Rob’s ski blog

The Dolomites - What a place! What a week!

Tue, 5 Apr 2011 12:10:07 +0100

The Inside Out Ski Club has just returned from a week in the Italian Dolomites. It was our first trip there, but most certainly not our last. We were based in the pretty village of San Cassiano, on the edge of the Sella Ronda circuit amongst the absolute splendour of the limestone cliffs that tower over the gorgeous valleys of this quarter of Italy. We stayed at the Albergo Frohsinn, run by Mountain Sun who we partnered with in Tignes for out pre-season skills clinics (and will again in June for our summer ski camps). The hotel has a perfect location directly on the intersection of two pistes and just a 10 seconds slide down to the gondola out of the village. As a late addition to our winter programme this trip was intended to be small scale to allow us time to get to know the area in addition to working with our clients, who benefitted from a special deal of a free lift pass for the entire Dolomiti Superski domain. As in Tignes, the hotel staff were friendly, knowledgable and helpful, and provided us with terrific food during our stay.

Apart from a little bit of high cloud on our first day of skiing the week was characterised by unbroken sunshine and unseasonably warm temperatures. This made it felt much more like the end of April rather than the end of March, but piste preparation by the Dolomite's pisteurs is nothing short of superb so we were blessed with perfect spring conditions. Just about all the pistes were open and had full snow coverage, with icy conditions first thing, grippy snow in the middle of the day and warming up to lovely slushy goodness at the end of the afternoon. This range of conditions made it possible to mix and match the skiing and the coaching, with lots of drills to work on specific skills and plenty of time to tour from area to area, from village to village, to sample the best that was on offer. At no point were there any lift queues of any kind, it was just ski straight on to everything. The pistes were accordingly quiet, so no need to worry about waiting for a gap in the traffic to do your ski drills.

Widely regarded as among the most beautiful mountains, the Dolomites provided a stunning backdrop to our skiing. Some of the classic tours, like the Hidden Valley or the Cinque Torres, are truly breathtaking. As a first time visitor what also impresses is the modern lift system composed of big gondolas and fast chairlifts, so we were whisked from valley to peak in great comfort. The Sella Ronda circuit laps around the Gruppo Sella mountains and was a great way to get a feel for the scale of the place. Skiing through and past half a dozen or more villages provided a great range of pistes to ski on (we did a great team synchro ski down one very, very long Red piste from top to bottom, mixing up turn shapes and radii) as well as sampling mountain bars and restaurants along the way. An easy tour in a day, we finished off with Bombardinos at the last bar on the ski home. Perfect!

While Inside Out club trips are not designed as gastronomic tours we did manage to find time for some outstanding meals on the hill, with especially good experiences at the Scotini in the Hidden Valley and Punta Trieste above San Cassiano. The Scotoni mixed grill was a particularly delightful challenge, although it did help with the schuss on the flat section at the end of the piste!

As the week went on we saw great changes in our clients' skiing, with much more dynamic movements helping them to cope with heavy snow and steeper slopes. The hour we spent teaching 360 spins on piste was a real laugh-out-loud moment for all of us (and a scream-out-loud moment for at least one of our clients). So, good work team!

Overall we were delighted with our first visit to the Dolomites. The snow was as good as it could have been thanks to great piste preparation, the weather was perfect, the ski area was very quiet and offered a great range of slopes to teach on and a massive area to explore. All this plus the great charm of the Italians and their fabulous cuisine. It's difficult for us to think how how we could have improved on the trip! We're already planning next year's visits, with a week likely in the middle of January for an introduction to race training working with coaches from the local ski school (a brilliant way to sharpen up your piste performance) and another week at the end of March for all-round skills development.

But wait, there’s more...

Venice Marco Polo airport is one of the choices that you can fly to and be collected (on the free airport transfer) by the Albergo Frohsinn that was our base for the week. Marco Polo is just 20 minutes on the Express Bus from Venice itself, with two departures an hour, and there is a cheap Left Luggage facility to deposit ski gear at the airport. We had booked a relatively late flight so we had the time for a day of exploring the canals and piazzas and alleyways of this amazing city. It really is the most amazing place, and wandering around in the warm weather of an early April day was a wonderful way to complete a brilliant ski trip.

Previewing Japan...

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 11:51:48 +0000

Inside Out Skiing visits Niseko, Japan

I’m running an Inside Out Ski Club trip to Japan in late January/early February 2012 so it was important for us to scope out the resort we're going to be based in (Niseko, on the northern island of Hokkaido), looking at accommodation options, guiding and cat-skiing, fat ski hire, checking out the terrain and sample the legendary powder. After much drawing of short straws it was decided that Scott would head to Italy to teach beginners and Rob would head to Japan to do all the essential research (and a bit of free skiing). It's a hard life.

The journey to Niseko was long, but hassle-free. There's no direct flight to the nearest airport (New Chitose, Sapparo) so you have options to go via Tokyo, Hong Kong or Seoul. It was a bit cheaper to fly BA via Tokyo, so I left a dreary rain-soaked London and 13 hours later arrived in a dreary rain-soaked Tokyo. A quick flight change at Narita airport and it was a (relatively) short hop to New Chitose. Coach transfer to Niseko was a civilised two and a bit hours through the rolling, and very snowy, Hokkaido hills. 26 hours after leaving home I arrive at the Lodge I'm staying at, in Annupuri which is one of the quieter off-shoots of the resort. As I get there it was snowing; this was to be recurring theme!

Niseko is one of the largest resorts in Japan, and perhaps one of the most Westernized. It gets lots of Aussies heading there, families and those looking to get in to the backcountry, and a growing number of Europeans attracted by the amazing quantities (and quality) of snow that falls on the resort. With a season average of 15+ metres (in a short season) it typically gets twice times as much snow as most European resorts. The terrain is relatively gentle, and much of it below the tree-line. The backcountry is accessed through a series of gates (the opening of which are controlled by slope patrol); much of the skiing in these areas is reached by simply dropping in or easy traverses, although short bootpacks are necessary for the gates off the top of the peak. On the days when there is good visibility the views across to Mt Yotei, a nearby volcano (which last erupted in 1050 BC), are astonishing.

However, given how often it snows this is a rare occasion, and it's perfectly possible to be in Niseko for a fortnight and not see its shapely neighbour! This is where the high tree-line comes in to its own, so visibility is rarely a problem even if it's belting down with snow and a low cloudbase.

Day 1 (technically Day 3 with all the travelling) starts early, despite the jetlag, so after a short walk from my Lodge I'm on the first lift at 8.30am after buying my liftpass from the efficient office at the gondola station (approximately £270 for an 8-day ticket). According to the snow report I see at breakfast "only" 30cm has fallen in the last 24 hours (the Lodge manager was very apologetic about this!) but on the hill many places felt a good bit deeper than this. By mid-morning the sun started to peek through and it really did feel like I was in a magical place. Here's a little bit of helmetcam footage showing some of the terrain accessed by Gate 8:

While skiing is skiing, albeit in world class snow, it was great to have completely different food choices on the hill. Bowls of ramen (noodles in broth) topped with various things was a great mountain lunch, filling and refreshing but not quite as lumpen as a big dish of tartiflette or rosti! Generally the food on the hill and in the resort was a day-to-day, and quite Westernized, version of Japanese cuisine. There are plenty of places where you can get the authentic Japanese experience, but for a first time visitor to Japan I was happy to be able to order my food on the basis of photos or scarily realistic plastic version of the food I was about to eat! English translations of menus were widespread and many of the locals had at least a few words of English to be able to help with my questions. For those who really don't fancy trying the local food there are alternatives such as the superlative Niseko Pizza or even the Taj Mahal indian restaurant. For my part I was only too happy to stick with Japanese while I was there, and loved the ramen, rice and sushi that I had. Lunch costs were approximately 850-1100 yen (£6-8) which felt better value for money than many meals I've eaten in the Alps. It was easy to eat cheaper than that if you wanted to economise with some rice balls and miso soup.

Day 2 was a repeat of Day 1, including the morning apology from my Lodge manager for "only" 30cm of fresh snow. This meant that just about all the tracks from the previous day were fully filled in, and the snow was typically boot to knee deep. Light snow continued for most of the day, but staying in the trees meant visibility wasn't compromised.

Day 3 dawned bright, with hardly any fresh snow. After the profuse apologies from the manager in the previous days I was genuinely worried that he might do something daft by way of an apology, so I did all I could to reassure him that my friends in Europe were suffering a bit of a snow drought so 60cm+ in two days really was quite acceptable! I didn't feel the need to search out untracked snow as the choppy, light snow in the back bowls of Annupuri were still great fun to ski.

The rest of my trip followed a similar pattern: a day or two of great snow then a fallow day where the easily reached off-piste was tracked, but still light and loose snow. One day was unseasonably warm and the snow developed a bit of a crust, but later that evening it snowed heavily so by the next day everything was back to normal. Apparently the snowfall was below average while I was there, so while I didn't have any ultra-deep snow until my final day it was overall the best eight days of snow I've ever had.

Along the way I explored the main part of the resort, Hirafu, and met with a number of people with a view to arranging next season's Inside Out club trip. It's a compact village, built on a bit of a slope but not too steep and nowhere is a long walk from anywhere else. There's a lot of restaurants to choose from, and plenty of bars for apres-ski, including a ubiquitous Irish bar with Guiness on tap for fans of the Black Stuff (which I recently discovered is actually dark red).

All too quickly my final day arrived, and with a late departure to New Chitose airport I had an almost full day to ski. The snowgods had saved their best til last, and I was blessed with knee and thigh deep powder of the highest quality. I took the view that skiing myself to a standstill would, at the very least, encourage me to sleep on the journey home, so I blasted the Annupuri backbowls as hard as I could. Face shots on just about every turn was the order of the day, and I discovered I should learn to breath out at the end of a turn rather than breathing in - I was bored of inhaling snow by midday!

A quick shower and change and it was back to New Chitose for a flight to Haneda airport in Tokyo, a night in the airport hotel then an early departure to Heathrow. It was a long journey, but worth every minute for my first taste of skiing in Japan. Already planning next year's trip...

Postscript

Since this blog was written a huge earthquake struck near the eastern shore of the main island of Japan, Honshu, and the subsequent tsunami killed a mind-numbing number of people. My thoughts have been with the Japanese people who have suffered so terribly by these events. I have been humbled by the courage and dignity that they have displayed as they begin rebuilding lives and communities. The ski resort of Niseko, and the northern island of Hokkaido generally, were mostly unaffected by these events, and skiing continued through until the end of he season as normal. I am keen to return to Niseko in 2012, not just for the world class powder skiing but also to do my little bit to support Japan's tourism which I hope will not be too adversely affected by this natural disaster.

RAR, 6 April 2011

2010/11 season opening trip to Meribel

Sun, 19 Dec 2010 11:42:28 +0000

Meribel 2010 - Great snow, Arctic temperatures!

After a brilliant pre-season trip to Tignes for the Inside Out Ski Club we had high hopes that our first week of the main winter season would be equally good. We were not to be disappointed! The week before Christmas is traditionally very quiet, and often good value with cheap accommodation and discounted liftpasses. For this club trip we partnered with Ski Hame, an independent chalet operator based in Meribel Les Allues and Courchevel La Tania. Our 12 club members were based in the very lovely Chalet Grange a Charlotte in Meribel Les Allues. This offers seven lovely ensuite rooms, a spacious lounge and dining room plus a jacuzzi to soak away the aches of the day. Perfect! Chalet staff were extremely helpful, and ferried club members to and from the day's skiing in a couple of minibuses.

We ran three separate groups for coaching, so there was plenty of opportunity for individual attention and feedback. At the start of the week we had blue skies and cold temperatures, with relatively hard pistes. As the week went on, it got colder much, much colder with Arctic temperatures of -25°C and lower! We were all on alert for frostnip, and morning coffee breaks were appreciated as much for a chance to warm up as consume caffeine in various forms!

The coaching consisted of a mix of technical development using various ski drills and the like, plus lots of time, in and out of coaching sessions, to put new found talents to good practise. One of the groups opted for an all day coaching session, followed by a free day to ski together and explore the Trois Vallees domain more widely.

By mid-week the local rumours of incoming fresh snow were beginning to look like more than wishful thinking. The bitterly cold temperatures ensured the lightest, driest powder snow we've ever had in Europe, and after a day and a half of non-stop dumpage it was knee-deep all over and occasionally deeper in some sheltered spots. Even the gentle pistes and boot deep fresh on them, giving the perfect opportunity to try skiing in snow for the first time. What a way to start the winter! Everyone flung themselves in to the fresh snow with great gusto, quite literally at times, and the size of the smiles at the end of the day were a great measure of how much everyone had enjoyed themselves.

The final day of the week was the stuff of dreams: awesomely good snow, blue sky and a nearly empty resort. Not even the continued Arctic-like temperatures could cool down everyone's passion for the skiing that day. Fresh tracks were made on-piste and some gentle off-piste, and pisteurs had done a great job of returning the groomed snow to perfection.

Pre-season skiing in Tignes

Thu, 7 Oct 2010 11:35:56 +0100

28th September and it's breakfast in the Hotel Les Melezes in Tignes. We have a dilemma: is this the last of the summer skiing, the first of the pre-season or the start of winter? It's too difficult question to answer so we head up to the Grand Motte glacier to see what conditions await us, and members of the Inside Out Ski Club who are due to arrive in the evening.

What we find are astonishingly good conditions for a month when few people are even thinking about skiing. The glacier ski area is almost empty, with just a few junior race teams and the French Paralympic ski team burning up the slopes (man, those guys are impressive!). Piste conditions are fast, with great grippy snow. And the sun is shining. It's difficult to describe how lucky we feel, and grins are permanently affixed! We blast around the pistes that are open to get a feel for conditions and happily find that it's just about perfect for the two group of club members who will be in resort for three-day clinics.

With the limited terrain that is available on the glacier the coaching is very technical, with lots of drills to focus on developing specific skills. Not so much a ski holiday but a training camp to give club members a skills boost so they can enjoy their ski holidays in the winter even more. We have a fast group and an even-faster group and everyone seems to enjoy the time on the glacier. Typically it's an early start to the day to get a minibus up to Tignes Val Claret for the 8.30am or 9.00am funicular, then coaching through until lunchtime, sometimes with a mid-morning break. Last funicular down from the glacier is at 3.30pm, so there's usually time for an hour or so free skiing after lunch. After that it's back to the hotel for a snooze or to spend some time in the sauna or outdoor jacuzzi, followed by video feedback and a discussion of what areas to work on the following day.

We are blessed with great weather, and even get a couple of top-ups of fresh snow while we are there. Seems almost mean to be skiing fresh tracks at this time of year. Not that feelings of guilt hold any of us back, so it really is wonderful to make turns in a few inches of fresh powder (even when it all goes horribly wrong).

Progress is made and good times were had. One day was lost to bad weather (very high winds) but overall everyone had a fun time and there was much chat of what a great opportunity it was to ski at this time of year. Even those who slightly over-indulged at the hotel's bar still managed to ski well the following day, much to the admiration of the club coaches ;-)

So after much debate we conclude that the only sensible answer to our initial question was this is the first trip of the pre-season. It's too late for summer (the club will run a Summer Ski Camp in June 2011), too early for winter (the Club will run a Pre-Christmas coaching week in December 2010), so it must be the pre-season. And what a great trip it's been. We'll fly out on 14 October 2011 for another...

The return of the sun

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:54:07 +0000

Today was simply gorgeous! Cold, crisp and with a sprinkling of fresh snow. After what seems like ages I’ve finally had a sunny day - they’ve been in rather short supply so far this season. It snowed lightly yesterday, throughout the evening and was still snowing this morning, but by 9am it was beginning to clear and I had a great view from the balcony of some cloud in the valley and some high cloud around the summit of Mt Blanc.

After the frustrations of very poor light yesterday it was a treat to be able to see exactly what you’re skiing on. Piste conditions are generally very good, although some icy sections remain despite the top up of fresh snow - it was so light and powdery that it didn’t really make much difference.

The trees are heavy with snow so the resort is looking a bit ‘picture postcard perfect’ at the moment. Doesn’t really make much difference to conditions, but it does make you feel happy to be in the mountains when things look like they did today.

I spent most of the day on a gentle blue piste working on some drills. My apologies for anyone I got in the way of - if you passed a guy in a red jacket mostly skiing on one leg that was me. At this time of year the resort is very quiet, so few people on piste and no lift queues at any point during the day.

All in all a rather lovely day. More sun is due tomorrow, although the forecast has been a bit unreliable in the last couple of days so who knows what will turn up?!

To top off things there was a lovely view of Mt Blanc just before sunset poking above the clouds which filled the Tarentaise valley all day.

Cloud and snow in Les Arcs

Sat, 9 Jan 2010 16:41:53 +0000

Yesterday and today offered very enjoyable skiing in Les Arcs, but in some ways a little disappointing. The weather forecasts I check had been looking hopeful for a reasonable amount of fresh snow over Friday and Saturday, but unfortunately this didn’t really arrive. It snowed Friday afternoon and for most of Saturday, but only very lightly and didn’t really amount to more than a few centimetres. The light was also very flat, particularly on Saturday when cloud entirely filled the Tarentaise valley. Despite this the on piste conditions are mostly excellent, with grippy snow and good snow coverage especially on the upper slopes. A few busy intersections are hard-packed and a little icy, but otherwise superb.

Low cloud meant poor visibility all day

The easily accessible off piste is mostly tracked out, but occasional stashes of light, fresh powder can be found, especially in the Mt Blanc forest above Arc 1600 and the trees above Vallandry. Despite this potential for fun I spent most of the day on the easy pistes practising drills for a course later in the season. Quite tricky in the flat light, but a useful day I suppose.

The route back to my apartment with a little bit of fresh snow

The last signs of the warm and wet period over New Year