Dolomites Ski Safari is aimed at confident, adult, red-run skiers four times a season. And earlier this year I was among the very first to give it a go.

Which brings me to how I ended up being the envy of our seven-strong group, not least because our dark-haired leader was half my age, a stunning skier, with mesmerising green eyes, that Latino

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Luggage is mostly transported by the ski school from refuge to refuge so we packed lightly tanned complexion and super-fit in every sense of the expression.

Well, in order to dispel any notion of impropriety, I am duty bound to reveal that my night with 25-year-old Davide Marinelli, who works for the Arabba ski school, was entirely chaste. The former ski racer and now race coach to juniors in America, had stepped up in gentlemanly fashion to help damsels in distress.

One of two ladies sharing a room in our group was unwell and was aware that her relentless coughing and spluttering was resulting in both of them suffering sleep deprivation and exhaustion. To help ease the strain, Davide offered his single room to one of the ladies, agreeing to sleep in my twin bed. I warned Davide

of my legendary snoring but he gallantly shrugged it off, plugged his ears with wax pellets and we both slept soundly.

Davide’s in-depth knowledge of the Dolomites’ vast ski domain made him ideally suited to guide these tours. They are mostly on-piste and designed to explore areas beyond the best-known resorts dotted around the Sella Ronda circuit. While the trips are offered to British skiers through Neilson, the ski safari concept is the brainchild of Arabba ski school, and its trips include a choice of routes, number of days spent skiing and levels of comfort in the rifugios.

For the seven-night tour we were on, the organisers request that skiers and snowboarders are able to negotiate reds

at a decent pace and blacks at their own speed. To cover the targeted amount of miles and, crucially, to reach our next refuge, we also needed minibus transfers and trains. Luggage is mostly transported by ski school personnel from refuge to refuge. We were asked to pack as lightly as possible — and were grateful for this on the few occasions when we had to carry our own luggage and skis to and from railway stations when minibuses and drivers were not available.

Neilson offers the deluxe package of the tour, which means three-star venues with guaranteed ensuite bathrooms, and suppers that were always decent, and sometimes even excellent. I drool, even now, when thinking about some of the

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homemade pasta dishes and delicious wines that we were served.

It is hard not to feel like royalty in the Dolomites, both when you are dining, and as you gaze over its majestic peaks.

Gargantuan clusters of precipitous rock rise up from interweaving valleys like a collection of cities, densely packed with skyscrapers, cathedrals and mansion blocks, all clad in fool’s gold, shimmering radiantly in the south Tirolean sun.

It was a French geologist, Déodat de Dolomieu, who in 1791 discovered how this joyous range of pink to gold hues came from the sun highlighting the calcium carbonate in the rock, and the range is named after him. But when dark clouds roll in, the magnesium and iron in the stone manifest themselves in thunderous gloom, filling the skies with an eerie atmosphere, as if dark spirits are gathering among giant tombstones. Such is the power of the Dolomites. And that is why painters, photographers, sculptors, climbers and — most importantly — skiers have flocked here for generations, to immerse themselves in the fascination of these mineral masterpieces.

On their peaks and in their foothills, 12 ski resorts serve up a total of 1,200km of groomed pistes, all covered by the one Dolomiti Superski lift pass, the largest single region ski pass in the world, almost double the size of the Three Valleys in France. Of course, not all are linked by ski lift or piste, which is why we needed vehicles for some connections. But most of it we skied.

On Day One, Davide led us from Arabba through the Passo Campolongo ski resorts of Corvara, Colfosco to La Villa and San Cassiano, with incredible views of Piz Boè and the massif of Sella Gruppo. Our first lunch stop constituted a brave precedent to set so early in the week. The Bioch hut, where we dined on the sun terrace, devoted part of its menu to local celebrity guest chef Norbert Niederkofler, whose restaurant, not far away in the Rosa Alpina hotel, has three Michelin stars. I chose his linguine bottarga with mussels. If you try this roe of grey mullet speciality, it’s a safe bet you’ll love it. Take a bow, Norbert.

A minibus took us over the Valparola pass in the afternoon and beyond the beautiful Lagazuoi area, so we could

catch the Falzarego cable car to our second night’s accommodation not far from the Cinque Torri ski area, where Sly Stallone fought the baddies in the film Cliffhanger (bare chested, as one always is while climbing ice walls in winter).

The Locanda del Cantoniere refuge above Cortina d’Ampezzo, our home for the next two nights, was greeted by our group with a collective sigh of relief. Our first night’s accommodation, the Albergo La Baita, above Arabba, was very much in the mould of a ski touring rifugio and had not made for a promising start. But once we were installed in the cosy, newly refurbished rooms below the charming old refuge of Locanda, happiness and harmony prevailed, especially when the ravioli starter and rabbit with spinach main were served with a delicious red wine, made from grapes said to come from the revered amarone family.

The next day we insisted on going up to Cinque Torri, well worth the visit for the views alone, but also for the cake and prosecco at the Torri rifugio and the surreal terrain. We skied down between random boulders that made us think a meteor shower had just made landfall.

The final stage of the cable car, climbing up the sheer rock face to the

Tofana peak at 3,245 metres gets the pulse pounding, even before we had skied down the Forcella Rossa slope, a thin track, chiselled out of the edge of a steep face with a precipitous drop to the side, considered one of the most challenging in the region. Davide told us: “This is not the time or place to be admiring the view. Focus on your skiing.”

Further down is the Olympic slalom course on Col Drusciè. The starting gate still stands as a memento of the 1956 Winter Games, when men and women started from the same spot.

I’m sure it was in Davide’s mind that this was all good training for the day at San Candido, discovering the superb terrain at the Monte Elmo and Croda Rossa ski area in Val Pusteria, where Italy’s steepest slope, the Holzriese, pitches in at a courage-sapping 70 per cent (35 degree) gradient. With our wellmaintained skis from the hire shop at Arabba gripping perfectly groomed snow and after a couple of pflaumen (plum) schnapps, we all got down claiming it was ‘un pezzo di torta’ (a piece of cake) — our linguistic pretensions in this bilingual area matching our skiing hubris.

The next morning, we awoke to a smattering of fresh snow on the ground,

There are up to 12 places on the tours, which are led by a ski instructor from the ski school in Arabba, where the tours start and finish, and at times involve train and minibus transfers

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the first in the region for, well, ages.

We hauled our gear, skis and all, to the platform at Toblach station for the train to Kronplatz which boasts 115km of runs.

It felt so desolate on the platform that we half expected a cattle train to roll up, rather than the modern, squeaky clean, express. Thirty minutes later we alighted, wondering how far we’d have to drag our skis and luggage, only to find a gleaming télécabine running from the platform to the ski plateau at Kronplatz, not far from our Rifugio Panorama. What’s more, the cabins had wi-fi so I posted a few pics on my way to ski the cappuccino layer of powder from overnight.

In all, we stayed at four refuges over the seven nights. The middle three were good, but as if to remind us that we were not enduring the rigours of ski touring proper, we ended the trip in the same flawed venue as the first night. It is a new holiday, but I would suggest an easy improvement would be replacing this charmless, roadside hotel with any of the decent hotels in Arabba.

That aside, these Dolomite tours are a refreshingly new and welcome concept, and I shall certainly return to explore more of the region. We spent the two last days skiing long, rewarding runs down to

So what is it like to stay in a €23-a-night 'concept hostel'?

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ention the word hostel, and you may think of army-style bunks and moth-eaten curtains. But there are a number of cool hostels opening up across the Alps, perhaps taking their inspiration from traditional mountain refuges. They offer a cheap alternative to hotels and chalets, so I went to try out the Moontain Hostel in Alpe d’Huez, France, earlier this year, just a few weeks after it opened.

Driving into the sleepy village of Ozen-Oisans, I wonder just how much of a ‘concept hostel’ it will prove to be. But the communal area has brightly coloured walls and faux graffiti that wouldn’t be out of place in a city-centre venue — save for the wood and hay, to add alpine chic.

I am given a wristband on check-in that is not only the key to my room, but

can be loaded with money to pay for meals (there’s no kitchen), drinks (après is from 4pm daily) or other activities.

You can stay in 12-bed dormitories for €23 a night, with lockers for belongings, and black curtains to separate the bunk from the rest of the room. Groups can book rooms privately. There are also double and family rooms with private bathrooms starting at €109 a night.

An advantage of staying in a hostel is that the communal living offers a natural way to meet fellow skiers. But if you are in a private room (or buried in your phone), the hostel has an app to help you meet fellow skiers at the start of the day.

And its location is ideal. From its position, perched on the edge of the cliff, the view across the valley is spectacular.

Beginners can easily roll down Oz-enOisans’ mellow slopes, and while the local runs have little to offer advanced skiers, it is possible to ski over to Alpe d’Huez and Vaujany (all included in the lift pass) within an hour. From there the possibilities are endless.

When I travelled at the start of January it hadn’t snowed in months — yet pistes across the mountain were open thanks to top snow making. The Sarenne, the longest black run in Europe, was even skiable, albeit a bit patchy in places.

Staying in Oz-en-Oisans fits those looking for more downtime than party time, unlike Alpe d’Huez proper, which draws British party crowds. The village has just a few restaurants, shops and a ski school, the hostel’s owners having converted an old hotel. It’s a resort under the radar with an intimate, local feel.

And wasn’t that what ski holidays used to be all about? Harriet Johnston

Harriet travelled as a guest of Alpe d’Huez (alpedhuez.com) and Oz-en-Oisans (oz-enoisans.com), staying at the Moontain Hostel (moontain-hostel.com).

Neil travelled as a guest of Neilson Ski (neilson.co.uk, 0333 305 4120), which offers the seven-night ski safari for over16s, starting in Arabba and departing on January 20, February 3 and 17 and March 10, from £1,605 per person, half board, based on two sharing, including most luggage transportation, ski instructor, flights from London Gatwick to Innsbruck and transfers.

The hostel has communal spaces decorated with contemporary artworks for socialising, and dormitories with lockers and 12 beds, each of which has a black-out curtain for privacy

ERGONOMIC INNOVATION YKK PATENT. EIDER ORIGINAL APPLICATION

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surrounding towns and villages such as Brunico, San Vigilio, Perca and Valdaora.

One of the most remarkable things about the trip was that, despite Mother Nature having been so mean with her snow gifts in January this year, about 90 per cent of the pistes were open for business. And they weren’t patchy or barely skiable, but a genuine delight to ski, on the kind of snow that takes an edge easily, fills you with confidence, and encourages you to push your limits. The type of snow that’s good for the soul. An extraordinary achievement.

I gave regular thanks to the snow cannons lining these pistes of pleasure, often next to lush, green fields. Given the conditions, would I have been able to attempt such a journey across the Dolomites on a traditional, off-piste hutto-hut tour? I rather think not.

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In the second of our two features on the Dolomites, we reveal how a holiday company matches volunteer guides with visually impaired skiers Words by Colin Nicholson

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t wasn’t how I was expecting it. We started off on a red run, and before I knew it we were on a black. Within minutes I had lost my photographer (he wasn’t able to keep up) and we were

bombing down Cortina’s Olympic runs in our brightly coloured bibs.

I was skiing with Traveleyes, a firm that arranges trips for visually impaired holiday-makers and those who want to guide them. When I had explained the concept to my friends, they were curious and seemed to mull it over, until one asked flatly: “Well, what’s the point if they can’t enjoy seeing the mountains?”

In hindsight, I could have pointed to several things. Riding up on the chairlift, I felt the warmth of the Italian sun on my face, I smelt fir cones bursting open in the heat, and when we stopped I sipped delicious cappuccinos sitting on soft sheepskin-covered benches.

This is akin to the general concept of Traveleyes holidays, with sighted guides describing the landscape or city to

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visually impaired participants, or ‘VI’s, as they are known, who will be experiencing their environment in different ways.

I wanted to tell Rudi, the super-speedy skier I was with, how the gnarled roots of tiny trees clung to the rock like an ageing mountaineer’s hands. And how, after the long drought of January, I could see the solid block of mountain streams, which stood as if frozen in time, for once not covered in snow.

But of the 40 or so holidays that Traveleyes runs, the activity trips are a bit different. Rudi politely but firmly told me that if I jabbered on about the landscape, it would get in the way of the skiing. The 34-year-old Finn had retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited condition that progressively limits field of vision. And for Rudi this was proving a problem

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because while Dave, his lead guide for the day, was setting a decent pace, he was doing so by slaloming broadly left and right out of Rudi’s view.

“You ski like a lady,” Rudi complained.

So I volunteered to do the leading on the next run. This was rash. After all, Dave, a retired solicitor, had at least done a day’s training back home in Somerset, learning to help blind people get around town. A Ski Club member, he was doing the week because he wanted “a different type of challenge” before heading on to a Freshtracks off-piste course in Madonna.

At the top of one of the black runs that will host the World Championships in 2021, I felt the same surge of adrenaline as before a race. And I asked the same questions of myself as to why I was doing this. Why wasn’t I satisfied with a pleasant pootle around the slopes?

But I did reckon I could hold a good line at speed so, checking Rudi was behind me, I set off doing tight, manly turns down the black run. But then I remembered that Rudi had told me to make sure he was still following, so I slowed a fraction and turned my head — only to hear Rudi’s shout of surprise.

He was nearly on top of me and I had to accelerate fast to avoid being mown down by him entirely.

You have to use all your senses as a guide, listening to the sounds behind you and watching shadows out of the corner of your eye in order to estimate how far behind you the VI is. I could see why Dave said it was a challenge and was relieved to let him take over again.

He wasn’t alone in the task. Rudi was followed by Simon, our ‘sweep’, whose role included warding off other skiers. He would do this a bit like a police outrider, swinging out wide whenever we joined another piste to clear our path, and generally avoiding the reflex the rest of us feel, namely to stay out of everyone’s way.

The 27-year-old went on his first Traveleyes ski trip three years ago, and has been coming ever since, with his hangover being good evidence of how much he enjoyed the spirit of the holidays. In fact, the only thing Traveleyes demands of its customers — guides and VIs alike — is an unfailing sense of humour, as they must be endlessly accommodating of each other.

So when we zigzagged through the forest Each visually impaired skier or snowboarder has two buddies — a guide and a ‘sweep’

back to the beginner slopes, Rudi would often lose Dave if he didn’t slow down in the shade or gave too much space to other skiers on overtakes, at which point Simon would jump in to lead.

Rudi was an exceptional skier, a cross-country Paralympian from Ruka, only now fulfilling his dream of skiing downhill in warmer climes. At the bottom we met the two other VIs, Mark and Adi, who were perhaps more typical of the VIs that go on Traveleyes ski trips.

Mark, now on his third Traveleyes ski trip, was taking it gently as his guide skied alongside him. But one of his other guides told me that having seen him as a total beginner on a dry slope two years ago she was blown away by his progress.

Patience is key, not least with other skiers.

His sweep Debbie explained that she was constantly acting as a human barrier against other people on the slopes who weaved around Mark, despite the words

“You have to use all your senses as a guide, listening to the sounds behind you and watching shadows out of the corner of your eye in order to estimate how far behind you the VI is. I could see why Dave said it was a challenge and was relieved to let him take over again. He wasn’t alone in the task. Rudi was followed by Simon, our ‘sweep’, whose role included warding off other skiers. He would do this a bit like a police outrider, swinging out wide whenever we joined another piste to clear our path, and generally avoiding the reflex the rest of us feel, namely to stay out of everyone’s way.”

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The ability of visually impaired skiers can vary markedly from novices, who stay on the nursery slopes, to red-run skiers

BLIND SKIER written in giant letters on his bib. Curiously this seemed to be more of a problem on the beginner slopes than on the reds. As she put it, “you do sometimes wonder just who the blind people are on the slopes”. And when the VIs are thrown off course “it takes ages to disentangle them from the netting,” Debbie said with a sigh.

Meanwhile Adi was enjoying a coffee in the sunshine as someone went back to the hotel to get new batteries for the walkie-talkie. This is just one of several aids for people such as Adi and Mark who have virtually no vision. Other aids include beepers that guides wear on their waists, or even music boxes, so the VI can follow the sound. In some cases, particularly with absolute beginners, both the VI and guide hold on to a long horizontal pole in front of them. But this morning, after the batteries died, Adi had settled for just being told where to go.

“It’s basically not that different to being at home,” he explained. “You get shouted at all morning by women.”

Adi, the brother of Traveleyes’ founder Amar Latif, had set himself a double challenge. He was learning to snowboard, despite being aware of how tough the first few days on a board are for anyone. And he seemed to have a magnetic attraction to ski lift pylons, dressed as they were in bright orange wrapping not dissimilar to our bibs.

His guides stayed with him even when he went for a lesson, allowing the instructor to focus on pure technique.

“I’m guessing that you’re standing up while you’re talking to me,” said Adi to the Italian instructor. “Now how on earth do you manage to balance like that?”

And the instructor was able to show him in a tactile way how to stand. But later that night Adi was the one showing off his balance. The whole group were staying at the turn-of-the-century Parc Hotel Victoria in this famously opulent town. And after dinner we headed past the boutique-lined cobbled streets, past residents draped in furs, to somehow find a karaoke bar. Then no-one forgets the most critical piece of equipment — an illuminated white cane, under which they all took it in turn to limbo dance.

The next morning, with a few more hangovers in evidence, it was back to the slopes. This trip was unusual in the high proportion of guides to VIs. Generally, Traveleyes is always on the lookout for more guides, who get their trips at a subsidised price (the next is in Bormio in the second week of January, priced at £699 for VIs and £399 for guides). So this meant there were always two who could take a day off. Dave used his to take a bus and explore the Cinque Torri circuit, while others went to Cortina’s third major area, Faloria, which unlike the other areas is easy to reach from a cable car in town.

Dave had suggested I try skiing blindfolded myself to get a sense of what being a VI skier was like and in retrospect I’m sorry I didn’t take up the offer. As someone who’s acutely shortsighted —

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which led to my interest in Traveleyes — I am perhaps too conscious of how precious sight is to give it up voluntarily, albeit briefly.

And, for the first time, I really felt a reason to study the mountains intently and see how these unique rock formations, full of tiny seashells and coral, changed according to the light.

To observe how the snow clung to the pink towers like icing sugar on a cake. To notice how in parts it settled in curiously horizontal lines, sitting like layers of cream. And to watch in awe when the sun rose and set, with the snowy peaks glowing white and orange, like the embers of a dying fire.

But perhaps in clinging to my senses, I was missing the point. Because what I experienced in the group was a different form of connection. Skiing is always more fun in a group, but with the trust required of guides and VIs, I saw their full immersion in a camaraderie that was uniquely intimate and delightful in this most sociable of sports.

Colin travelled as a guest of Inghams (inghams.co.uk; 01483 791 114), which offers seven nights half board (plus afternoon tea and wine) at the Chalet Hotel Parc Victoria in Cortina from £610 per person based on two sharing, including flights and transfers. The six-day Dolomiti Superski pass costs from €265 and covers 1,200km of piste, 450 skilifts and 12 resorts, including Cortina d’Ampezzo (cortinadolomiti.eu; +39 0436 869086).

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Check out the Swiss slopes.

Before you even land there.

swiss.com 1 pair of skis or 1 snowboard, 1 pair of ski poles, 1 pair of ski boots or 1 pair of snowboard boots travel free of charge, in addition to standard baggage allowance (excluding hand luggage only fares) and subject to availability.

Free ski transport

Made of Switzerland.

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ANDREAS DISCOVERS...

MASS-EDONIA APPEAL In which country can you ski for next to nothing and even go cat skiing for €85 a day full board? Step forward Macedonia Words by Andreas Hofer

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ost skiers worry about turning up at a resort and finding no snow. Our problem in Albania had been rather different — turning up at a resort and finding no resort. The country’s much touted ski areas have yet to be built. So it was more in hope than expectation that we drove along the road to Macedonia, a country barely 25 years old that has yet to find a name for itself.

Driving there was a spooky experience.

Even large Albanian towns such as Peshkopi and Debar on the border had no street lighting. The roads were eerily empty but for some sleepy stray dogs who were in no hurry to let us pass. It felt like we were driving blind. As midnight neared, we checked into the remote Hotel Tutto with little idea of where we were.

The hotel certainly offered more comfort than our Albanian farm-stay on the other side of the border. We had resorted to climbing Mount Korab on touring skis after we found that the Shishtaveci ski centre’s lifts were lying in a corner of a barn, next to a stack of skis, waiting to be put into action.

Would Macedonia’s Zare Lazareski ski centre, an hour away, prove any less ephemeral? The first breakfast of a skiing trip is always full of anticipation, but our apprehension was greater than usual as we drove through the vast Mavrovo national park straddling the border.

This time we were not disappointed.

We arrived at the shores of Lake Mavrovo to find them lined with cosy, even

luxurious chalets, which people from nearby Bitola and the capital Skopje use as a summer retreat. And between them we spied ski rental shops, a ski school and a fully functioning lift.

Skiing here is cheap: a day-pass costs 11,000 denars or €18 (euros are widely accepted), which gives you access to 25km of tree-lined pistes served by 14 ski lifts stretching up to 1,865m.

Mavrovo also boasts state-of-the-art snow-making facilities. But, as locals confided in me, they are never used, such is the cost of electricity, which makes studying snow reports essential.

We were faced with a different meteorological problem, as the chairlift carried us into a seemingly endless cloud of vapour — dense fog and heavy, moist snow falling all around us.

We took refuge in a ski hut near the summit and each took turns to leave the comfort of the crackling log fire to walk to the window, study the blank sheet of whiteness that confronted them, then return to the circle with a new round of the local grog. After a few hours of this, we thought it prudent to take the chairlift back down to the shores of the invisible lake below.

It was a difficult decision. Had we been more patient, we could have sat it out for a few days, as the resort has a good range of hotels (if you talk to locals you can find double rooms for as little as €20 a night) as well as restaurants and après-ski huts.

The resort even offers night skiing. But

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Previous page: The resort of Popova Sapka Above: Macedonia has some comfortable hotels Below left: Mavrovo’s minimalist piste map Below right: Skiing down from Kepi Bar

“SLATE ROOFS DROOP OVER TALL, SLENDER MANSIONS – IT LOOKS LIKE OLD ISTANBUL”

no matter how much of a party animal you are, après-ski simply isn’t the same if you have yet to go skiing.

Our pain was intensified by the fact that Mavrovo has more to offer than Macedonia’s more southern resorts. We were headed to one, on Mount Pelister, but we learnt that another, Kozuf, which is just two hours from Thessaloniki airport, was closed indefinitely. Officials hoping to bankrupt the operation and force a sale had closed the road there “for safety reasons” so that no one could reach it in winter. So its snowcats and ski lifts stand idle, while bankruptcy looms.

Not that crossing the border to go skiing would be easy. Macedonia has a strained relationship with its neighbours.

Bulgaria disputes its independent history; Greece denies it its name and classical past; and both want to keep it out of Europe at all cost. The country was only admitted to the United Nations under the un-catchy title of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Nor are its internal politics much happier. It was born from the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia in the Nineties, shaken by ethnic strife in the Noughties, then used as a corridor for the stream of migrants heading up from the Mediterranean in 2015. A religious stand-

off continues between its sizable MuslimAlbanian minority and the Orthodox majority, and there is a fierce rivalry between socialists and conservatives, all of which puts the brakes on a country blessed with natural beauty, a rich Byzantine and Ottoman history, and a perfect climate for tourism, occasional bouts of fog notwithstanding, of course.

We regrouped in the Hotel Tutto in Jance, a village largely abandoned by its dwindling population of Muslim Slavs.

Its eponymous owner, like most of his relatives, had worked for many years overseas, and returned to build the hotel and its restaurant, which is now one of the best in the national park. Whatever money he can spare is invested in the village. Here slate roofs droop over tall, slender 18th century stone mansions with projecting wooden upper floors.

Built on steep slopes, linked by cobbled alleyways, it looks like a romantic etching of old Istanbul. Buying one old stone house after the other, Tutto painstakingly rebuilds them, applying ancient building techniques with religious zeal, using mud, straw, stone, wood, slate, but no concrete, not even cement, while his wife runs the hotel.

The next morning opened with a gloriously blue sky. We had planned to head towards Macedonia’s southern resorts, but as we were not far from the foot of the Korab massif, which at 2,764m had offered us our only decent skiing in Albania, a thought occurred to us — why not tackle it from the other side?

A rugged Jeep would have to take us to the border zone, while our Mercedes 4x4 would wait on the main road. The Jeep was driven by a sullen man in green camouflage gear, who had a huge wooden cross dangling from the rear mirror. The border policeman had been persuaded for €80 to take us to the mothballed police station, blanketed in snow, where we would start our ascent.

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There we glued on our hiking skins and climbed, witnessed by a lone eagle circling over the valley, and following the tracks of hares, grouse and pine martens.

Our own tracks took a no less erratic turn when, under the cobalt-blue sky, we saw the white ridges and frozen rock faces of Kepi Bar ahead of us at 2,601m, showing off her steep north-east facing slopes festooned with limitless expanses of powder. No way would we let such an opportunity go to waste, and our impulsiveness paid off handsomely.

It was the best run of the season — 1,500 vertical metres skied without interruption. We looked back up the mountain to see a single line that — but for its symmetrical squiggles — looked as if it had been drawn with a ruler.

We had now begun to accept that the only straight lines we would trace in the troubled Western Balkans would be in the snow. So our next stop found us on the shores of Lake Ohrid, the oldest and deepest lake in Europe. In the tiny

“A LYNX FLED HIS RESTING PLACE WITH INCREDIBLE GRACE” Andreas Hofer’s assault on Mount Korab

both Lakes Ohrid and Prespa, the latter being shared by Greece, Albania and Macedonia. All three countries patrol the lake’s invisible border with farcical zeal, but the only guardian on the mountains I saw was a Balkan lynx fleeing his resting place with incredible speed and grace.

That night we stayed at Bitola, a bustling city of grand cathedrals, 16th century mosques, a Turkish bazaar and 19th century villas and townhouses, before heading to its local resort at Mount Pelister. This has just two small ski lifts, but also a snowcat operation with prices so low we were left rubbing our eyes. At the four-star Sumski Feneri Hotel, at the entrance to Pelister National Park, you get full-board, accommodation and seven runs for just €85 per day.

If that wasn’t reward enough, from the summit of Mount Pelister at 2,601m

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December 2017/January 2018

we were able to look down on the tiny houses of Bitola and then take in the whole of the Balkans in its rugged, snow-swept beauty: Bulgaria’s Rila range, the Sar mountains of Macedonia, the Albanian alps, the Korab massif, Jablanica, the toothed peaks of the Pindos mountains and — looming majestically over the plains on the far side of the glittering blue Lake Prespa — Mount Olympus, the throne of Zeus.

Such was the view we could have stayed much longer, but we had one more Macedonian resort to tick off before we headed to the far north of the country and over the border into the wilds of Kosovo.

For once, after the long drive, our 4x4 and entourage of driver and guide seemed superfluous. The resort of Popova Sapka was teeming with ski enthusiasts from the Macedonian

skiclub.co.uk

Photo: Marco Zaffiri

fishing village of Trpejca, over a dinner of rare Ohrid trout, we met Ilina Arsova.

The blonde, six-foot 31-year-old with amber eyes is Macedonia’s only woman to have climbed Everest, and offered to guide us to Magaro, which at 2,254m is the highest peak in the Galicica range.

We met her the following morning at the Saint Naum monastery, where she greeted us with a wicked smile, dressed as she was in patched-up garb, with battered and scratched telemark equipment, and climbing skins held in place with strips of tape — a far cry from the fashion shoots she appears in.

Magaro is an easy mountain to climb, and while the snow was hard and windblown, the snowpack was stable and we could each approach the summit from a different angle, pausing only to roll up our ski trousers under the blistering sun. We were all eager to be first to enjoy the magnificent views from the top of

capital. Unlike Mavrovo, which is two hours from Skopje’s ‘Alexander the Great’ airport, with its Wizzair flights, Popova Sapka is a mere 40 minutes away.

Admittedly, the cable car that once linked the Albanian-speaking town of Tetovo — complete with its ancient mosques, Dervish convents and hammams — to the resort 1,000m up had fallen into disrepair, but Popova Sapka’s three chairlifts and six T-bars are up and running, serving 20km of pistes. And on weekends the ski huts, restaurants, hotels and chalets are humming.

To my eye, Popova Sapka’s ski area had a spaciousness and drama that Mavrovo lacked. Sar Planina, the mountain range separating Macedonia from Kosovo, is an impressive alpine terrain. The highest summit is Tito’s Peak at 2,748m, named after Yugoslavia’s larger-than-life leader.

But perhaps it is Popova Sapka’s freeride possibilities that are most appealing. It has 80km of untracked terrain, with steep couloirs and wide slopes offering runs of 1,200 vertical metres which finish with some exciting tree-skiing at the bottom of the valley.

Again there is a snowcat operation, Eskimo Freeride, offering descents at a fraction of the price in North America.

A full day cost us €250, including lunch, giving us many chances to wave goodbye to the cherry-red vehicle as it headed back down the valley with determination, its exhaust belching boisterously.

The next day, we travelled under our own steam, on a ski tour that started in the quaint hamlet of Vic, where men in the café pensively sipped their espressos and smoked in silence, waiting for spring to arrive, and finished at the top of Kobilica, which, like all the peaks of the Sar mountain range, straddles the border between Macedonia and Kosovo.

At the summit we met Max, a KFOR peace-keeper from Bavaria, who spends most of the winter patrolling the border on touring skis. I was beginning to envy the job of Nato soldiers stationed in Kosovo, but then I paused to reconsider.

We were about to enter Europe’s youngest nation (but even that status is disputed) born from the bloody convulsions of a civil war. Was it really wise to go somewhere that the British Government still warns travellers off?

Perhaps it was the effect of the altitude.

Or perhaps it was the adrenaline rush of skiing such beautiful peaks. But yes, we decided, we would do it.

Andreas funded his trip independently.

He travelled with Macedonia Experience, (macedoniaexperience.com) on a threeweek journey through Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo that costs €6,500 per person based on single room, full-board occupancy accommodation in the best available hotels, ski passes, ski guides and private transfers.

For more on Macedonia’s ski resorts visit skimacedonia.mk

Top: Mount Pelister’s €85-a-day snowcat Centre: The resort of Popova Sapka Bottom: The village of Vic, near Popova Sapka

Photo: Marco Zaffiri

50

ADVERTORIAL

Nendaz:

Welcome to the biggest ski resort in Switzerland Photo: Etienne Bornet

Photo: Suisse Tourisme

In the heart of the ‘4 Vallées’ ski domain Nendaz is a breathtaking resort situated in the middle of the Valais, on a plateau overlooking the valley of the Rhône and offering a spectacular panorama of the Alps.

Half way between Chamonix and Zermatt and only 15 km away from motorways, railways and flight connections towards all the European capitals, Nendaz is a magic place amplified by sunshine unique to Switzerland. Adapted to all types of holidays, Nendaz is simply a unique experience right in the heart of the 4 Vallées, the biggest ski resort of Switzerland. With this fantastic location, Nendaz offers more than 400 km of ski runs and 92 ski lifts. Nendaz’ ski domain, unique and varied, ranges in altitude from 1,400m to 3,330m.

Thanks to its high altitude and also its lowest slopes equipped with snow canons, snow is guaranteed in the whole domain from December untill the end of April.

Ski slopes for every taste Do you fancy freeride in security? There are few places where you find as many secure freeride zones within a ski domain. Come and discover Plan-du-Fou, the Gentianes, Chassoure, Mont-Gelé, vallon d’Arbi and col des Mines. The many legendary names will remain engraved in your memory for a long, long time. These itineraries are not prepared mechanically but secured in order to satisfy the most experienced and demanding of skiers.

The legendary Mont-Fort The 2 main characteristics of the Mont-Fort-Gentianes– Tortin ski run are the steepness of its slope, and the altitude of its summit (3,330m). As opposed to most ski runs, the Mont-Fort is not prepared mechanically.

The slope is too steep for this. The preparation is limited to securing the area around the slope after each snowfall. This makes the slope the one of its kind. In winter as in summer, the Mont-Fort is an extremely popular excursion destination. Non-skiers can also reach the summit thanks to the lift system. In fact, from this incredible view point, the most beautiful alpine mountains, from the Matterhorn to Mont-Blanc, reveal themselves before your eyes. The Mont-Fort is one of the best view points in the Alps, which can be reached effortlessly.

Are you a beginner? Our five ski schools will be delighted to help you with your first turns on the slopes. They all offer private as well as group lessons. A special offer is also available for beginners who want to try learning to ski or snowboard for one day. The offer includes equipment rental for the day (skis, boots, helmet), two hours of lessons with a ski teacher and the lift pass for the whole day at the reasonable price of CHF 111.

Are you with your family? Nendaz has everything you need for perfect ski holidays. The beginner’s park on the frozen lake of Tracouet (2,200m) or the one in Siviez will make your children love their first experiences of skiing. A free magic carpet is also available in the centre of the resort for children to have fun either on skis or with a sledge.

Thanks to powdair, it is even easier and faster to reach Nendaz The new airline powdair will offer this winter a daily connection between Sion airport (located only 23 minutes away from Nendaz) and many airports in England (London City, London Luton, London Southend, Manchester and Southampton). In other words, Nendaz will be only two and a half hours from the UK.

Photo: Emilie Denayer

Discover more at www.nendaz.ch

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THE INSIDE EDGE 54 TECHNIQUE Gain the confidence to tackle a heap of steeps by following our expert instructor’s three-step programme

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57 OFF-PISTE How to get the best out of a mountain guide, from tips on finding one, to understanding the way they work

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58 FITNESS Combine après activities with exercises to avoid freezing up — plus we try a £20 class to get you ski fit on London’s slopes

60 SNOW WEAR Staying warm yet stylish has never been easier as technological advances make jackets toastier but lighter

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86

SKI TESTS Take your performance up a level with these piste carvers that allow you to experience a slice of heaven

78 BOOTS It’s power to the piste people with this season’s deceptively simple boots that take race models as their inspiration

82 GEAR

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Keep your vision crystal clear, with our goggle recommendations and tips to avoid scratches and fogging

86 SNOWBOARDS This winter’s entry-level boards will keep you and your bank account from wobbles, with prices unchanged from four years ago

90 RESORT INSIDER We review seven resorts that all built new lifts this summer to serve mile upon mile of gorgeously groomed pistes Ski+board

December 2017/January 2018

skiclub.co.uk

54

TECHNIQUE

How to handle steep terrain, from becoming comfortable turning on a black run, through to doing jump turns in a ‘no-fall’ zone Yikes! Which of us hasn’t felt a flutter of terror gazing down a terrifyingly steep slope? Of course, if you feel a slope is beyond your capability don’t attempt to ski it. There are almost always easier alternatives to the side. But then how do you build up the confidence that allows others to tackle steeps so effortlessly?

It’s a huge area of technique to explore and it’s vital to understand that your mental state and physical capabilities play as big a role as technique. In this issue I will focus purely on technique, and detail the key points needed to win the battle with gravity. The battle with mind and body can be a longer one…

I will outline a three-stage process where you start on a steep black piste to get the hang of turning in a relatively predictable setting, before you move on to steeper off-piste sections. Only once you’re completely comfortable in those should you attempt super-steep backcountry slopes.

THE STEEP BLACK PISTE Black pistes are the type of terrain where controlling your speed is important, and they are perfect for developing a high level of accuracy in your turns. yy Controlling speed Learn to control your speed by steering up through an arc before starting on the next turn.

The further up you go, the more your speed will be reduced. Think of those arcs as a clock face. By focusing on getting up to the nines and threes

you will notice a huge difference in your speed. Only when your speed is reduced should you release the edges and move into the new arc. When you have got the hang of this, it should feel like you are linking arcs in a narrow corridor, while maintaining a constant speed down the mountain. yy Making the turn As you move up the arc start to shift your weight on to the top ski so you have a platform you can work against through the next turn. The skis can be light through the top part of the turn, but it really helps to ‘feel’ the outer ski. At the right moment release the edges and balance against that outer ski as you move into the new direction.

As you move through the arc, try to tilt the skis on edge to get some bite and grip from the skis. This can be a juggling act. Too much edge will result in high levels of grip, which can fire you across the hill. Too little and your turns will be skiddy. You must decide how much edge angle to aim for, but you want to have enough to grip, but not so much you struggle to rotate your skis through a tight arc.

For effective short turns on steep pistes you should feel your skis are steering around your body in smooth arcs, while your upper body is strong and stable. A solid pole plant will help.

These types of turns are physically demanding. If fatigue sets in, you will be better off resting and refocusing

Mark Jones is director of ICE (icesi.org), a training centre for keen skiers and instructors in Val d’Isère, France.

He’s also a trainer and assessor for Basi, and has represented Great Britain four times with the British demo team at the Interski Congress.

before starting again. And certainly you should be comfortable linking turns like this before moving on to stage two…

STEEP BACKCOUNTRY In steeper backcountry terrain, speed control becomes critical to your safety.

You may be lucky enough to find deep powder, which will help slow you down.

But you cannot rely on this, so I will deal with a less forgiving, harder snowpack.

It can help to widen your stance from the one on piste, get lower and set yourself up in a solid, stable position. yy Controlling speed In this type of terrain you control your speed by getting the skis to skid sideways through the arc, then using an edge check to cut speed fast. The emphasis is on using that skidding, scraping action to be fully in control of your speed before changing direction. yy Making the turn Initiate the turn in a similar way to before. However it now becomes more important to project your body down the fall line as you release the edges. Use a solid pole plant for support at this point. When you release, it triggers your body to topple downhill.

At this moment try to feel light, yet balanced against the middle of your feet and skis, so they can rotate quickly and efficiently through the turn.

This is the time to create that

Photo: Chris Haworth/vanessafry.com

Tackle the steepest learning curve

TEC HNIQU E

This slope is much steeper than it appears and corresponds to the third type of terrain described

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Let your skis skid sideways, then make a final increase in edge angle to completely control your speed

Get the skis across the hill to prepare to control speed

Stay supported over the downhill ski, make a solid pole plant Make a small hop to let your skis release into the new turn. Project your body down the hill

Stay athletic in stance and remain balanced over the lower ski

Control your speed in preparation for the edge check and pole plant

skidding, braking action. This requires making a big, fast, rotational movement with your legs and skis. Be light, quick and agile with your feet. A quick edge check at the end of the arc will give you a good springboard into the next turn.

Make sure that you use the edge check when you are slowing down while skidding sideways, rather than when you are moving across the slope.

THE ‘NO-FALL’ ZONE Super-steep slopes off-piste are where it gets really interesting. On a 45 degree slope it just takes a small move to launch you into space. This is where you should focus on getting your speed to zero, beginning and ending the turn in a stationary position. yy Controlling speed Just as before, you will use skidding and scraping to slow

Always start on short pitches where the consequences of falling are not enormous

your skis. However, it will feel more like one vertical sideslip and check, rather than a rounded arc. yy Making the turn To initiate the turn there needs to be a small, controlled hop that allows the skis to briefly leave the surface and rotate fast across the fall line. As you move your body, it needs to be directed down the hill, supported by a solid pole plant. Some skiers prefer to plant both poles at the same time to give extra stability.

It should feel like your body is following the direction that gravity is pulling it in — falling down the hill.

Mentally this is challenging, but if you hold back at all now you’ll land on the tails of your skis, struggle with balance and fight to control your speed.

As you leave the snow, the skis need to rotate quickly into the new direction, so that as you regain contact

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December 2017/January 2018

with the surface you instantly get them across the fall line to control speed with some skidding and an edge check.

Be careful with the final small increase in edge angle to check your speed. If you are too harsh, the sharp deceleration can send you over, and in a true no-fall zone you cannot risk this.

Always start on short pitches where the consequences of falling are not enormous. You need to get plenty of repetitions in so that your turns are stable, reliable and won’t let you down.

Remember, only go into big, supersteep terrain when you are 100 per cent confident of your mental, physical and technical ability. But when you are, you may find the weightlessness of skiing steeps curiously addictive.

WANT TO FIND A UK SLOPE NEAR YOU?

skiclub.co.uk

SKI CLUB PROMOTION

Leader Resort Spotlight:

Instructor-led Guiding Resort Spotlight:

Grindelwald

Les Deux Alpes

For stunning views from the resort and the slopes, there are few places to rival Grindelwald. Dramatically set beneath the north face of the mighty Eiger, the resort offers fantastic, long intermediate runs, perfect for high-speed cruising, plus some more challenging pistes and off piste terrain.

Les Deux Alpes is one of France’s powerhouse resorts – a high, snow-sure ski area with an extensive glacier, the resort offers a huge amount of fantastic terrain, both on and off the pistes.

Our weekly Leader programme offers plenty of opportunities to fully explore the area whilst getting to know fellow Ski Club members • Ski Club Leader dates: 13 January to 24 March • Sunday meeting point: 9.30am, Resort Station • Social Hour: Derby Hotel, 5-6pm (derby-grindelwald.ch) Photo: Melody Sky

• Leader tel. no: +44 (0)7540 048 553

Our Instructor-led Guiding service in Les Deux Alpes is run by Alex Chapman from Tip Top Ski Coaching. Alex is a firm favourite amongst Ski Club members and also works with us on several Freshtracks holidays. You can read an interview with Alex in last month’s issue of Ski+board (available at skiclub.co.uk) • ILG dates in Les Deux Alpes: 26 December to 12 April • Prices: Members – full day £35 / half day £20 Non-members – full day £70 / half day £40

To find out more, and to pre-register to ski with a Leader in Grindelwald, visit skiclub.co.uk/leaders

To book Instructor-led Guiding in Les Deux Alpes, or 11 other resorts, visit skiclub.co.uk/ilg

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OFF-PISTE

Photo: Melody Sky

Take the long view Building an ongoing relationship with a guide reaps rewards Having been the Ski Club’s alpine safety adviser for 20 years, I have built up many long-standing friendships with members of the club. One thing that experience has proved is how helpful it is to nurture a long-term relationship with a guide to develop off-piste and mountain skills.

I didn’t apply for the job at the club, but was put forward by a fellow guide.

As in all paid-for services, nothing beats a word-of-mouth recommendation, especially if the suggestion comes from someone you know and whose opinions you value over those of a review-based website, such as TripAdvisor.

This works both ways. It’s equally important for the guide to have good client recommendations. It helps ensure that people of similar abilities, experience and aspirations get to ski or board in a compatible group.

Many weekend warriors turn up at freeride havens such as Chamonix or

Nigel Shepherd is safety adviser to the Ski Club. He qualified as a full guide in 1979 and was president of British Mountain Guides from 1993 to 1996. He has climbed, skied, taken photographs and guided all over the world and has contributed to several books.

A guide can best manage the expectations of a group if they have been on several trips together

Verbier with high expectations looking to hire a guide for a full-on hit. If conditions are perfect then all is well and good. But if there is an unstable snowpack with high avalanche risk, or if someone in the group is not up to the level of better riders, or if the forecast is poor, the guide may naturally err on the side of caution.

Such caution may be misinterpreted and prove too tentative for the clients’ tastes.

It’s natural to want to maximise your time off-piste on a short trip. But if you develop a longer term client-guide relationship then together you can achieve a balance between meeting and even surpassing your expectations, and being circumspect about what is feasible.

I have a group with whom I’ve skied for at least two weeks every winter for the past 27 years. By now we know each other very well and I think of them as mates rather than clients, though of course on the mountain the all-important safety decisions are made by me as their guide.

The advantage of having shared so many adventures is an understanding of how each of us reacts to mountain environments. With such knowledge we get to do the things they (and I!) enjoy with a good margin of safety. This is far better than having the pace forced upon

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December 2017/January 2018

us by the most gung-ho member of the group. Managing aspirations is one of the trickiest aspects of a guide’s job. When you meet a group for the first time it can be hard to gauge individual expectations, even though it might be a gang of friends who have skied together many times.

Fitness is, of course, vital for off-piste adventures, and you might expect me to have a good knowledge of my clients’ fitness. But our fitness varies hugely from year to year, and is greatly affected by other things in our lives, not to mention, naturally, the ‘getting older and cronkier’ factor. Interestingly, not everyone notices this. Often they realise it too late and end up demoralised, flagging at the back of the group, affecting what the group is able to manage.

Don’t assume that objectively you should be able to do the things you have in the past. A guide who knows you well will ensure you all finish the day with a sense of achievement — and that subjective feeling of accomplishment is far more important than scrambling to achieve a certain number of vertical metres or a certain peak on a trip.

READ SNOW REPORTS THAT ARE UPDATED DAILY HERE

skiclub.co.uk

58

FITNESS

Put some oomph into your après Simple stretches done immediately after skiing can set you up perfectly for the next day — just don’t spill your drink With the end of the skiing day comes a host of priorities, from picking children up from the ski school, relaxing in the sauna to enjoying après-ski drinks. But it’s also the best time to stretch muscles and keep them limber for the next day.

Here we detail some simple exercises you can do outside the ski school, in the spa or while waiting for a drink.

So the next time you’re chatting over

1 RAISED HAMSTRING

a beer at the end of a great day’s skiing, and feel your muscles freezing up as the sun goes down, you’ll know what to do.

In the next issue, we cover stretches to do before bed to ensure a good night’s kip, having covered morning and postlunch stretches in the past two issues.

READ MORE OF CRAIG’S TIPS IN BACK ISSUES HERE

A

Craig McLean is a chiropractor and fitness expert.

He has worked in the ski industry for over 15 years, helping Olympians such as Chemmy Alcott and Graham Bell recover from injury without surgery. He also consults for the Warren Smith Ski Academy.

B

A Place one foot on a stool, using poles if necessary to provide stability and balance. Stand upright.

B Keep your knee as straight as possible and lean forward. Hold for up to a minute before swapping legs.

You’re doing it wrong if… You’re folding. Look up as you stretch, and unlock the knee if you’re not supple.

2 STATIC HAMSTRING

A

B

A This is similar to the exercise above but can be done if no prop is available.

It should be a long, slow stretch.

B Keep your knee as straight as you can and lean forward, maintaining a straight back. Hold for up to a minute.

You’re doing it wrong if… You feel your lower back hunching. Look ahead as you stretch.

What’s it like to do...?

Fit-Ski classes

It’s 8am and I’m carving gentle turns on a slope before I head off to work in London. It’s not often I can say that.

I’m at the new Fit-Ski class at ChelSki, a snowball’s throw from King’s Road. The one-hour class is split into two parts: half off-slope fitness, half on-slope technique. It’s one of the most effective ways to get fit for skiing.

Basi instructor Dave Meer puts the two of us (three is the maximum class size) through a high-intensity, full-body workout. After explosive work on our legs, backs, arms and cores, involving burpees, slamballs, power bands, bench presses, weighted squats and sprints, we’re ready to ski.

Chel-Ski boasts that it is London’s

F ITN ESS

B

A

3 QUAD STRETCH

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A Lift your foot on to a bench behind you for support. Squat down, leaning backwards. Hold for 30 to 60 seconds.

B Alternatively, if you are supple and have no props, reach back to grab your foot and pull it towards your bottom.

You’re doing it wrong if… You’re over-bending either knee. Keep your posture upright.

4 HIGH LUNGE

B

A

A Put one knee on the ground, and the other at 90 degrees in front of you, using poles for support.

B Lean into the front knee and leg, feeling the stretch in your hip and groin. Hold for 30 to 60 seconds.

You’re doing it wrong if… Your back hunches forward. Maintain an upright back, using your poles for support.

B

5 GLUTE STRETCH

B

A You may prefer to save this one for the spa, rather than the après hut, but lying on your back, bend both knees.

A

B Place one ankle on the knee of the other leg. Reach down to pull both to your chest. Hold for 30 to 60 seconds.

A

You’re doing it wrong if… Your head and shoulders rise off the ground.

Keep your upper body relaxed.

largest indoor ski centre and indeed I could ski forever, as I’m on a revolving astroturf-style mat, with Dave adjusting the gradient of this treadmill for skiers.

It’s surprisingly hard; I’ve skied since I was three but today I struggle to turn.

“Carve harder with your inside leg,” Dave says, adding: “It’s much less forgiving than skiing on snow. Most

people won’t master parallel turns on their first session.” Tell me about it.

Some worry that this will teach them ‘bad’ technique, because it’s so different to being on a static slope, but professionals disagree. The Swiss ski team use the same technology in Interlaken, while Chemmy Alcott says: “For ski muscle memory, fitness and

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December 2017/January 2018

firing the different muscle groups, it’s brilliant. I’m a ski racer and my muscles are trained to a ‘T’ but I could feel them the next day. And it’s super fun!”

I agree. As a way to get fit for skiing, it beats a running machine. Louise Hall Fit-Ski sessions at Chel-ski (chel-ski.uk; 020 3829 6961) start at £20 including gear hire.

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SNO W W EA R

Rosie wears Eider Squaw Valley jacket (£400) with Eider Sybelles pants (£250) and Uvex 300 Visor helmet (£130) Opposite page, Tom wears Picture Welcome Jacket (£350), Picture Burton AK Bib Pants (£240), Picture My Topo buff (£22), Bern helmet (from £60) and Dragon NFX black goggles (£110)

EIDER SYBELLES PANTS £250 For skiers who like their kit to be as basic as possible, the Sybelles have a figure-hugging ‘athletic’ fit and are as minimalist as it gets in terms of features, which consist of Velcroadjustable waist with side zip and adjustable cuffs — that’s your lot.

No-nonsense, minimalist design No pockets

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SNOW WEAR

You‘ll soon warm to high tech jackets New hybrid blends of material and nanotechnology are creating clothes that are light yet snug Words by Harriet Johnston and Alf Alderson We’ve all had days when we’ve felt painfully cold on the mountain. While this is always a good excuse to pop into a restaurant for a hot chocolate, you don’t want it to spoil your skiing.

The good news is that this season, thanks to textile improvements, there are many garments that are lightweight, but have improved thermal regulation, water repellency and windproofing.

Brands have achieved this by moving towards hybrid insulated jackets, where synthetic and natural fibres have been combined, so that the natural thermal regulation of a product such as wool is combined with the water repellency and windproofing of synthetics in one lightweight garment.

Louisa Smith, textile trend consultant for the winter sports trade show Ispo, also notes a move towards so-called far infrared yarns. She says: “The body releases its warmth through to the fabric which is then reflected back to the body.”

These bio-ceramic products, developed in healthcare, convert your body’s thermal energy into far infrared rays to generate deep, gentle heating.

In the next issue, we will look at how snow wear brands are adopting a sustainable, make-do-and-mend ethic.

READ MORE OF OUR REVIEWS HERE Ski+board

December 2017/January 2018

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SNO W W EA R

O'NEILL JONES SYNC PANTS £140

SCOTT ULTIMATE DRYO 20 PANTS £155

These are slim-cut pants with lots of understated technical features and a nice soft lining and outer fabric. They offer good protection with 20k/20k waterproofing/breathability.

Features include Velcro adjustable waistband, three zipped pockets, inner thigh vents and adjustable cuffs.

The low-waisted jeans-style fit of these strategically insulated pants looks good, and they offer a well-considered range of features — fully taped seams, inner thigh vents, ergonomic cut, two zipped hand pockets, one rear pocket and adjustable waist and boot gaiters, plus reinforced hems.

Understated, efficient design May be too plain for some

Rosie wears O’Neill Jones Kenai ski jacket (£200), matched with O’Neill Jones Sync pants (£140) and Coals Rosa beanie (£28)

All the essential features in a neat package Probably too low-slung for many skiers

Red wears Scott Ultimate Dryo 20 jacket (£260) matched with Scott Ultimate Dryo 20 trousers (£155)

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SCOTT VERTIC GTX 3L PANTS £430

686 SMARTY ARIES JACKET £220

These virtually bomb-proof pants feature Gore-Tex 3L fabric and fully-taped seams, detachable bib, five zipped pockets, thigh venting and fully-adjustable hems for crampons as well as ski boots. They integrate with Scott’s Vertic jacket (also pictured). One for serious backcountry chargers.

The Smarty comes with a removable inner jacket so you effectively get three clothing options in one. With the inner jacket in place, it’s tricky to access features such as the main jacket’s inner pockets and powder skirt, and the armpit zips are less effective. But you get a lot for your money all the same.

Great build quality Heavy for a shell

Three jackets for the price of one Inner jacket restricts use of some features

Tom wears Scott Explorair 3L jacket (£245) matched with Scott Vertic GTX 3L pants (£430)

Ski+board

Annie wears 686 Smarty Aries jacket (£220) matched with Planks Yeti Hunter trousers (£190) and Picture Anna 2.0 gloves (£65)

December 2017/January 2018

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SNO W W EA R

ORTOVOX GUARDIAN SHELL JACKET £600

EIDER SHAPER JACKET £400

Well-engineered hardshell with 20k/20k waterproofing/breathability, helmet-compatible, twoway adjustable hood, armpit zips, two front pockets, soft-feel outer fabric with four-way stretch, removable powder skirt and wicking merino lining.

The big innovation is a zip-and-collar arrangement to protect your chin from the elements while still allowing a full range of movement. Its bomb-proof build, and essentials such as a powder skirt and armpit zips, make this is one for serious riders.

Good design, all the essential features Inner stash pocket would be useful; pricey

Annie wears Ortovox Guardian shell jacket (£600), with matching shell trousers (£520). She wears Ortovox Melange hoodie (£140), with Atomic Revent Amid helmet (£130), Smith I/07 goggles (£215)

Design innovation, build quality Heavy for a shell

Red wears the Eider Shaper jacket (£400) with Eider Shaper trousers (£380), Atomic Revent Amid helmet (£130) and Smith I/OS goggles (£200)

SNO W W EA R

65

MAJOR BRITISH RETAILERS Snow+Rock: snowandrock.com Cotswold Outdoor: cotswoldoutdoor.com Ellis Brigham: ellis-brigham.com Surfdome: surfdome.com TSA: snowboard-asylum.com The retailers above offer Ski Club members ten per cent off full-priced products, apart from Snow+Rock and Cotswold Outdoor, which offer 15 per cent CONTACTS 686: 686.com Anon: anonoptics.com Arc’teryx: arcteryx.com Atomic: atomic.com Barts: barts.eu Bawbags: bawbags.com Bern: bernunlimited.com Burton: burton.com CLWR: snowtraxstore.co.uk Dragon: dragonalliance.com Mammut: mammut.com Oakley: oakley.com O’Neill: oneill.com Ortovox: ortovox.com Picture: ellis-brigham.com Planks: planksclothing.com Scott: ellis-brigham.com Smith: smithoptics.com

Fashion editor Harriet Johnston Photoshoot director and illustrator Amanda Barks Assistants Rebeca Gonzalez Jonny Cass Photography Steven Haddock Hair and make-up Naomi Serene Models Red Rainey Rosie Nelson Annie Tanton Tom Ashton

Red wears Oakley Lookout2L Goretex Biozone jacket (£390), Oakley Factory Winter gloves (£65) with Dragon NFX black goggles (£110) and Atomic Revent Amid helmet (£130) Ski+board

December 2017/January 2018

skiclub.co.uk

Get to know...

Klaus Tscherrig Klaus Tscherrig is a certified professional mountain guide, ski instructor and hiking guide, who travels around the world guiding. Though his adventures often take him across the globe, he works for Ski Club Freshtracks from his home in Zermatt, an area he knows better than anywhere.

How many years have you spent on the mountain as a guide?

down and talk about the mountains, just spending time in nature and taking it easy. That’s very important to me.

I’ve been qualified as a guide for 25 years, and have skied with Ski Club holidays for every year since.

Guiding has changed a lot in the last 25 years. It’s easy if you’ve got a great day, with amazing powder and blue skies. But you couldn’t earn your living by just guiding on great days. Guides must always be out, so local guides like me have curated a massive knowledge of experience. Even in bad conditions, we must find the good runs, away from the crowds. If conditions are not so nice, you need a local guide to get the maximum amount of enjoyment.

What’s your first memory in the mountains?

Well I was born in the mountains, and grew up in the mountain village Täsch, so really all my memories are in the mountains. My father operated a T-bar in Zermatt, and I always joined him. I was three years old when I started skiing for the first time, just going up and down hundreds of times on the slopes of Zermatt.

Is Zermatt your favourite resort to ski in?

I do love skiing in Zermatt because it is my home. One of my favourite trips was the Follow The Sun trip, which is a ski touring trip, crossing over the Alps from Slovenia down into Nice. You travel through the mountains, mainly by ski touring and sometimes by piste skiing. It has taken a group of us twelve weeks over a period of ten to twelve years to complete the trip.

Partly because doing it all in one go would mean you were away a long time – and I’m not sure how much my wife would like that!

What’s your favourite thing about your job?

It’s really a combination of two things –­ I like the clients and I like the variety of skiing. I love that it takes me all over the world, and I’m able to see new places, but also that I’m able to meet interesting new people.

We hear you’re a bit of an adventurer - what is your career highlight so far?

My best achievement would be the project Seven Summits, which I just finished in May. This involves summiting seven mountains in all seven continents, including Everest, Aconcagua, Denali, Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, Carstens Pyramid and Vinson. Summiting them is a huge challenge - one which I’m really proud of.

That sounds like it could be pretty dangerous!

Have you ever had any accidents?

I have guided clients all over the world, but I have never had any serious accidents, for myself or for my clients. It is always our aim to reduce the risk to an absolute minimum. A guide’s life is sometimes on a tightrope and things can become very serious very quickly.

What’s it like to go on a trip with you?

Will we see you in another 25 years on the mountain guiding?

It always feels great to show new people around Zermatt, especially when guests have never skied on glaciers or seen crevasses before. They’re often so impressed by the landscape.

I like to take my time with them, because my trips are not just about skiing. I often bring a bottle of Swiss wine, and we slow

As long as I find some clients who want to come, I’m very happy to keep doing another ten to fifteen years. Of course, I want the clients to keep coming so, as long as they keep coming, I’ll keep guiding.

SKI CLUB PROMOTION

I like to slow down, look at the mountains, enjoy nature - my trips are about much more than skiing You can find me here...

Even the very name of the mountain town Zermatt is legendary in skiing circles. And Klaus Tscherrig is a legend in Freshtracks circles.

The iconic Matterhorn, superb mountain restaurants and 360km of breath-taking pistes make Zermatt a skiing heaven. A local guide can often know the mountain like the back of their hand - no matter what the weather may be. For someone like Klaus, who has lived there his whole life, it’s an absolutely priceless experience.

Zermatt’s main street, Bahnhofstrasse is lined with boutique shops, hotels and restaurants, and also has a lively après-ski scene.

Klaus runs several Freshtracks holidays in Zermatt each year. The Monte Rosa safari is a great introductory tour with minimum uphill and maximum downhill. Or the End of Season off piste trip is a great way to finish off the ski season and will often involve a day of heliskiing.

Holiday details can be found online at skiclub.co.uk/freshtracks or in your Freshtracks brochure.

68

SKI TESTS

SIDECUT

Piste skis that give you the edge Most of us spend nearly all our time on piste, and this winter’s models are ideal for the job Words by Mark Jones Recently, skiers have been falling in love with piste skis all over again. The reality is that most British skiers spend most of their time on piste, often because conditions dictate it.

If your runs are mainly on groomers, you’ll notice the difference between a piste-focused ski and a freeride orientated one. Whether you like your turns fast and high octane, or precise and short-radius, the step-up in performance can make for a lot more fun.

Because piste skis have one simple goal

This is the width of the tip, waist and tail of the ski, given in that order. A wider ski floats better off-piste, while a narrower ski will grip better on piste

— high performance on groomed runs — their construction can be beefed up with integrated binding systems, which work well when combined with a sidecut that can really bite if the ski is put on edge.

That is what the Ski Club’s team found when they travelled to Kühtai, Austria, to review the 799 skis available to British buyers. They discovered these skis could transform skiing on benign pistes into something really addictive.

The team only test the 100 most significant models, all of which feature in the four print issues of Ski+board.

Contenders for the Ski Club’s top performance awards are trialled by several testers. This year it was tough choosing winners, as the quality was high — which tells you a lot about those that made it on to the podium.

SEE VIDEO FOOTAGE OF OUR TESTERS ON TOP SKIS

CAMBER

Traditional camber effective edge

If a cambered ski is laid on a flat surface its centre will be raised.

Camber is now often combined with some level of rocker. Reverse camber (full rocker) is where a ski curves up from the centre to tip and tail

Camber with front rocker effective edge

Camber with front and tail rocker effective edge

TAPER This is when the widest point of the ski is brought back from the tip or tail, reducing weight and making the skis easier to handle off-piste. On a tapered ski you may feel like you are using a shorter length

Reverse camber (full rocker) effective edge

E A I B

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

ROCKER Rocker, or early rise, is where the ski has a slight rise before it gets to the tip or tail. Off-piste, this helps lift and floatation. On piste, it aids turn initiation and release

SKI TESTS

SKI CORES A ski’s performance is affected by the materials used and how they are arranged in the core.

Cores are normally wood or synthetic, combined with other layers, such as resin (usually epoxy), fibreglass, basalt, carbon, aramid and metal

RADIUS This is the radius of the theoretical circle that a ski will naturally make in the snow when tilted on its edge. A small radius produces tight turns. The radius varies with ski length: the length tested is given in bold

69

Meet the jury The Ski Club’s test team is made up of top skiers who can offer unparalleled insights into a ski’s performance: MARK JONES Director of ICE training centre in Val d’Isère, France, and trainer for Basi icesi.org AL MORGAN Ski Club head of Member Services and former ski service manager skiclub.co.uk

SYNTHETIC CORES Synthetic or foam cores are traditionally used in lower end skis, being cheaper, lighter and more forgiving than wood.

We are now seeing more high-tech synthetics in upper end skis to keep weight low and enhance performance

EILIDH MCLEOD Former British Ski Team member coaching under16s for international races kandaharracing.com JOHN TAYLOR An experienced instructor with Stoked in Zermatt, Switzerland. stoked.ch

WOOD CORES

SAM PARKES Basi Level 4 Instructor with Summit Ski School in Zermatt. See page 71 summitskischool.com

Wood cores tend to be made from strips of wood, glued side by side in a laminate construction. Their characteristics vary greatly: paulownia is light; beech can deliver power; poplar offers a smooth flex, and there are many others

PETE DAVISON Ex-action model who now owns retailer LD Mountain Centre ldmountaincentre.com TESS SWALLOW Independent Basi Level 4 instructor in Val d’Isère and Basi trainer tradski.com

SIDEWALL This is a wall of plastic, typically ABS (the stuff Lego is made of), running from the metal base edge of the ski to the topsheet. It drives power to the metal edges, protects the core and can also help absorb vibrations

LYNN MILL Ex-British champion who instructs in Val d’Isère.

See page 75 valdskiinstructors.com ROWENA PHILLIPS Basi Level 4 instructor at Matterhorn Diamonds in Zermatt matterhorn-diamonds.com

CAP This is where the topsheet and other layers roll down over the side of the ski to the metal edge. The benefit of caps over sidewalls is they often make skis lighter, more forgiving and more resistant to damage

Sidewall construction

NICKO BRAXTON Basi Level 4 instructor with TDC in Val d’Isère who runs his own telemark courses tdcski.com

Cap construction

BELLA SEEL Fully certified in the French, Swiss and UK systems, she runs concierge service ALS alsprivate.com

COMBO Cap and sidewall can be combined in several ways, by having sidewall underfoot with cap at tip and tail, say, or cap rolling down to meet sidewall for the length of the ski. Each affects the ski’s performance

Core Topsheet Reinforcement Edges Sidewall Base

Ski+board

December 2017/January 2018

NATASHA EDWARDS Basi Level 3 and ISIA rated instructor who is technically brilliant on groomers natasha_edwards@outlook.com

skiclub.co.uk

70

MEN’S PIST E SKIS: INTER M ED IATE TO A DVA NC ED

There is a wide range in this year’s men’s piste skis, with some giving race-like levels of performance and others proving easy to use.

Manufacturers continue to reduce weight while retaining high levels of grip and stability with new materials and the refinement of binding and plate systems. Some notable new entries have embraced these technologies, indicating what the future holds for piste skis.

As Ski+board warned, last season’s prices were set before the pound plunged after the Brexit vote and prices have now risen. But the Dynastar Speedzone is the same price, and the Salomon X-Max and Atomic Redster are just £20 and £25 more respectively.

Ski Club members can benefit when buying in the UK with the discounts listed on page 75.

Blizzard Quattro 6.9 Ti

£720 with bindings

Fischer RC4 The Curv Ti

£530 with bindings

K2 iKonic 80 Ti

£560 with bindings

BUILD

Sidewall/carbon & titanium wood core/standard camber SIDECUT (mm) 116-69-100 RADIUS 16m (174cm) LENGTHS (cm) 153, 160, 167, 174, 181 WEIGHT (per ski) Not available

BUILD

Sidewall/carbon & Titanal wood core/tip rocker SIDECUT (mm) 121-68-102 RADIUS 13m (164cm) LENGTHS (cm) 150, 157, 164, 171, 178 WEIGHT (per ski) 1,950g (164cm)

BUILD

THEY SAY This premium ski is a no-compromise, precision instrument for high octane, powerful riders.

WE SAY For a piste-focused ski, the Quattro is surprisingly easy to use. It feels light and forgiving, quickly engages on to the edge, and is nimble in short to medium turns. The 6.9 Ti works well at lower speeds and is a great choice for entry-level carving skiers, but at high speeds on hard snow its light weight and soft flex make it harder to fully engage with confidence.

THEY SAY Created for dynamic turn action thanks to the Triple Radius Technology. Titanium and Diagotex give grip on any slope.

WE SAY The Curv is another easy-to-use ski that feels soft and light. The ski’s construction and quality of damping feels excellent and is great for entry-level carved turns on groomed runs. Its narrow radius means it’s suited to tight arcs at slower speeds where you feel great response. At high speeds on hardpack it’s less stable and would need to be beefier for high-end performance.

THEY SAY K2’s new metal laminate construction traces the edge of the ski and strategically reinforces edge grip.

WE SAY Exceptionally easy to use on the piste, the 80 Ti is effortless in short turns, where it’s quick on the edge, giving good levels of grip through the middle of the arc. And its light weight makes it feel quick to manoeuvre and easy to adjust through the arc. At high speed in long arcs, though, the grip is not as strong making it less stable.

Overall, it’s a great ski for entrylevel carving skiers.

E A I B

Cap & sidewall combo/carbon & Titanal light wood core/tip rocker SIDECUT (mm) 129-80-108 RADIUS 17.5m (177cm) LENGTHS (cm) 156, 163, 170, 177, 184 WEIGHT (per ski) Not available

Light and easy in short turns.

Pivots well at slow speeds, but reaches its limits at high speed (Pete Davison) Soft, super easy on turn initiation (Mark Jones)

A

Easy, light and forgiving Won’t suit strong skiers who like speed

B

E

I

Great for progressing; good snow feel (Al Morgan) Easy on the piste, but struggled when pushed. Stiffer option might suit a stronger skier (John Taylor) Good for entry-level carving skiers Less sure at high speed on hard snow

E A I B

Smooth but only performs at lower speeds (Nicko Braxton) Easy in short turns and grippy on firm snow. Too soft when pushed at speed (Pete Davison) Light, easy; works well in short turns Less stable at high speed on hardpack

Photo: Ross Woodhall

What’s new in men’s piste performance skis?

MEN’S PIST E SKIS: INTER M ED IATE TO A DVA NC ED

E A I B

Line Supernatural 86

£460 without bindings

Movement Revo 86

£599 without bindings

BUILD

Sidewall/Titanal & wood core/ tip & tail rocker SIDECUT (mm) 125-86-112 RADIUS 17.7m (179cm) LENGTHS (cm) 165, 172, 179 WEIGHT (per ski) 2,126g (179cm)

BUILD

THEY SAY Hardpack doesn’t stand a chance! The Supernatural 86 won’t buckle under the pressure of high speed charging.

WE SAY Compared with other skis in this category, the Supernatural has a generous 86mm underfoot, making it an option for allmountain skiing. And on groomed runs it feels cruisy, being slower from edge to edge and with a softer flex. The ski feels very smooth and predictable through the turn, while its lighter weight makes it easy to make quick adjustments while turning.

THEY SAY The Movement Revo 86 combines versatility with power and is ideal for playing around on the mountain.

WE SAY The Revo 86 is also wide underfoot. Its soft tip makes it easy to move into the turn, but its width means it can be slow from edge to edge, making it cumbersome when doing powerful short turns on piste. It’s good as an all-mountain ski with the wider platform and tip and soft flex working well in loose, chopped up snow on piste. But the Revo 86 needs to be stronger for high speeds on hardpack.

It’s cruisy on piste and nice in chopped up snow (Nicko Braxton) Smooth and predictable, it’s light and poppy, and easy to throw about (Pete Davison) Easy, light and cruisy Doesn’t grip well on hard snow

71

Cap & sidewall combo/carbon & Titanal wood core/tip rocker SIDECUT (mm) 136-86-117 RADIUS 14m (175cm) LENGTHS (cm) 169, 175, 181 WEIGHT (per ski) Not available

E A I B

Punches out smooth, round turns easily in all conditions (Mark Jones) Playful off piste.

Stable and smooth at speed — but only up to a point (Nicko Braxton) Easy to use; super smooth ride Too wide for piste performance

TESTER PROFILE

Sam Parkes Sam was the young gun on the Ski Club team this year and he did a great job of giving expert feedback in the testing ground of Kühtai.

Sam feels most at home in the mountains. In winter he’s based in Zermatt, Switzerland, where he is an instructor for Summit Ski School.

And he can claim to know the slopes inside out, because in summer he swaps his skis for a bike and works as a cycle guide.

He’s a powerful, accurate skier and has just passed the final exams to gain his Basi Level 4 qualification. summitskischool.com

72

MEN’S PISTE SKIS: INTER M ED IATE TO EX PERT

A I B

Dynastar Speed Zone 12 Ti

£550 with bindings

Head Supershape i.Magnum

£585 with bindings

BUILD

Sidewall/titanium & wood core/ standard camber SIDECUT (mm) 116-70-103 RADIUS 16.2m (175cm) LENGTHS (cm) 156, 163, 168, 175 WEIGHT (per ski) 1,778g (175cm)

BUILD

Titanal sidewall/synthetic & wood core /tip rocker SIDECUT (mm) 121-72-106 RADIUS 15m (174cm) LENGTHS (cm) 158, 166, 174, 182 WEIGHT (per ski) 2,050g (174cm)

BUILD

THEY SAY The Redster X7 has a versatile sidecut so it’s great for short turns, long turns and even a weekend slalom race.

WE SAY The Redster feels as if it has very strong edge hold with the ability to grip hard on any snow.

The sidecut is reactive and delivers short and long carved turns — its sweet spot is medium arcs on a groomed run. Our test skis had a tuning problem so it was difficult to judge overall performance, but we think a well-tuned pair would live up to the expectations of a piste performance ski.

THEY SAY The benchmark for piste precision, power and comfort, it merges World Cup precision with smooth, responsive control.

WE SAY This is still a fantastic ski and is hard to fault. The Speed Zone 12 Ti feels connected to the surface and gives you instant, accurate feedback on what’s going on underneath your feet. Levels of grip are high and it always feels powerful and exceptionally stable throughout the turn, particularly in long arcs. However, some testers found it wasn’t forgiving enough through the tail.

THEY SAY The i.Magnum is our most versatile Supershape, giving piste performance for high-end recreational carving.

WE SAY This high-quality TOP SKI ski has a strong shape RF OR M that engages through the shovel. Its turn initiation is electric with instant grip that pulls you into the arc, which continues as you move through the curve.

When the edge angle is increased, it tightens up the arc quickly. That reactive, highly energetic shape dictates the character of this ski, but it also smooths out vibrations.

Strong edge hold in long turns, but felt grabby and unstable because of the tuning (Mark Jones) Strong in long turns, but unpredictable (Pete Davison) Grippy, agile; good sidecut Test skis had a tuning issue

E A I B

I B

E A I B

ER 2015

IC

LUB

OF GREAT BR

ITA

IN

Its soft, easy-to-steer tip engages well through the start of the turn (Sam Parkes) Easy to ski yet stable at speed. Great connectivity (Nicko Braxton) Reactive, high levels of grip, fun Hard to fault

Salomon X-Max X12

£570 with bindings

Scott Black Majic

£550 without bindings

BUILD Sidewall/Titanal & light wood core with honeycomb tip/tip rocker SIDECUT (mm) 127-73-109 RADIUS 14m (170cm) LENGTHS (cm) 163, 170, 177, 184 WEIGHT (per ski) Not available

BUILD Cap & sidewall combo/titanium, carbon

& wood core with honeycomb tip/tip rocker SIDECUT (mm) 120-73-103 RADIUS 14m (165cm) LENGTHS (cm) 155, 160, 165, 170, 175 WEIGHT (per ski) 1,877g (165cm)

BUILD

THEY SAY The new Pursuit 700 Ti is loaded with horsepower, precision and playful hard snow performance for experts.

WE SAY This ski has a TOP SKI very smooth flex that VA E L U does an amazing job of cutting out all unwanted vibration from the surface. In addition, it has a well-judged turn shape, which is perfect for ripping out medium arcs. Grip is very good and its performance range will cover most skiers’ abilities. The Pursuit will suit any skier wanting a great all-round piste ski.

THEY SAY Maximum power and precision on piste comes from two layers of titanium, carbon inserts and a full wood core.

WE SAY The X-Max is at its best in long, fast turns as it feels strong with heaps of grip and rock solid stability. It’s even better when it’s cranked up, with the bigger edge angles being rewarded with higher grip and a more solid feeling underfoot. In short turns, though, while having great edge hold, it can lack the punch and energy of some of the slalom-orientated skis we tested in this group.

THEY SAY The Black Majic has exceptional torsional stiffness and its sidecut provides precision, forgiveness and confidence.

WE SAY The unique construction and nose rocker sets the Black Majic apart from the norm for piste skis. It’s fun and works well in long fast arcs, where edge hold is good and vibration is kept in check. The rockered profile means it’s easy to pivot and change direction. But the wider platform makes it slower from edge to edge in short turns, and it lacks rebound coming out of the turn.

2015

A

Smooth, powerful, very stable Tail can be unforgiving

SK

Rossignol Pursuit 700 Ti

£550 with bindings

SK

E

Great edge grip and easy to initiate the turn. Solid and predictable (Pete Davison) Connected, great feeling under the edge, grips really well (Mark Jones)

Cap & sidewall combo/carbon & Titanal wood core/tip rocker SIDECUT (mm) 131-72-110 RADIUS 13.1m (170cm) LENGTHS (cm) 149, 156, 163, 170, 177 WEIGHT (per ski) Not available

PE

E

Atomic Redster X7

£575 with bindings

IC

LUB

OF GREAT BR

ITA

IN

Smooth, stable, versatile in varying turn shapes and speeds (Al Morgan) Smooth flex; cuts a nice turn shape. Good for short and long turns (Mark Jones) Great turn shape, smooth flex Hard to fault

E A I B

Superb at high speed.

Better when it’s cranked up (Al Morgan) Long turns felt really strong. Edge change is quick (Sam Parkes) Good in long, fast turns; stable, grippy Less energy in short turns

Cap & sidewall combo/Titanal elliptic wood core/tip rocker SIDECUT (mm) 122-78-112 RADIUS 16m (177cm) LENGTHS (cm) 157, 167, 177, 184 WEIGHT (per ski) 1,850g (177cm)

E A I B

More of an all-mountain ski, it would suit a piste skier wanting to try off piste (Al Morgan) Tip rocker is excessive, making it hard for short turns (John Taylor) Strong; grips well in long turns Lacks flex and rebound in short turns

MEN’S PISTE SKIS: A DVA NC ED TO EX PERT

Völkl Code S

£750 with bindings

Kästle RX12 SL

£990 with bindings

BUILD

Sidewall/Titanal wood core/ tip rocker SIDECUT (mm) 121-71-101 RADIUS 15m (168cm) LENGTHS (cm) 150, 156,162, 168, 174 WEIGHT (per ski) Not available

BUILD

Sidewall/titanium wood core/ tip & tail rocker SIDECUT (mm) 122-74-104 RADIUS 15m (166cm) LENGTHS (cm) 159, 166, 173, 180 WEIGHT (per ski) Not available

BUILD

THEY SAY This versatile ski is serious fun, and is loaded with top level technology designed to ensure a high level performance.

WE SAY The Spitfire is a TOP SKI true performance ski — RF OR M responsive, strong and ready to rip. Its grip is exceptional, especially coming out of the turn where it punches you into the new direction. It rolls from edge to edge effortlessly, making turn initiation instant. Once you’re into the arc it feels rock solid. The ski is happy in all turn shapes and is nicely set up for high speed medium arcs.

THEY SAY This ski provides a blend of speed of response, versatility and power transmission for advanced to expert skiers.

WE SAY This strong ski grips really well and is in its element in short turns. It’s another ski with a pronounced tip rocker, which works well on the Code S, allowing you to move effortlessly into the turn. Its powerful construction gives amazing edge hold and power through the turn. In long turns it works well, but the sidecut and power feels best suited for short to medium arcs.

THEY SAY The RX12 SL is a modern, frontside ski with precise edge control, high speed stability and nimble handling.

WE SAY The high performance RX12 SL has race construction with a tight slalom sidecut. Its grip is limitless and it feels stronger as the snow get harder. In small to medium arcs on hardpack it’s powerful, and requires an equally powerful skier — non-experts will find it overwhelming. With 66mm underfoot, it’s very quick from edge to edge making it want to drive into a new arc. But it’s pricey.

A I B

ER

PE

Nordica Dobermann Spitfire Ti Evo £550 with bindings

SK

E

73

2015

IC

LUB

OF GREAT BR

ITA

IN

Brilliant piste ski for someone with decent technique who likes to ski with energy (Al Morgan) Lots of performance, lives up to the Dobermann name (Sam Parkes)

A

High energy; accelerates out of turns Hard to fault

B

E

I

The rockered tip and tail make it easy to engage and exit the turn. Great sensitivity (Al Morgan) I loved the ski’s liveliness (Sam Parkes) Power, grip, ease of entry into turns Needs to be skied on its sweet spot

Sidewall/Titanal wood core/ standard camber SIDECUT (mm) 119-66-100 RADIUS 12.5m (165cm) LENGTHS (cm) 155, 165 WEIGHT (per ski) 1,610g (165cm)

E A I B

Punchy, reactive in short turns. Quick from turn to turn (Al Morgan) Huge edge hold.

Basically a slalom ski, so great on the piste but limited (John Taylor) Pure power performance Hard to handle for lower level skiers

74

WOMEN’S PIST E SKIS: INTER M ED IATE TO A DVA NC ED

This year, the capabilities and performance are even greater within the piste sector. Some of the top models are real powerhouses, giving ample scope even for our testers who were previously on the national team!

On the other hand, you will also find skis that are easy to use, with excellent responsiveness, but limits on how hard and fast they can be pushed. This makes it vital that you are honest about your ability and the type of skiing you do before you buy.

There has never been such a great choice on groomers, so enjoy them.

As with the men’s skis, prices have risen. However, some, such as the Rossignol Famous 6 and Völkl Flair are just £20 and £25 more expensive than last season respectively, and the Famous 6 is a winner of our prestigious top value award.

E A I B

Dynastar Intense 10

£425 with bindings

Fischer My Turn 74

£480 with bindings

Kästle LX73

£599 with bindings

BUILD

Sidewall/Titanal, synthetic & wood core/tip rocker SIDECUT (mm) 120-73-104 RADIUS 12m (167cm) LENGTHS (cm) 146, 153, 160, 167 WEIGHT (per ski) 1,840g (167cm)

BUILD Sidewall/carbon & light wood core/tip

BUILD Cap & sidewall combo/Titanal wood

SIDECUT (mm) RADIUS LENGTHS (cm) WEIGHT (per ski)

rocker 122-74-103 12m (155cm) 141, 148, 155, 162 1,150g (155cm)

SIDECUT (mm) 115-73-99 RADIUS 15m (164cm) LENGTHS (cm) 140, 148, 156, 164, 172 WEIGHT (per ski) 1,610g (164cm)

THEY SAY The Intense merges award-winning technology with a female-specific construction for the most fluid sensations on snow.

WE SAY This piste ski is very easy to use because of its lightweight construction and a softer tail that makes it forgiving coming out of the turn. The Intense worked well in the bumps where the combination of soft tail and edgeto-edge speed made it a joy to ski.

It has a limit on higher speeds and edge angles, as it will eventually break away. Entry-level carving skiers will find it a good choice.

THEY SAY Easy, lightweight, comfortable and athletic. Packed with benefits for the piste which make the ski light but steady.

WE SAY The My Turn 74 feels very light underfoot and has a forgiving soft flex which makes it user friendly as soon as it gets into action. Surprisingly, for a ski so soft and light, it performs well on the edge. And in short to medium shaped turns it’s lively and grippy.

It’s not designed to be pushed into race-like speeds on hardpack, but it’s a good choice as an entry-level piste performance ski.

THEY SAY The new LX73 is a piste-orientated, sidewall ski that combines ease of use with stability for comfortable skiing.

WE SAY The test team expects Kästle skis to veer towards the high performance end of the spectrum but this feels different.

A soft flexing ski that’s also light underfoot, it feels very easy to use. At low to mid range speed it feels light, fun and very agile, with strong edge grip, needing minimal effort to use. But it will have an upper speed limit where high pressures will overwhelm it.

Short turns are grippy and they hold well on ice (Rowena Phillips) It’s easy to use and is a good cruising ski (Bella Seel) Super light weight, fun in bumps Limited in edge grip at higher speeds

E A I B

The My Turn is really enjoyable to ski, given the price. I really liked it (Bella Seel) Thin and lightweight, but still has a good stiffness to it (Lynn Mill) Light; easy to use; cutting-edge design Lack of grip at speed on hard snow

core/standard camber

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A soft, springy ski that works well in all terrain (Eilidh McLeod) Takes little effort for a lot of fun. Performed nearly as well as some of the expert skis (Lynn Mill) Nippy, agile, light and fun Upper limits on speed and edge grip

Photo: Ross Woodhall

What’s new in women’s piste performance skis?

WOMEN’S PI STE SKIS: INTER M ED IATE TO EX PERT

Rossignol Famous 6

£395 with bindings

Head Super Joy

£545 with bindings

BUILD

Sidewall/light wood core with honeycomb tip/tip rocker SIDECUT (mm) 126-74-110 RADIUS 13m (163cm) LENGTHS (cm) 142, 149, 156, 163 WEIGHT (per ski) 1,500g (163cm)

BUILD

THEY SAY Features our light core construction for a 20 per cent reduction in weight and Prop tip technology for light swing weight.

WE SAY This is a softer, TOP SKI lighter ski than many VA E LU others in this category.

This makes turn initiation easy, and at lower to medium speeds it’s effortless to use. Grip is good and its easy nature and reactive sidecut mean this balanced, quality ski would suit skiers getting into carving. But at higher speed the softer flex means it’s hard to maintain those high levels of grip.

THEY SAY High speed, high class and high fashion rule this ski.

Or it’s the other way around since the Super Joy rules the slopes.

WE SAY The Super Joy TOP SKI lives up to its name. It’s RF OR M agile and quick from edge to edge, with a light, high-energy feel underfoot. This makes it easy to use as it gives quick responses to the skier. Edge grip is strong and it feels stable when riding big edge angles at higher speeds. The sidecut works well in both long and short turns and is well judged for piste performance.

Cap & sidewall combo/light honeycomb, carbon & wood core/tip rocker SIDECUT (mm) 128-75-108 RADIUS 12.5m (163cm) LENGTHS (cm) 143, 148, 153, 158, 163, 168 WEIGHT (per ski) Not available

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Lively, springy, fun and easy to use (Bella Seel) A great value ski that performs very well on piste and handles bumps nicely (Natasha Edwards)

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Light, easy, quick turn initiation Loses grip at speed on hard snow

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I could have skied on it all day long (Tess Swallow) Really strong from turn to turn; happiest on an edge. Bouncy and light in powder (Lynn Mill) Light, energetic, playful, good grip Hard to fault

K2 Luv Sick 80 Ti

£560 with bindings

Salomon W-Max 10

£470 with bindings

BUILD

Cap & sidewall combo/Titanal, synthetic & light wood core/tip rocker SIDECUT (mm) 121-80-109 RADIUS 14m (163cm) LENGTHS (cm) 149,156, 163, 170 WEIGHT (per ski) Not available

BUILD

Cap & sidewall combo/titanium, elastomer, wood & synthetic core/tip rocker SIDECUT (mm) 120-73-104 RADIUS 13m (162cm) LENGTHS (cm) 148, 155, 162, 169 WEIGHT (per ski) 1,977g (162cm)

THEY SAY A combination of lively aspen and flexible paulownia elevate the agility of this slim version of the Ooolaluv.

WE SAY The Luv Sick is another ski that’s fun in all conditions. The wide nose brings you into the turn and helps when powering through softer, chopped up snow. It grips well but suits medium to long arcs, as the extra width underfoot makes it slower from edge to edge in short turns. It’s best in variable snow where the wider profile works well.

For pure piste performance the tip connects less well on hardpack.

THEY SAY Maximum power and precision on piste comes from two layers of titanium, carbon inserts and a full wood core.

WE SAY This ski holds up in long carved turns, where it grips well, and handles a higher pace with ease. At speed it’s constantly stable and solid, and exudes confidence. The sidecut is welljudged and works in all turn shapes, making it an enjoyable ski that suits blasting around on groomed runs. It’s at its best in long arcs. Overall, the W-Max 10 works really well on piste.

Better suited to variable and softer snow over hardpack. Its shape reflects its off-piste abilities (Lynn Mill) Great on bumpy pistes and in powder (Natasha Edwards)

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Could work well as an all-mountain ski Not so good at speed on hardpack

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Works well on piste. Playful and enjoys speed (Rowena Phillips) Likes long carved turns; holds well at speed; good in variable piste conditions (Bella Seel)

TESTER PROFILE

Lynn Mill Lynn Mill (formerly Lynn Sharp) has an amazing ski CV. As a competitor she won 17 British titles, including British Overall Ladies Champion. And she is a star when it comes to giving feedback on piste skis.

Her input doesn’t end there. Over the years she has developed a passion for all-mountain skiing and exploring the backcountry, which makes her proficient in testing all categories of skis. She currently works as an instructor and Basi trainer in Val d’Isère, France, and is a race coach for British ParaSnowsport. valdskiinstructors.com

A buyer’s guide Several retailers offer Ski Club members savings on full-price items: Absolute Snow: 15 per cent off absolute-snow.co.uk Blacks: 20 per cent off blacks.co.uk Craigdon Mountain Sports: 15 per cent off craigdonmountainsports.com Ellis Brigham: 10 per cent off ellis-brigham.com Finches Emporium: 10 per cent off finchesemporium.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: 15 per cent off snowandrock.com Snow Lab: 10 per cent off, 15 per cent off for servicing snowlab.co.uk Surfdome: 10 per cent off surfdome.com

Strong at speed; good grip Could have more agility

December 2017/January 2018

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WOMEN ’ S PISTE SKIS: A DVA NC ED TO EX PERT

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Blizzard Alight 6.9 Ti

£680 with bindings

Nordica Sentra S 5 FDT

£520 with bindings

BUILD

Sidewall/titanium & light wood core with stabiliser-damping rod/standard camber SIDECUT (mm) 112-70-97 RADIUS 15.3m (161cm) LENGTHS (cm) 147, 154, 161, 168 WEIGHT (per ski) 1,997g (161cm)

BUILD

Sidewall/carbon & titanium wood core/standard camber SIDECUT (mm) 122-69-106 RADIUS 10.5m (160cm) LENGTHS (cm) 153, 160, 167 WEIGHT (per ski) Not available

BUILD

Sidewall/carbon & light wood core/ tip rocker SIDECUT (mm) 119-71-99 RADIUS 14.5m (162cm) LENGTHS (cm) 144, 150, 156, 162, 168 WEIGHT (per ski) Not available

THEY SAY The Atomic Cloud 12 is our top of the range Cloud using Servotec technology, taken from our Redster racing series.

WE SAY This bold, stiff ski is very much aimed at experts. It holds up at any speed in long turns and accelerates you from arc to arc in short turns. Edge grip is very good and, for a women’s ski, it has a strong flex that works well at high speed. The tail is very strong and it’s this that punches you out of the turn. The downside is that you need to be centred and technically sound to get the best out of it.

THEY SAY Precision ski for high octane, powerful female riders.

Edge transitions are fast while grip on icy slopes is second to none.

WE SAY Blizzard’s description perfectly describes this awesome ski for strong riders. The flex feels stiffer than many of the skis tested in this group. And this allows it to maintain very high levels of grip, while it feels rock solid right up to race-like speeds. It works well in all turn shapes, and will happily carve up pistes whatever the arc.

The downside is that it’s less forgiving if you’re not gunning it.

THEY SAY For confident female skiers who desire a ski with carving performance that can handle different snow conditions.

WE SAY This strong, fairly stiff ski is geared up for high performance.

The strong flex means it grips hard on steep, icy terrain while feeling stable at speed. The wider nose helps it steer into the turn and the stiff tail accelerates out of it. This makes it great fun — and exhilarating — on piste. But some testers found a mismatch between tip and tail, making it challenging at lower speeds.

A stiff ski for advanced skiers, it felt great all over the piste, including bumps and chopped up snow (Natasha Edwards) Stable edge hold. Uniform ski (Lynn Mill)

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Power, grip; accelerates out of the turn Too unforgiving for lower level skiers

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One of the best piste skis I’ve been on. Felt like a race ski — stiff, but playful (Eilidh McLeod) Well suited to experts. I enjoyed it at high speeds (Natasha Edwards) High end carving performance Less forgiving at lower speeds

E A I B

It’s stiff, so good for steep icy slopes (Rowena Phillips) Comfortable cruising at speed.

Odd grip, may have been a tuning issue with this ski (Eilidh McLeod) Grippy; great acceleration out of turns Less easy to predict at slower speeds

Völkl Flair SC

£575 with bindings

Sponsors

BUILD

Sidewall/steel & light wood core/ tip rocker SIDECUT (mm) 122-73-103 RADIUS 14.3m (163cm) LENGTHS (cm) 153, 158, 163 WEIGHT (per ski) Not available

With thanks to Planks and Salomon, both of which supplied clothes, and Scott, which also supplied goggles and poles.

PE

THEY SAY This easy-handling slalom carver makes the corduroy a true playground for advanced to expert skiers.

WE SAY The Flair is TOP SKI a very strong ski that RF OR M feels geared to experts.

Its fairly stiff flex is perfect for medium to longer radius highspeed turns. Quick to get on to the edge, it’s super reactive through the arc. For all-round high speed use on groomers, it’s brilliant.

But it’s more of a handful in short turns. The Flair can grip well but needs a lot of skier input.

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£550 with bindings

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Very stiff, great for medium radius and bigger turns (Eilidh McLeod) Strong and quick to get an edge, but hard work due to its stiffness (Lynn Mill) Powerful in long arcs; stable at speed Tougher to control in short turns

PIST E S KIS: B EG INNER TO INTER M ED IATE

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What if I am a beginner?

The Ski Club’s test team has long focused on gear for more advanced skiers, whether to rent or to buy.

The logic is that beginners and early intermediates are unlikely to notice the difference between entrylevel models when renting.

And for them buying could prove a false economy if they outgrow a ski’s capabilities within a couple of seasons.

That last assumption may be changing. The French sports store Decathlon is in the midst of a major expansion in Britain, with 37 stores now open in the UK. And they sell adult skis (complete with bindings) for just £105 a pair — less than the cost of two weeks’ rental.

Though Decathlon’s own-label Wed’ze range includes more expensive skis, it had enough confidence in the performance of the £105 Boost 300 ArcHtec skis to invite me and other journalists to its new base in the Alps to see how they were made, then try them out.

I had expected to arrive at some soulless industrial estate, but the Wed’ze headquarters in Passy are a stone’s throw from Mont Blanc, and are designed so that you can see the mountains all around you. Our guide, site manager Olivier Colloc, calls it “a Willy Wonka ski factory”, and that’s

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what it felt like, with supply managers, product engineers and designers among the 300 staff huddled around tables at the back, while the megastore at the front offered the most affordable ski equipment that I had ever seen. So how do they do it?

The secret is speed. Having tried 30 prototypes, including an all-metal ski, the team have developed a process to make the Boost 300 in six minutes.

It was here at Passy that the team refined the process of injecting polyamide into a mould with the ski’s steel edges already in place, while injecting fibreglass from two other spots to add torsion. The whole thing is heated, the base is glued on, the steel finished and — five minutes and 59 seconds later — it is done.

With Megève’s slopes just half an hour away, testers can try out the skis that same day, which is what we were itching to do. Would the H-shaped supports along the edges really give

Ski+board

December 2017/January 2018

the torsional flexibility for easy turning that we were told about while maintaining rigidity along the length of the ski for “optimum direction control”?

I was sceptical, but found myself pleasantly surprised. Certainly the Boost 300 did not have the stability of the Wed’ze Agil 700 and 900 (£220 and £260 respectively). But the skis weren’t as shaky as I had expected, especially given they are mass produced in Portugal, unlike other Wed’ze skis, which are made in the Czech Republic, Spain and Austria.

It would be easy to potter around on green and blue slopes, building confidence and ability on the Boost 300. As such they would make a decent first pair of skis. Beyond that, I’m not so sure. As an advanced skier, I wanted something sturdier, with drive, that didn’t chatter beneath my toes. As it was, I found the unsteady feeling that comes with pushing these predominantly plastic skis at speed unnerving. And they lacked the bounce from edge to edge that I’d experienced on high end skis.

But of course, I am not the target market. James de Saint Julien, head of product design, tells me that Wed’ze is hoping to take on the rental market for beginners and improvers.

For those who regularly drive or take a coach to the slopes this makes sense. They should soon break even.

But with so few airlines carrying skis for free (see skiclub.co.uk/flightfees), will we see a rush of first, second and third time skiers buying skis? Of that I’m not so sure. Harriet Johnston

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B O OTS

LINER

TONGUE

FLEX

Designed to keep your feet warm and comfortable, almost all those that come with modern boots can be custom-fitted to adopt the shape of your calves and feet

Look at the top of your foot and you will see a maze of blood vessels and tendons. A badly shaped tongue compresses these… and that’s painful

Boots come in a range of flexes. The flex is the theoretical force in Newtons needed to decrease the angle between cuff and clog by 10 degrees, and is given after the name of the boot. High performance boots are stiffer, but often less comfortable. The flex reviewed is given in bold, with the price of that flex also given in bold. Race models in particular may have letters after these

PRICE Generally, the higher the flex index, the more expensive the boot. Models made with lighter, more high-tech materials will also be more costly

POWER STRAP The power strap acts as a vital extra buckle around your leg, and is usually closed with Velcro, but some high performance boots use a metal closure.

Don’t forget to do it up!

SHELL Most shells are two-piece and combine a cuff, on top, attached by a hinge to a lower part, often called a clog, below. Three-piece models also have an external tongue

WALK MODE This is also known as climb mode or cuff release. Touring or freeride boots may have a switch which releases the cuff to allow it flexibility for walking. As piste skiing requires little walking, piste boots tend to come with a fixed cuff, for maximum support

BUCKLES These are used to fasten the boot.

Buckles should wrap the shell evenly around the foot, keeping it snug without creating pressure points

SIZE Most sizes are given in Mondopoint — the length of your foot in centimetres. Men’s boots usually come in sizes 24.5 to 30.5, or roughly UK sizes 5.5 to 11.5. Women’s boots usually come in sizes 22 to 27.5, which is roughly 4 to 10

FOOTBED

BOOTBOARD

This is a trainer-type insole that comes with the boot and sits inside the liner.

A customised footbed is recommended to improve stability and give better foot-to-boot contact

LAST

Hidden in the shell, it sits under the liner and acts as a shock absorber. Harder bootboards give more control, but a harsher ride.

Angled bootboards raise the heel in the shell

This is the template around which the plastic shell of the boots is shaped. It is measured in millimetres across the widest part of the foot, and typically ranges from 96mm to 104mm.

The figure quoted is usually for a UK size 8, but in practice will be higher for bigger feet. The narrower the last, the higher the performance

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BOOTS

Go back to the future for pure performance If you love the thrill of speed and control on piste, try these deceptively simple models If a 1970s skier dropped into one of today’s ski shops they would probably gaze in wonder at all the switches and layers of plastic on this season’s boots.

But one section of the shop would seem reassuringly familiar — the latest piste orientated boots look deceptively simple, with classic four-buckle overlap shells.

Few models in this category have features that go beyond the essential.

Close-fitting, with thin, dense liners,

with as little filtering as possible. Piste performance boots respond to good and bad input in equal measure — even in softer flexes the axiom of ‘garbage in, garbage out’ applies.

All are best combined with a ski with a deep sidecut, allowing them to cut trenches in corduroy with the precision of a knife. If you are a strong skier and love the thrill of speed on piste nothing comes close to the sensation of the raw

most piste boots are slightly more benign versions of the race-bred boots you can see on Eurosport every weekend. They are designed with power transmission in mind, making sure the smallest movement goes straight to the ski edge

power they offer. But if it’s the wilderness you crave, check the next issue as we look at their polar opposite — touring boots.

RECEIVE UP TO 20% OFF FULLPRICE BOOTS HERE

Dalbello Avanti

Chris Exall (skipress.co.uk) describes himself as being 40 years into an 80-year apprenticeship in skiing. He is a member of the governing body of the International Federation of Ski Instructors and has written widely on snowsports safety

Rosie Young graduated from Loughborough University with a degree in sport biomechanics and, having spent a season working in France, now works as a ski boot technician at specialist ski boot fitter Profeet (020 7736 0046; )

Tecnica Mach 1

Salomon X Max Race

FLEX 90, 100, 100GW, 110, 120, 120ID PRICE £250, £295, £325, £330, £350, £400

90, 100,

110, 120, 130 PRICE £240, £275, £310, £350, £450

FLEX 75, 75GW, 85,

95, 95ID PRICE £275, £295, £330,

£350, £400

FLEX 75, 85, 95, 105 PRICE £240, £240,

£275, £310

More of a grand tourer, the Avanti 120 is wider than many piste-focused shells at 100mm and fits medium-width feet.

Out-of-the-box fit is excellent and with a gently-cooked liner you get an even fit — the shell and liner can be heat moulded to fine-tune this. The two-part grippy sole helps to make walking more stable.

It suits skiers with medium to large feet and calves, who don’t want to ski at 100 per cent on every arc.

The Tirol wool in the liner adds warmth, while the 3D power frame allows for better transmission to the snow for more powerful skiing.

FLEX

Most boots in this category are race light but Tecnica’s Mach 1 differs from its race boots. The bottom up design means the 120 is more forgiving of less than perfect technique in variable snow. And with two width fittings it works for many foot types. The liner can be ground and stretched, and a shell with orange peellike dimples stretches over tight spots.

The feel is balanced, but it skis more firmly than the 120 label suggests.

The Women 2 Women shaped liner is new this year.

Thermoaction minerals in the liner convert body heat into infrared energy to help with blood flow.

Ski all day, dance all night — no tired feet Not as ‘full on’ as others in this category

Ski+board

Versatile with great heel hold The instep area is lower than expected

December 2017/January 2018

FLEX 120, 130 PRICE £420, £460 FLEX 70, 90, 110, 120 PRICE £270, £310,

£350, £380

With a last 2mm narrower than other X Max models, the Race 120 is quicker and more powerful, and though the two-part heat mouldable shell suggests an easy ride, it needs to be skied hard. The neutral point is more upright than some in this category and with a tall cuff it seems to suit longer limbed or tall, powerful skiers best. The narrower shell and liner will need to spend time in a Salomon custom fit oven to create more toe space.

A women-specific 120 flex is new this year giving top-level skiers stiffer plastic for power and precision. There’s customisation for narrow feet with 3D-fit buckles.

Snug; easy to customise No cuff alignment adjustment

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Head Raptor RS FLEX 120, 140, B2, B3 PRICE £320, £435,

£435, £435 FLEX 80, 90, 100, 110 PRICE £250, £265,

£265, £320

The Raptor 120 is a race boot that does almost anything you ask. It has a 96mm last but the shell has enough voids to give it a slightly more generous fit. It flexes at the cushier end of the 120 range, though adding the extra cuff bolt, which comes as standard, will give more boot than you’ll need. The double booster strap means the wrap around the cuff is excellent, but in big bumps a lighter skier may be thrown back if it’s too tight.

Designed for racers, this is a women’s boot for optimum power transmission. The heat mouldable Pro liner provides a comfort fit for narrow feet.

Simple, elegant, powerful Some find the buckling system fiddly

Lange RS/Rossignol Hero World Cup

Nordica Dobermann GP/GPX

Atomic Redster Club Sport

FLEX 100, 120, 130,

World Cup ZA/ZB/ZC PRICE £340, £390, £425, £525

FLEX 110, 120,

130, 140 PRICE £360, £400,

£440, £480

FLEX 110, 130 PRICE £330, £470

FLEX 110, 130 PRICE £345, £425

FLEX 85, 95, 105 PRICE £280, £320, £360

The RS 120 has a new last, deeper heel pocket and new shell. Instead of squirting a single type of plastic into the mould, Lange and its sister firm Rossignol inject a harder exterior plastic which sandwiches a softer core. This gives precise control of flex and shell thickness making the boot feel livelier and more responsive.

This year’s fit is a little narrower around the heel but has slightly deeper ankle pockets. Snow feel is good.

Featuring the new Dual Core technology, the Hero World Cup is a top level performance boot. The 97mm fit and shorter cuff make it ideal for women.

Fits well, skis well — what’s not to like?

Replace Velcro power strap with a cam type

The 110 takes all the raw power of the Dobermann range and makes it softer. It has sticky soles and is easy to enter and exit but still feels stiffer than the stated 110 flex. The shell is easy to customise with Nordica’s infrared lamp system and the liner uses slow moving flo pockets.

You can tilt the cuff and turn it so it matches the direction of your leg as you flex. It’s tight out of the box, but as the gel moves the fit will be superb.

The GPX is Nordica’s low volume performance boot with Primaloft liner for comfort. The female version has a lower cuff and women-specific fit.

Close to race performance all day Difficult to take off on really cold days

FLEX 70LC, 90LC PRICE £270, £300

Earlier Redsters sported as much visible carbon fibre as an F1 car but the technology is hidden in this year’s simpler model. The Club Sport is narrow at 96mm but the fit is just generous enough. Softer plastic means that the shell is thicker but it flexes smoothly and progressively. The two-part power strap gives great pressure distribution on the shin and though it’s race orientated it can take on the whole mountain.

Though not a female specific boot, the low cuff option makes the lower flexes ideal for women. The memory fit feature enables a personal fit.

Smooth flexing; powerful At 96mm it’s too narrow for many feet

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A customised footbed can prove money well spent Such is the level of boot customisation nowadays that it is tempting to dismiss the offer of a customised footbed, especially as it can cost anything from £70 to £200. Most ski boots come with customisable liners as standard and many have shells that can also be shaped to fit in an in-store oven.

So if you are offered a customised footbed, it’s easy to think you’re being ‘upsold’ more than you originally reckoned on.

However, if you’re looking for the precision that the piste performance boots on these pages offer, think twice before settling for the trainer-like insole that comes with your boots. Even today, many skiers struggle for want of the single most vital boot fitting tool — a customised footbed.

Imagine standing in warm, wet sand. It supports and cradles your entire foot, creating a mirror image of your sole.

Now imagine standing on the same beach when the sand has dried, hardening to the consistency of concrete with gaps where your foot is no longer in contact with the sand. A boot without a custom footbed is like standing on that hard surface.

Using various systems a skilled bootfitter can construct a bespoke footbed which will stabilise your foot in your boots and help you

feel more balanced and stronger, and your boots should fit more precisely. Some mirror the shape of your foot, filling the gaps under your sole, making your boots more comfortable and improving snowfeel. Others hold the foot in a naturally strong alignment, stabilising your foot and leg and increasing both power and agility. Superfeet uses a vacuum fitting system where the foot and leg are aligned using a laser beam, then a pump draws a heated carbon sheet against your foot, filling any voids.

Sidas-Conformable uses a thermoplastic sheet which is heated to make it pliable, then the skier stands on a special pillow until the footbed hardens.

Surefoot has developed a sophisticated system which reads the lower surface of your foot, then a computer controlled machine mills an insole from a large block of EVA (ethylene vinyl acetate).

Some footbeds are thin and firm underfoot, making them best suited to high performance skiers. Others are a little thicker and more flexible, often with a layer of insulation for all-day comfort. Each system has its strengths and weaknesses, but they have one thing in common.

Any bespoke footbed made to fit your foot will make your skiing day longer and more fulfilling than using the standard insole that comes with your ski boots. And I’m not on commission, I promise. Chris Exall

Used by elite athletes, coaches, instructors and recreational skiers of all ages and abilities

Used by elite athletes, coaches, instructors and recreational skiers of all ages and abilities

POWERFUL SPRINGS OFFLOad WEIGht FROm YOUR kNEES

Olympic mogul Skier Laura donaldson’s ski~mojo is “invisible” under her ski pants

“my ski-mojo enables me to get the most out of my days on the mountain” ChEmmY aLCOtt

Tel. +44 (0)7786 753267 | info@skimojo.com | www.skimojo.com

ShOCk aBSORBERS FOR YOUR WhOLE BOdY

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LENS TINT This is the colour used to darken the lens.

As a rule of thumb, it goes like this: Orange, gold, blue, grey — for sunny conditions Amber, brown — a good all-round option Yellow, rose — for flat light or when it’s snowing Clear — for indoor or night skiing

LENSES Most modern lenses are made from polycarbonates, which are more impactresistant and less likely to shatter than glass or traditional plastics. They are double-glazed, with the outer lens separated from the inner lens by a foam divider, which stops the inside lens becoming as cold as the outer, making them less likely to steam up

PHOTOCHROMIC LENSES These are usually the most expensive and will darken or lighten according to the light. This makes them more versatile — in effect, one pair of goggles for all conditions, without the hassle of interchangeable lenses. That said, most photochromic lenses use a grey or brown tint that won’t be as good as lenses made for snowy conditions or bright sunlight.

POLARISED LENSES These block out reflections and glare from the snow and are especially good in bright sunlight

REFLECTIVE COATINGS These also reduce glare from the sun and reflections from the snow (as well as looking cool). The colour of the coating is not necessarily the same as the colour of the lens tint

PADDING LENS SHAPE Cylindrical lenses are cheaper and curve sideways across the goggles. Spherical lenses curve in three dimensions, offering better peripheral vision and less distortion

Most ski goggles will have two or more layers of foam padding, usually with different densities, to allow the goggle frame to sit comfortably against your face. They also provide a degree of insulation

STRAPS VENTILATION

FIELD OF VIEW This is how much the goggles restrict your vision, and is usually affected by the size and design of the lens — and the shape of the wearer’s face. So it’s a good idea to try goggles on, rather than buying online, and remember to take your helmet with you

All goggles offer this, usually on the top and bottom of the frame in the form of small vents covered with foam.

This helps to prevent the goggles from steaming up, and works best when you’re moving so that air can pass through the vents

You’ll find adjustable, elasticated straps on all goggles. Some are describe as ‘helmet compatible’ — this simply means they have silicon strips on the inside which keep them in place on your helmet. Some also have a clip so that you don’t have to stretch the strap over your helmet, though you may find this even more of a faff

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GEAR

Photo: Ross Woodhall

Keep your goggles up to scratch More brands are now offering cases and spare lenses to keep your new eyewear sparkling for longer No matter how hard we try, new goggles still seem to develop scratches within days. In part, this is down to the nature of skiing. They’re usually attached to your helmet so if you place them under your seat at lunchtime it’s easy to send both rolling across the floor.

Or they may get scratched if you carefully wrap them in your fleece in your pack, forgetting it has a sharp plastic zip.

Perhaps you lay them carefully on a seat as you enjoy some après-ski, only to have

them covered by a pile of other clobber.

All goggles come with a cloth bag, so by making sure yours live in it when they’re not in use, you can forestall the inevitable. You can also use this to clean the outside of the lens (see overleaf).

The good news is that scratched lenses have become easier to replace, especially if your goggles come with interchangeable lenses. However, replacements are not cheap, sometimes costing upwards of £90, so it may make more sense to buy a new pair.

Scratches are not the only damage goggles sustain. Many expensive pairs come with a hard-shell case, which can be bulky, but will protect both goggles and spare lenses if you sit on them.

READ MORE GLOVE REVIEWS HERE

Alf Alderson is an award-winning adventure travel writer who divides his time between the Alps and Pembrokeshire. He is co-author of the Rough Guide to the Rocky Mountains and other ski guides. He is an experienced gear tester for the ski press.

£65

£150 (with photochromic lens) £180

£150

Salice Neo

Salomon X Max

Dragon NFX2

Designed for children from around nine to 14 years, the Neo comes with all the features you’d expect on adult goggles without costing the earth — which is good when you consider how some children treat their goggles.

They feature a top-quality, double anti-fog treated Zeiss lens with a mirror coating to reduce glare. Additional protection from fogging is provided through well-sized vents. The frame profile has been designed to ensure a good fit when worn with a helmet.

Even the most sensitive of faces should be fine with the soft face foam, and a soft, fairly wide elasticated strap allows for easy adjustment. It’s a pity the strap has no silicone retention strips to keep it in place on the back of the helmet, as otherwise the strap easily slides up.

The X Max comes with a black lens for bright weather and a rose coloured lens for cloudy days, along with an ‘instant lens change system’. I found it fiddly and difficult to change the lens without

These goggles have a frameless lens, which optimises your field of vision, and come with a spare lens that is easily changed with Dragon’s ‘Switchlock’ system. You flick open a simple locking

getting fingermarks on it, though.

That said, two lenses provide added versatility, and the photochromic lenses make changes unnecessary.

A flexible membrane between the face foam and the outer frame allows the frame to adapt to your face shape, making the goggles comfortable. There is also excellent peripheral vision, further helped by the spherical lens, which is said to act like the human eye.

The super-crisp, impact-resistant lens made of the NXT polymer has anti-static, oleophobic and hydrophobic coatings to repel dust, oil and water respectively.

mechanism, remove one lens, drop in the other and lock it all back down — but you do need to take the goggles off first.

The other big selling point with the NFX2 is Dragon’s exclusive ‘Lumalens’ technology. This aims to filter out light attributed to haze and glare, while letting in light that intensifies clarity and contrast to provide enhanced colour vividness and precise depth perception.

Add to this a tough ‘armoured’ venting system, an effective anti-fog treatment, triple face foam with a hypo-allergenic micro fleece lining, cool looks and you’ve got pretty much all you need.

All the essential features at a reasonable price Strap would benefit from silicone strips

Ski+board

Anti-scratch; good air flow Changing lenses could be easier

December 2017/January 2018

Easy lens changes; sharp vision Space age looks may not appeal to everyone

skiclub.co.uk

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G EA R

£103

From £84, depending on colour and lens

£157

Sinner Mohawk Sintec

Bollé Supreme OTG

Julbo Starwind

For anyone who wears spectacles an OTG (Over The Glasses) fit is essential in a pair of goggles, and the Supreme provides just that, while being fine for skiers who don’t wear glasses. The OTG feature does mean that the frames are not very low profile, although they’re not too bulky either, and peripheral vision is very good.

The Supreme features Bollé’s ‘FlowTech’ venting, which means airflow is directed across the inside surface of the double lens, thus reducing the potential for moisture build up, and anti-fog treatment is embedded in the inner lens.

The more expensive models come with light reactive ‘Modulator 2.0’ photochromic lenses, made of NXT. Triple layer face foam ensures a comfortable fit on these reasonablypriced and versatile goggles.

The Starwind offers another take on Julbo’s excellent SuperFlow System. It eliminates fogging with a mechanism that allows you to pull the lens forwards, letting air in to keep it clear — this is useful when you’re skinning up a slope or standing in a steamy gondola on a snowy day. When you’re ready to descend, you simply snap the lens back in place and off you go. I’ve been using this system for two seasons and think it’s great.

The Starwind also has a ‘Minimalist Frame’ design, which gives a very wide field of vision. It comes with Julbo’s Zebra Light Red photochromic lenses in NXT lens material, with a red tint that accentuates terrain relief. One final touch that I like is the goggle bag, which includes a flexible lens protector — a simple idea that I haven’t seen before.

The Mohawk comes with a spherical double lens for a more natural field of vision. The goggles are also distortion free and, while they didn’t provide the best peripheral vision on test, they were good enough to suit most people.

The frames are relatively low profile too, which further helps with your field of view, but best of all — especially given the price — is the fact that the lens is photochromic, so what you have is one pair of goggles for all conditions. The hypo-allergenic face foam provides plenty of comfort, and the Mohawk is, of course, helmet compatible (but then most goggles are these days).

Combine all this with good venting and an easily adjustable strap and there’s certainly a lot to like about the Sinner Mohawk.

Photochromic lens; relatively low-profile frame Not the widest field of vision of goggles tested

Suitable for glasses and non-glasses wearers Bulkier frame than non-OTG goggles

Versatile goggles for all conditions Very little

All fogged up? How to be clear sighted on the slopes the vents and better the airflow through a pair of goggles the less of a problem fogging is likely to be.

If the anti-fog coating does come off your goggles you can try reapplying it again with a product such as Quick Spit, available online for £10, but it’s rarely as effective as the original coating. So it’s best to try to make sure it doesn’t get rubbed off in the first place.

Where products such as Quick Spit, which also works on spectacles, are really useful is for over-theglasses (OTG) goggles. That’s because it’s often your specs that fog up, rather than the goggles themselves. If you’re worried that such products will affect the coating on your glasses, check with your optician first. Alf Alderson

Photo: Ross Woodhall

We see through a glass but darkly if our goggles constantly fog up. This is one of the biggest problems with goggles, especially when conditions are damp or humid, as when it’s snowing. Nowadays most goggles are double-glazed, coming with an outer and inner lens, which helps mitigate the problem — the two lenses provide an insulating layer, just like double-glazing on windows.

Cleaning the outside of the outer lens is easy. Use the goggles’ cloth bag (ensuring first that it is clean), trying to keep your fingers off the lens (inside and out) to prevent them being covered in hard-to-remove greasy fingermarks.

The inside of the inner lens, where the condensation forms, is more tricky to clean. Most come with an anti-fog coating and wiping over this when wet, even with a soft cloth, can remove the coating. This means your goggles will only fog up further.

If the inside of the lens does gets wet from snow, shake off as much as you can and dab the rest away with your goggles’ cloth bag. This probably won’t clear them completely, but it should allow you to see well enough. It’s best to wait until the inners are completely dry before you try to remove any marks — again by gently rubbing the cloth bag over them.

Some goggles, such as the Julbo Starwind (see review), are designed to keep fogging to a minimum, and the bigger

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SNO W B OA R D S

LENGTH

Construction

EFFECTIVE EDGE

Topsheet Core Edges Sidewall

Reinforcement Base

Board lengths are measured in centimetres from tip to tail. Longer boards suit powder; shorter ones are best for freestyle

The distance between the two contact points on either side of the snowboard

BASE Extruded bases are cheap, easy to repair, and ideal for beginners.

Sintered bases need more care and cost more, but are faster when waxed

FLEX

CAMBER

This is graded from one to five, with one being soft — making a board easy to turn — and five being stiff, for high-speed piste performance

A board with a camber profile rises up between the rider’s feet and has contact points at each end — at the nose and tail ends of the effective edge

WIDTH A ’W‘ following a length means the board comes in wide, and so is suitable for riders with larger feet — UK size 11 and over

ROCKER A board with a rocker profile has its main contact point between the rider’s feet, while the ends of the effective edge are lifted

SHAPE Directional boards have a setback stance, twin boards have a centred stance and an identical nose and tail, while directional twin boards combine elements of both

FLAT PROFILE A board with a flat profile is flat under the feet, with the board rising only at the tip and tail

Camber effective edge

Rocker effective edge

COMBO A board with a combo profile combines elements of both rocker and camber boards

Flat profile effective edge

Camber and rocker combo* *Camber and rocker combo profiles vary

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SNOWBOARDS

You can bank on these boards Piste models are not only kind to first-time and improving riders — they are gentle on their finances too If you’re a learner or casual rider, there’s no need to splash out on an expensive board, especially as the slump in the pound’s value following the Brexit vote means prices have risen, as most boards are made in the US or on the Continent.

For a board that won’t break the bank, check out this season’s entry-level picks.

The Salomon Pulse (£245) or Head Stella (£240) are scarcely more costly than those on sale three years ago. This is because entry-level (or piste) snowboards tend to be made by the larger manufacturers — companies such as Head and Salomon

K2 Standard

which also make skis, or snowboarding giants, such as Burton and Ride. Because beginners recognise and trust these brands, they have larger production runs and so can keep prices down.

Designed for cruising greens, blues and reds, these boards are meant to make learning easy. Their conventional shape behaves predictably, giving riders a solid platform for progression. Unlike the crazy shapes prominent in freestyle and all-mountain models (covered in the past two issues), the best beginner boards tend to be more traditional-looking.

Many feature rocker profiles, which lift the contact points, making it less likely to catch an edge. And while you can try to learn tricks or venture into powder with them, it’s on piste that they excel.

In the next issue, we’ll feature big mountain boards for the deepest powder, and splitboards for those going touring.

Burton Instigator

£300

The Ski Club has copies of its DVD Snowboarding Skills: Beginners & Beyond to give away. To receive a copy, simply email your postal address to events@skiclub.co.uk, putting ”Snowboarding DVD” in the subject line.

Tristan Kennedy is editor of action sports and adventure website mpora.com and former deputy editor of Whitelines snowboarding magazine. He tested these boards exclusively for Ski+board at the Snowboard Spring Break event in Kaunertal, Austria.

Rome Mechanic

£330

FLEX PROFILE Rocker SHAPE Directional Twin LENGTHS (cm) 147, 152, 155, 158, 161, 155W, 159W, 163W

FLEX PROFILE Flat SHAPE Directional LENGTHS (cm) 140, 145, 150, 155, 160, 150W, 155W, 160W

FLEX PROFILE SHAPE LENGTHS (cm)

PISTES POWDER JUMPS RAILS

PISTES POWDER JUMPS RAILS

PISTES POWDER JUMPS RAILS

When ski brands such as K2 started making snowboards, there was an assumption (not entirely misplaced) that their high-end models weren’t much cop. But they were always good at keeping the price of entry-level boards low, thanks to their manufacturing experience and established supply chains. Now K2 produces brilliant topend boards, but it hasn’t lost the ability to make basic piste cruisers cheaply either, such as the no-frills Standard.

It has a rocker profile and soft flex that make learning to turn easy and if you’re a beginner this is exactly what you need.

New for this season, the Instigator is aimed at entry-level budgets, but has been designed with the kind of care you’d expect from the world’s biggest board manufacturer. The flat profile helps spread the rider’s weight along the board, making it harder to catch an edge. The slightly tapered directional shape makes turning easy and the flex is forgiving and easy to learn on. The Instigator has also benefited from technology found in Burton’s more pricey models — the Squeezebox core, which is milled thinner to make it flex more naturally, previously only featured on its high-end boards.

Inexpensive; great on the pistes Not as stable at speed as advanced boards

Turns easily; great for novices Directional shape isn’t as easy to ride switch

Ski+board

December 2017/January 2018

£300

Flat Twin 147, 150, 153, 156, 159, 154W, 157W, 161W

Rome Snowboards was founded by two former Burton employees in 2001 and takes a similar approach for all its price points and ability levels.

The Mechanic is at the lower end of the range, but it’s still a well-designed board that is nice to ride. The flex is stiffer than on some entry-level boards, so it handles high speed and chopped up snow well.

It has also got Rome’s Quickrip sidecut featuring different radii along its length that help it hold an edge better on ice.

Apart from that, there aren’t many technical features, but it’s a dependable board that will help improve your riding.

Stiffer flex makes it more solid than some Not as easy to turn on

skiclub.co.uk

SNO W B OA R D S

Ride Agenda

£300

FLEX PROFILE SHAPE LENGTHS (cm)

Rocker Twin 149, 152, 156, 158, 159, 154W, 157W, 161W

Salomon Lotus

Women’s boards

FLEX PROFILE Flat SHAPE Directional Twin LENGTHS (cm) 135, 138, 142,

146, 151, 155

PISTES POWDER JUMPS RAILS

PISTES POWDER JUMPS RAILS

Ride has produced the entry-level Agenda for a long time, but it improves each year. This season’s model uses the brand’s Slimewalls — sidewalls made of urethane, the shock-absorbing material in skateboard wheels. This helps it soak up the vibrations you get when you’re shredding at speed. The full wood core is wrapped with a biaxial fibreglass weave and reinforced with impact plates beneath the bindings. As with most entry-level boards it has an extruded base, which means it’s harder wearing, easier to repair and cheaper — great for novice to intermediate riders.

Founded in 1947 by innovator François Salomon, the brand has years of experience to draw on to keep its manufacturing streamlined and costs down. With a flex described as ‘soft’, an extruded base and a directional twin shape, the Lotus is a classic entry-level piste rider's snowboard. It’s solid, dependable and forgiving to ride, and will provide a perfect platform for progression. As with the Pulse, the Lotus has BiteFree edges, but otherwise Salomon has kept this board pretty simple — which is exactly what learners need.

A great all-rounder at a great price Not the fastest board on the market

Salomon Pulse £245

Solid, well-built and forgiving Not designed for high speed riding

Head Stella

FLEX PROFILE Camber SHAPE Directional Twin LENGTHS (cm) 142, 145, 149, 152, 156, 160, 163, 158W, 162W

FLEX PROFILE SHAPE LENGTHS (cm)

PISTES POWDER JUMPS RAILS

PISTES POWDER JUMPS RAILS

Salomon also started out as a ski brand, but proved its boards were just as important long ago, thanks to innovative models such as the Sick Stick. The Pulse is at the other end of the range but benefits from the same build quality and attention to design — it’s just not as technical. But it has the brand’s BiteFree edges, which help novice riders avoid that painful edge catch. Salomon has kept things simple with the core, which is plain aspen, the shape, and the base, which is extruded not sintered. This is a good, dependable all-rounder at a reasonable price.

Tough, hard-wearing and dependable Few technical features

£250

£240 Rocker True Twin 139, 143, 147, 151

Skiers will know Head as the maker of some of the best skis on the planet, providing kit for the likes of Lindsey Vonn and Ted Ligety. Its snowboards tend to fall into cheaper price brackets, though you get a lot of bang for your buck, and for entry-level riders they’re ideal. The Stella is a classic example. It has a rocker profile that Head call Flocka, which makes it harder to catch an edge.

This, and the twin-tip shape, would suit freestylers, but it’s good for beginners too. Combine all this with a durable and inexpensive extruded base and a soft flex and you have an ideal entry-level board.

Cheap; fun to ride Not as stable as some at high speed

Ride Rapture

£325

FLEX PROFILE Rocker SHAPE Directional Twin LENGTHS (cm) 139, 143,

147, 150

PISTES POWDER JUMPS RAILS

Ride says this board is ‘designed to be fun from your first run’, and it doesn’t disappoint. The flex is good and soft, so it turns easily, requiring very little manipulation to switch from toe to heel edge. It has similar specs to the men’s Agenda (above) with Slimewalls to absorb speed chatter and a rocker profile that makes catching an edge more difficult. Apart from that, it’s technically fairly simple, but if you’re a novice or intermediate it has got everything you need, and will take you from your earliest turns all the way through to your first forays in the park or into powder.

A good all-rounder at a good price Too soft for big jumps or technical riding

Photo: O'Neill

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LA ROSIERE

89

ESPACE SAN BERNARDO

© Julien Gaidet

The French ski resort with an Italian flair 160 km of slopes

www.larosiere.net

Photo: Patrice Mestari/Courchevel

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RESORT INSIDER

The path to piste perfection Words by Ben Clatworthy, Chris Madoc-Jones, Louise Hall, Colin Nicholson, Sheila Reid Ah the joy! Few experiences can rival the sensation of feeling freshly groomed, corduroy snow under your skis and hearing your boots squeak with delight as you speed down a piste on a crisp, bluebird day. It’s what ski areas are made for, and it’s the allure of such runs that keeps us coming back for more.

These days lapping the groomers is easier and more pleasurable than ever before. Resorts continue to build new, faster chairlifts and gondolas, giving us more time on the slopes, less time queuing and greater potential to explore the nooks and crannies, villages and restaurants of our chosen destination.

In many cases, these new lifts link previously unconnected resorts to create huge new ski areas. And even where the nearest resort is a short bus or train ride away, newly expanded lift pass deals mean you can often explore them all on one pass. The result? Say goodbye to skiing the same run twice (well, almost).

As in the past two issues on these pages, Ski+board is focusing solely on those resorts that have invested in new lifts for this season. In some cases, this has also allowed them to open up new runs, making them better than ever for piste skiers. All the resorts featured cater to those looking for manicured terrain. For novice skiers, of course, smooth groomers are where it all begins to come together. But for more experienced skiers too, pistes are where you can really hone your technique. Ask any ski instructor and they’ll tell you

that most advanced skiers could do with spending more time on groomers, brushing up on their basic skills.

In the next issue, Ski+board will focus on those resorts — again with new lifts — that best suit skiers or snowboarders on a tight budget.

FIND REVIEWS OF RESORTS WORLDWIDE

HOW OUR GUIDE WORKS CHALLENGE Our infographic shows how resorts

grade pistes according to difficulty, showing what percentage, are black, red, blue or green. However, note that Austrian, Swiss and some Italian areas don’t have green runs. We list the percentage by kilometre.

PISTES We list the combined length of all the resort’s

pistes, as claimed by the tourist office. We include linked areas that are also covered by the lift pass.

LIFT PASS Prices are for a peak season six-day pass.

SKI CLUB Ski with other Ski Club members where there

is a Freshtracks holiday ‘F’, Leaders ‘L’, or Instructor-led Guiding ‘ILG’. Note that for Samoëns they are in the linked resort of Flaine.

R ESORT I N SI DER

Courchevel

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ILG

Piste height 1,100m-3,265m / Lift pass £266 / Lifts 166 / Pistes 600km

Photo: Alexis Cornu/Courchevel

Why there? Courchevel has serious credentials — it is, after all, part of the world’s largest lift-linked ski area. Courchevel 1650 — now called Courchevel Moriond — is a good family base with easy-toaccess slopes and better value accommodation than in upmarket Courchevel 1850. This summer the area was bolstered by the installation of the €18.6 million, eight-seat Ariondaz gondola, which has doubled the uphill capacity despite the removal of two draglifts.

There’s a huge variety of slopes, and for intermediates it’s a good day trip from Courchevel over to Val Thorens, Les Menuires and St Martin de Belleville in the third valley. The latter makes a good lunch stop for high-mileage skiers (try Restaurant L’Eterlou at the bottom of the slopes or La Voute in the village). But even if you don’t leave the Courchevel valley all week, there are enough runs to allow all levels of skier to feel as if they’ve travelled a fair distance in a day.

Intermediates will love the fast motorway reds, especially the runs that descend from the Saulire sector.

For families with young skiers, the area around Courchevel 1650 is great, with a good network of gentle blues and greens, including the Indiens piste, with its tepees and fun bumps route through the forest.

Can’t ski, won’t ski: Aquamotion is a futuristic sports centre with myriad pools and slides for children plus an indoor surfing wave, steam room and saunas. There are also lots of good snowshoe trails, winter walking paths in the forest and dog sledding outings. In Courchevel 1850 there is an ice-skating rink and a clutch of swanky shops.

Val Gardena

F

Photo: Dietmar Sochor/Ōsterreich Werbung

Photo: Val Gardena

Piste height 1,235m-2,500m / Lift pass £220 / Lifts 78 / Pistes 175km

Why there? The main draw is access to the magnificent Sella Ronda circuit, and this year that is easier thanks to the replacement of the Piz Seteur chairlift with a new ten-seat gondola capable of transporting 3,450 skiers per hour. If you’re staying in charming Selva, just down the valley, the new gondola will dramatically reduce queues.

The impressive 23km circuit makes a good day trip. It’s all on-piste and the runs tend to be well groomed each night.

The area is a stellar choice in lean snow years due to formidable snowmaking.

Can’t ski, won’t ski: Winter walking is popular and there’s a sports centre and ice rink. A bus ride takes you to Bolzano, home to a museum dedicated to Ötzi, the ice man.

65% 25%

10%

Snow Lifts Queue-free Food Charisma Ski schools Low budget Off-piste Excellent slopes amid dramatic Dolomites scenery Sella Ronda circuit can get crowded

Ski+board

41% 34% 15%

10%

Extensive, varied slopes with snowmaking Big investment in the lift system Wooded areas for poor weather days

Snow Lifts Queue-free Food Charisma Ski schools Low budget Off-piste

High prices in 1850 and all mountain restaurants Very little village charm or French atmosphere The villages are too spread out for lively après-ski fun

Zell am See-Kaprun

F

L

Piste height 760m-3,030m / Lift pass £225 / Lifts 49 / Pistes 138km

Why there? It’s different to many other Austrian resorts as it’s a proper town on a stunning lakeside. At 760m, it’s low, but that isn’t too problematic since 12 minutes’ drive up the road you reach Kaprun with its high, snowsure glacier slopes. Most of the pistes there are blue or red.

In Zell this season, a new tenseat gondola replaces one of the most important access lifts and promises to cut morning queues. Unusually, the slopes plateau at the top and are steeper towards the bottom, but there’s plenty of gentle piste skiing to be had.

Can’t ski, won’t ski: There’s the town to explore, plus plenty of winter walking routes to try, including across the frozen lake. Day trips to Kitzbühel and Salzburg are also possible.

December 2017/January 2018

skiclub.co.uk

40% 39%

21%

Snow Lifts Queue-free Food Charisma Ski schools Low budget Off-piste Varied wooded slopes with nearby glacier Zell am See’s slopes are low altitude and can be limited

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R ESORT I N SI DER

Samoëns

F

ILG

Why there? Samoëns is a safe bet for skiers wanting cruisy blues and unthreatening reds. And this year there’s more terrain thanks to the new Coulouvrier chairlift which, despite replacing two old, slow lifts, still increases the skiable area. There’s a new blue run, and two reds have been extended, adding variety to the front side of the mountain, as well as reducing queues during peak weeks and at weekends.

It is linked to the Grand Massif ski domain: five resorts with access to 265km of slopes, 80 per cent of which are north facing. The main area is around Flaine which, with its brutalist architecture, is no looker, but has a good snow record and an abundance of slopes suited to good intermediates. Take time to explore the full area: there are good woodland runs about Les Carroz and a fun, winding green down to Morillon. For experts, there is challenging terrain above Flaine, as well as some tricky off-piste routes. A guide is recommended, especially if you’re exploring the Flaine bowl — Flaine is where the Ski Club offers its Instructor-led Guiding and Freshtracks trips. Closer to Samoëns, the upper pistes on the Tête des Saix are testing.

Samoëns is a pretty village with small artisan shops that flank the cobbled street and a traditional square. This season a giant new Club Med resort has opened in the Samoëns 1600 area. It’s family friendly, with crèches and children’s clubs, and an indoor-outdoor pool.

Can’t ski, won’t ski: You’ll want to stay in Samoëns village, as opposed to the new development. Non-ski activities include a sports and culture centre and ice rink, plus marked snowshoe routes and dog sledding.

Photo: Samoëns

Piste height 760m-2,560m / Lift pass £220 / Lifts 68 / Area 265km

43% 14%

34% 9%

Snow

Lovely historic village that’s family friendly Suits intermediates wanting cruisy blues and reds Marvellous views from higher up

Lifts Queue-free Food Charisma Ski schools Low budget Off-piste

Can’t ski back to the village — need to take gondola Nightlife is limited — think rustic charm It’s not the best base for complete beginners

Kvitfjell

• All policies cover off piste without a guide • Single trip policies up to the age of 85 (75 for multi-trip) • Children under 18 covered for FREE on family policies

15% OFF for Ski Club Members

Why there? You’ll be forgiven if you’ve never heard of this diminutive Norwegian resort.

But that’s set to change thanks to sizeable investment and the annual hosting of an Alpine World Cup Downhill race.

This season, the new Vardan Express six-seater kicks off the resort’s expansion, plus there’s 5km of new terrain.

More slopes and a luxury skiin, ski-out development are due to be built. That won’t be enough for mileage-hungry intermediate and advanced skiers, but for beginners or early intermediates it’s a great base with snowsure groomers and quiet areas.

Can’t ski, won’t ski: Crosscountry skiing is high on the agenda, as are dog sledding and saunas. Party animals will find the clutch of bars limiting.

Photo: Kvitfjell

Piste height 200m-1,055m / Lift pass £190 / Lifts 12 / Pistes 29km

35%

26% 21% 18%

Snow Lifts Queue-free Food Charisma Ski schools Low budget Off-piste More than 100 snow guns help make it snowsure There are a few bars but nightlife is limited

Photo: Stefan Schlumpf/Switzerland Tourism

Davos-Klosters

F

L

Piste height 1,120m-2,845m / Lift pass £230 / Lifts 57 / Pistes 300km

Why there? Surprisingly lowkey for its affluent reputation, traditional Klosters is great for families and couples. The ski area is extensive, as it’s linked to Davos, and this year the T-bar to the Furka Pass has been replaced with a highspeed six-seat chairlift halving the journey time. You’ll find accessible off-piste, tree-lined runs and sunny mountain restaurants with dramatic views. On piste, there is good cruising in all sectors, with a few reds that, when groomed, are great for speed demons.

At the local ski school most instructors speak good English.

Can’t ski, won’t ski: Take the cable car or winding train for a scenic lunch. There are also hiking trails, cross-country skiing, sledding, tobogganing, swimming and tea rooms.

42%

35%

23%

Snow Lifts Queue-free Food Charisma Ski schools Low budget Off-piste Lovely long intermediate runs on extensive slopes Some skiers might find Klosters too quiet

Vail Height 2,475m-3,525m / Lift pass £620* / Lifts 31 / Terrain 5,289 acres

Photo: Blue Sky Basin/Vail

*based on booking online more than seven days before arrival

Why there? When most Brits think about North American skiing it’s all about fluffy powder, but there’s plenty of terrain for those who prefer ‘tearing up the groomers’. Cruisers will prefer the varied slopes on the front side of the mountain, from easy-learning runs to double-black diamonds, which although often mogulled, are sometimes groomed into fast steeps. The Northwoods sector has some of the best terrain for intermediates and benefits this season from a new six-pack helping to ease the daily bottleneck.

Can’t ski, won’t ski: Most nonski activities involve snow. At Adventure Ridge you can go snowmobiling, fat biking and tubing. A day trip to the shops at Silverthorne is possible.

29% 28%

18%

25%

Snow Lifts Queue-free Food Charisma Ski schools Low budget Off-piste The massive ski area is great for confident intermediates

By American standards, the slopes can be very busy

SKI CLUB BENEFITS

MEMBER DISCOUNTS

The Ski Club offers its members a host of discounts at a variety of organisations to help save money both before and on your holiday.

To claim your discount visit skiclub.co.uk/discounts where you will also find full terms and conditions.

VIP Ski 10%

TOUR OPERATORS AND TRAVEL AGENTS

Alps Accommodation 5% Samoëns and Morillon

Absolutely Snow 15% Absolutely Villas 15% Alpine Action 5% Alpine Elements 11% Balkan Holidays 5% Club Med 10% Crystal Ski Holidays 5% Different Snow 5% Elegant Resorts 5% Erna Low 6% Esprit Ski 5% Frontier Ski 5% Headwater 5% Iglu.com 5% Inghams 5% Jasna Adventures 10% Lagrange Holidays 5% Mark Warner 10% Mountain Heaven 10% Mountain Paradise 5% Neilson Up to 7.5% Nonstop 5% Premiere Neige 10% RocketSki 15% SB Ski 10% Ski Amis 10% Ski Independence 5% SkiLine 5% Ski Peak 5% Ski Solutions 5% Ski Total 5% Ski-Val 5% SkiIceland 5% SkiLapland 5% SkiNorway 5% SkiSweden 5% Skiworld 10% SNO ski Holidays 5% Snow-wise 10% Snowcoach 5% Snowscape 5% SnowTrex Various discounts Stanford Skiing 10% Sunweb 10% The Oxford Ski Company 5% Travel Club Elite 6%

ACCOMMODATION WORLDWIDE PowderBeds.com 5% FRANCE Alpe d’Huez Chalets 5% Alpe d’Huez

Auberge & Chalets sur la Montagne 10% Sainte Foy

Swiss Quality Hotels 10% Resorts in Switzerland and Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany

M D Physio 15%

Verbier Rentals 10% Verbier

Ski-Mojo 10%

ITALY Alpen Hotel Eghel Folgaria 10% Folgaria Livigno Ski Holidays 10% Livigno

Serena Stubbs Orthotist 10% SkiA Ski Trainer 15% Skifitness 20% RYA 50% Wimbledon Clinic £150 off

SHOPPING Absolute-Snow 15% Aquapac International 20%

Muu Village 10% to 20% Folgaria

Banana Moon Clothing 10%

Clarian Chalets Portes du Soleil 10%

NORTH AMERICA Holiday Whistler 10% Whistler

Blacks 20%

Fresh Tracks Oz En Oisans 10% Oz En Oisans

Leavetown 6% Alberta, British Columbia, Quebéc

Méribel Ski Chalets 11% Méribel

Summit Vacations 20% Breckenridge

Chalet Blanc 5% La Chapelle d’Abondance

Nomadic Ski Holidays 5% Chamonix Ski Cuisine 5% Méribel Ski France 20% Various locations Ski Talini 5% St Martin de Belleville Snow Retreat 5% La Tania SnowChateaux 10% Various locations Snow Trippin 10% St Martin de Belleville The Tasty Ski Company 10% Morzine and Le Grand Massif Valloire Reservations 12% Valloire SWITZERLAND Chalet Apartment Rentals 15% Verbier Ferienart Resort & Spa 10% Saas-Fee GriwaRent 5% Grindelwald Hotel Beau Site 10% Adelboden Hotel Belvedere 10% Wengen Hotel Bristol 5% Saas-Fee Hotel Schweizerhof 12% Pontresina Hotel Silberhorn 10% Lauterbrunnen Hotel Wengener Hof 10% Wengen Silvretta Parkhotel 10% Arosa Sunstar Hotels Group 10% to 15% Arosa, Davos, Flims, Lenzerheide, Grindelwald, Wengen, Zermatt, Klosters, Saas-Fee

UK AND IRELAND Britannia Hotels 10% Caledonia House Ireland 15%

FINANCIAL Caxton Fx £10 balance on registration WeSwap £10 Free travel money Eurochange Various discounts

AIRPORT PARKING, HOTELS AND LOUNGES APH Airport Parking & Hotels Up to 27% Cophall Parking Gatwick 20%

Bawbags 20% Burnt Custard 20% Cotswold Outdoor 15% Craigdon Mountain Sports 15% Cycle Surgery 10% Drift Innovation Action Cameras 20% Elliot Brown watches 10% Ellis Brigham 10% Ember 15% Finches Emporium 10% Freetime Mountain Sports Various discounts Freeze Pro Shop 10% Futureproof.Life 15% Glisshop 10% GO Outdoors 10% Hardnutz 20% Kora 10% Lifesystems 15% Little Skiers Up to 15% Lockwoods Up to 25% Loqski 10% Mountain Warehouse 15%

FHR Airport Parking and hotels Up to 25%

Nature Shop 5%

Holiday Extras Up to 15%

Off Courses.net 10%

Looking4parking Up to 20%

PIQ 20%

Skyparksecure Up to 30%

Planks 15%

Stress free parking Up to 22%

PlayBrave Sports Apparel 20%

LIFT PASSES

Profeet Ski Boot Lab 20%

Cairngorm Mountain 10%

Nevisport 10%

Runners Need 15%

Folgaria Up to 20%

Ryft Goggles 15%

Glenshee Mountain Up to 20%

RxSport 10% Sail and Ski 10%

Lecht 10%

Ski Bartlett 10%

GYM, FITNESS AND LEISURE Arthur Beale: London’s Yacht Chandler 10%

Snow Lab 10% to 15% Snow+Rock 15% Snowfit 10% Surefoot 10%

Alpine French School £25 off

Surfdome 10%

Focus Study Tours £100 off

Techniblock Sunscreen10%

JK Physiotherapy 15%

Thirsty Various discounts

Trixski £3 off Ultimate Outdoors 20% Yoodo Movie Maker 20%

FOR CARS Volvo Various discounts Polar snowchains 15% Sanef Tolling — France Free registration

Oxygène Ski School La Plagne, Val d’Isère Up to 10% Ski Progression Up to 15% Skimckay.com Val d’Isère Up to 20% Skispeziali.com 10% Snow d’Light 10%

The Roof Box Company 10%

Supreme Ski & Snowboard School 10%

SKI LUGGAGE

The Snow School 15%

BagSOLO 10% Loqski 10% Piste of Mind 10%

TRANSPORT Jet2.com 5% Snow Express 10% Swiss £25 off flights

CAR HIRE

TDC Val d’Isère 10% Ultimate Snowsports Tignes 10% SWITZERLAND Adrenaline Ski and Snowboard School Verbier £10 discount Alpinemojo Ski School 15% to 20% Element Ski School 10% European Snowsport 10%

RESORT SHOPS, RESTAURANTS AND ACTIVITIES

Firpark Ski Centre 20%

WORLDWIDE Skiset Up to 60% FRANCE Arc 1950 Freeride Up to 55%

Gloucester Ski and Snowboard Centre 10%

Huski 10% Chamonix

Llandudno Ski and Snowboard Centre 10%

Le Vallon Blanc Up to 30% Tignes

Mendip Snowsport Centre 10%

Polaire Star Up to 25% Bourg St Maurice White Storm Up to 55% Various locations ITALY Al Solito Posto 10% Cervinia Cervinia 2001 5% Cervinia Heliski Cervinia 5% Cervinia Lino Bar Cervinia Free shot Cervinia

Rhino Car Hire 15%

Schweizer Schneesportschule Davos 10%

Zest Car Rental 5%

Stoked Snowsports 10%

Les Skieurs D’Antan 10% Cervinia

TRANSFERS

Summit Ski & Snowboard School 10%

Maison Jean Bich di Pers 10% Cervinia

Swiss Ski and Snowboard School 10%

Morange Sport 15% Cervinia

Vivid Snowboarding Verbier 10% ITALY Echo Travel 10%

Rifugio Maison Vieille Cormayeur 10%

AlpyBus 10% Ben’s Bus 5% off return transfers from Grenoble airport Cham Van 10% Holiday Taxi Innsbruck Airport 5% Le Taxi Savoyard 10%

Scuola Sci Sauze Sportinia 10%

Looking4Transfers Up to 15%

Scuola di Sci del Cervino Various Discounts

Mountain Rescue 10% on Saturday transfers

Ski School Cristallo-Cortina 10%

PowderCab Airport Transfers 10% Sea-Lifts 10% Ski Lifts 10% Whiterides Airport Transfers 10%

SKI SCHOOLS AND GUIDES EUROPE New Generation Ski and Snowboard School 10%

SNOWSPORTS INSTRUCTOR COURSES

Sandown Ski Centre 10% Ski and Snowboard Centre Cardiff 20% Ski Rossendale 10% SkiEasy Chiswick 20% Snowtrax — Outdoor Activity Centre 10% Snozone Castleford and Milton Keynes 10% Southampton Alpine Centre 10% Suffolk Ski Centre 15% Sunderland Snowsports Centre 20% Swadlincote Ski & Snowboard Centre 10% Tamworth Snowdome £15 discount Telford Ski Centre 5% The Snow Centre Hemel Hempstead 10% Torquay Alpine Ski Club 10%

OTHER ABC Safety Training 20%

ARTIFICIAL SLOPES

Basi (British Association of Snowsport Instructors) 10% off Level 1 courses

Piste to Powder 5%

Core Ski & Snowboard Camps £10

Momentum Snowsports 10%

Runcorn Ski Centre Junior rate for adults

Basecamp £250 off 11-week courses

TECHNIQUE COURSES AND CAMPS

Magic In Motion Courchevel, Méribel 10%

Plymouth Ski Centre 10%

Shredder Experiences 20%

AUSTRIA A-Z Ski School 10%

iSki Val d’Isère 15%

Norfolk Snowsports Club 25%

Altitude Futures Various discounts

We are Sno £400 discount

Evolution 2 10%

Newmilns Dry Ski Slope 10%

Snowline Sport Shop Up to 25% Portes du Soleil

Alltracks Academy Various discounts

SkiBro 5% to 10%

ESI First Tracks Ski Coaching Up to 10%

Gosling Ski & Board Centre 10%

Alpine Angels Childcare 10%

Ongosa 10%

Deux Alpes 10%

Glacier Sport 15% Zermatt

Glasgow Ski Centre 10%

Stager Sport 15% Murren

EA Ski and Snowboard Training 25%

FRANCE British Alpine Ski School Les

Yeti Bar Happy hour all day Cervinia NORTH AMERICA Alpenhof Lodge and Bistro Jackson Hole 20% SWITZERLAND Andrist Sport 15% Various locations

Folkestone Ski Centre 10%

Inside Out Skiing 50% off first ski clinic at Hemel Snow Centre Marmalade Ski School 10% Nonstop Ski & Snowboard Various discounts Powder Extreme Various discounts Pro Ride Snowboard Camps Various discounts

Ackers Outdoor Activity Centre 10% Alpine Snowsports Aldershot 10% Bassingbourn Snowsports Centre Up to 25% Bearsden Ski & Board 10% Bowles Snowsports Centre 10% Bracknell Ski Centre 20% Brentwood Ski & Snowboard Centre Various discounts Bromley Ski Centre 10% Carlisle Snowsports 10% Chel-Ski 20% Chill Factore Up to 30% Dorset Snowsport Centre 50% Exeter & District Ski Club 20%

Profeet Ski Boot Lab 20% Off Piste Awareness Tour Various discounts All discounts are based on information available at the time of going to press.

All are subject to partners’ terms and conditions and are subject to change without prior warning.

See skiclub.co.uk/discounts for further information or call Member Services on 020 8410 2015

SKI CLUB PROMOTION

HOW TO KNOW IF YOU’RE READY FOR THE HAUTE ROUTE Famed as a rite of passage for backcountry skiers, the Haute Route can seem like an impossible dream. Literally meaning, ‘high route’ in French, the route trails 120km between Europe’s most iconic mountains - The Mont Blanc and The Matterhorn. Traversing between Chamonix in France and Zermatt in Switzerland, touring the Haute Route promises skiing among some of the most stunning scenary in the Alps, including a descent directly beneath The Matterhorn’s north face. It’s the stuff of legends, bucket lists and dreams, but how do you know you’re fit enough for it?

Around 3-4 months before the trip, it’s worth taking regular

aerobic exercise to improve leg strength and agility, balance and flexibility. Anything from running to swimming to cycling can help, as all ski touring trips require you to operate for long periods of time at a relatively low intensity.

You’ll be carrying a rucksack which means you may have to adapt your skiing style, but it’s a lot easier if you have strong core muscles.

Mountain Tracks recommend that in order to take on the Haute Route you should be able to ski on high mountain trails for up to six to eight hours a day.

Good fitness levels make any trip more enjoyable, but with 6,000m of ascents and descents, to tackle the Haute Route fitness

is an absolute essential Mountain Tracks runs 3 trips traversing the Haute Route throughout the winter. Whilst the Haute Route is undoubtedly very popular, the carefully selected route allows you to enjoy all the high points of the Verbier variation while avoiding the busiest and most popular areas.

Mountain Tracks also send out a 12-week training schedule before your trip, which should make the experience more enjoyable — and achievable.

Look at what's on offer at mountaintracks.co.uk, or give Mountain Tracks a call on 020 8123 2978

97

ONLINE

Now everyone wants one! Ski Club’s student brand gets new site too

Most of the new skiclub.co.uk website is up and running, but a few areas are still being developed

Ski Club website — an update Work continues apace on the new Ski Club website, with most content already accessible. But naturally, a number of readers have asked for an update on those parts still under development.

So here we list what’s up and running, and what’s due to go live soon.

First, you can now: read resort guides; read snow reports, snow overviews and weather forecasts; sign up for snow report emails; read news articles; browse and book Freshtracks trips; pre-register to ski with a Leader; book Instructor-led Guiding sessions; buy and upgrade membership; access a full list of discounts; hire an avalanche transceiver; see events; read Ski+board online; watch videos; read Info+Advice articles; enter competitions; post on the chat forum.

Still being worked on at the time of

going to press are: resort search filters; piste maps (as we tackle an issue with PDFs); webcams (we are adding webcam links to resort guides starting with the major ones); resort info — we have more resorts on the new site, but some content could not be carried over; user reviews and ratings for resorts; ski tests (we have this season’s award-winners, but will add the complete tests back to 2006, and a tool to compare skis).

Work is also ongoing on more specific functions such as: the Leaders’ Centre (vital to our 200 volunteers); affiliate renewals (another area invisible to most users); a site-wide search for discounts; the ability to add photos and videos; a UK slopes search; and My Ski Locker, to let you view your Freshtracks bookings and download travel documents.

Let Chemmy shape you up to ski We all know that feeling when, halfway through the first run of the season, we discover that a little more gym and a little less gin would have better prepared us for the coming winter.

With that in mind the Ski Club’s new honorary president, Chemmy Alcott, has helped the club to create three easyto-follow fitness videos to get you ready for the slopes.

There’s a pre-season workout and a pre-ski warm-up routine, neither of which require any special equipment, and resistance band exercises for those who want a bit more intensity. You can

find them all at skiclub.co.uk/getskifit.

You can also play them on your TV using the YouTube app and searching for ‘Ski Club Chemmy’.

The Ski Club’s student site line-s.co.uk has been redeveloped to better host its blogs, videos and general information.

Since 2015, Line-S has acted as an introduction for students to the Ski Club and its services. The new easy-tonavigate site offers relevant content to university snowsports enthusiasts, with a dedicated log-in area hosted by the club.

Regularly updated content on the mobile-friendly site makes this a must for student skiers and snowboarders.

Read Ski+board online to win a pair of goggles Eagle-eyed readers are in with a chance of winning a pair of Bollé goggles. The November issue of Ski+board is online now at skiclub.co.uk/skiandboard, and includes many fascinating features and reviews. All readers have to do is answer a simple question, which is detailed at skiclub.co.uk/competitions. The answer can be found in one of the feature articles in the magazine. But where?

Go west to discover hidden Austrian resorts Continuing their quest to show what resorts are really like, the Ski Club’s video team travelled to Austria’s most westerly province of Vorarlberg.

They chose two lesser-known resorts, Brandnertal and Bregenzerwald, which are good for families, as well as the ‘cradle of Alpine skiing’ — Lech-Zürs.

Visit youtube.com/thesnowcast to decide if you want to visit in person.

To find out more visit 1:54 / 5:38

Chemmy reveals some of her favourite stretches

Ski+board

December 2017/January 2018

skiclub.co.uk

skiclub.co.uk

Isn’t it about time you upgraded yours?

IN YOUR NEXT ISSUE Be a Winter Olympian…

Our writers try out Olympic disciplines to discover what they take (under the watchful eye of professionals)

Have you improved since you bought your current boots?

Are they still comfortable?

Ski boot plastic shells and liners can now be heat moulded to the unique shape of your feet.

This gives you better performance and comfort than your old ski boots ever could - you’ll be amazed at the difference!

Recent technology and innovation means ski equipment is better than it’s ever been before... isn’t it time you upgraded your equipment and made the most of your experience in the mountains?

Before you invest in your next trip... come and visit us today to ensure you have the correct advice from experienced equipment specialists.

Bringing you the UK’s largest specialist range of skis & boots and advice and expertise since 1965.

We’ll always be here to help and advise you on the correct equipment for wherever your passions and dreams take you.

Custom boot fitting specialists Ski Industries Of Great Britain official ski testers Winner of the World Snow Awards - Best UK Specialist Retailer

Download Your FREE Buyers Guides http://bit.ly/SCGB-Buyers-Guide

FREERIDE | FREESTYLE TOURING | TELEMARK | RACE | RECREATIONAL Uxbridge Road, Hillingdon, West London, UB10 0NP T: 020 8848 0040 | E: info@skibartlett.com www.SkiBartlett.com

…and why Britain’s in line for medals We reveal why this is lining up to be the year for British athletes, as well as who to watch and when

Snow wear and tear Ski clothing brands embrace the make-do and mend approach, and promote recycling

Health and fitness Sleep easy with our post-dinner stretches, plus ski fitness apps on test

Freetour gear Walk tall with this season’s latest touring skis, boots, and splitboards

Budget resorts We cover resorts that have invested in new lifts, but won’t cost you a fortune

READ BACK ISSUES OF SKI+BOARD ONLINE HERE

SPOrTS And TreATS in ZerMATT. Special experiences to relish at the highest skiing destination in the Alps The Matterhorn ski paradise is the highest skiing area in the Alps. The Swiss region with guaranteed year-round snow is also one of the largest and best-equipped ski arenas anywhere in the world. And it isn’t just the crack skiers who get their money’s worth on the 360 kilometres of perfectly groomed and varied slopes. Beginners and families will also feel at home in Zermatt as they thrill to the view of the breath-taking mountain scenery around the iconic Matterhorn. Children up to the age of 9 get to use the lifts for free, while beginners can buy special ski passes for the “Wolli Beginners Park” and cut their first tracks in the snow on the „Slow Slopes“.

While in Zermatt, the attractive gastronomy scene should not be ignored. Guests always wonder what temptation to give in to first: sports or culinary treats?

A few more kilometres on the slopes or indulging in the delights on offer at a mountain restaurant, complete with sun terrace and view of the Matterhorn? The rustic or, in true Swiss dialect, “urchig” restaurants invite you to try dishes such as the original Valais dried meats or fondue specialties. Or, if the fancy takes you, why not enjoy a gourmet menu crowned with Gault&Millau points and Guide Michelin stars?

There are numerous other attractions to round off the Zermatt experience. early mornings have a special appeal around Zermatt. With “First Track” you can practise your skiing glides on untouched slopes while enjoying the first sun of the day. After a guided descent you will be happy to indulge in the rich breakfast buffet offered at the Matterhorn glacier paradise restaurant. On evenings lit by the full moon, the “Moonlight descent” will take you into the snow-filled world of the rothorn, preceded by a fortifying traditional dinner in cosy surroundings. The romantically moonlit slopes and refreshing night air will make this guided descent an unforgettable experience. For those who appreciate a touch of glamour, the ViP gondola on the Matterhorn express is a delight for all the senses. Glide by the Matterhorn while enjoying a complimentary bottle of Moët & Chandon. You deserve it!

Zermatt is truly a ski resort with something for everybody. To learn more about skiing in Zermatt, visit matterhornparadise.ch