Snow for the Euros.

[edg]

Eton, St. Paul's, Winchester, Harrow?

If so, is edg off to Oxbridge interviews soon?

None of the above.

And, yes, Cambridge interview in t-minus 6 hours.

edg

[Meathelmet]

ok.
so a quick and inacurate firsthand snowreport.

3-6.12.2005

Day 1.
Obertauer (aus) sucked a bit,not enough base yet (20-60cm),windpacked what is left of the pow and super scetchy avy situation.
All the stuff rest on a icy,but warm ground. Things avalanche straight to the ground.And in addition there is a hard windslab in higher eleveations.

Day 2.
Nasfeld kicks ass! Extremely good base (60-120?cm), very little to no rocks and good,goooood powder.Well, first day there was a windpacked but in the trees it was ok.

Day 3.

Nasfeld kicked even more ass. An 20cm overnight dumpage had covered last days tracks, and it was a blast.
I mean, in the first 6hours there were about 20 people in the whole frigging resort! We used one cabinlift for 3hours and didnt see anyone, even the liftmen were missing...sick..

The avy situation can be quite bad in middle elevations, hard s-sw winds and occasional rain/sleet on the snowpack made quite scetchy snowconditions.


All our drives happened in darkness,so i cant comment so accurately austrias snow situation. But in short it looked that north austria has something,middle aus has a bit,south has a lot. Innsbruck area has almost nothing.

Day 4.

Garmish/Zugspitze

Cold and good 20cm of very light stuff on the glacier, visibility completely zero.Relatively good base.
They apparently even have opened the lower resort. There was some20-40cm of wet slop down there.

I´ll try to post some pics or tr if i have time...

[subtle plague]

nice report. especially the warning about obertauern.
but it has become useles for me i fear.
those morons in bovec do not start their season before the 23.12 it seems. although they have the biggest base in the alps right now with up to 2.4m of snow at 1500m as the avalanche report says. bummer
ill phne them but i guess the translators were right and my first feeling of depression when i saw their updated website with the 23.12. date was for a good reason.
FUCK. so i won't go skiing this weekend i guess.....

[Lostinthetrees]

those morons in bovec do not start their season before the 23.12... so i won't go skiing this weekend i guess.....

If you were going to drive all the way to bovec, in the same time or less you could be in Haute Valais (Zermatt/Saas-Fee). Saas-Fee got snow enough over the weekend to open a trail/track from mid-station to village. Still, very rocky off-piste. Needs another 30 - 50 cms.

Not sure about Zermatt...

[Meathelmet]

FUCK. so i won't go skiing this weekend i guess.....

Bollocks.

Hit Nasfeld.

3 nights in the fancy Cube hotell+skipasses = 199€.

But that bovec opens up in christmas time is...hmm...intresting.

We´ll propably hit it on the 26th,so there should be some untracked snow...

MUUUAAHHHHAHHAHHHAAHAAA!!

[subtle plague]

Bollocks.

But that bovec opens up in christmas time is...hmm...intresting.

We´ll propably hit it on the 26th,so there should be some untracked snow...

MUUUAAHHHHAHHAHHHAAHAAA!!

DON'T YOU DARE !

btw. is there some decent offpiste skiing in Nassfeld ?
and Lost: yeah well i would drive for extraordinary conditions, but not for normal early season conditions.
ill go biking instead to push my endurance . (what a miserable choice... compared to push it by skiing )

[subtle plague]

ok im screwed.
i called and they won't open.
again another "maybe" concerning opening on the 15th but i guess as this has evolved so far they won't open before the 23rd.
But hey..... i found out what is so special about the 23rd: The NEW tram/gondola thingy will start its service. great.

i want ++++ vibes. now.

[Meathelmet]

DON'T YOU DARE !

btw. is there some decent offpiste skiing in Nassfeld ?

Oooh yeah.

We had quite bad visibility from time to time but there is potential outside the resort. Nice couloir lines and open faces too. From the upper lifts there are easily accessible offpiste. Quite lot actually.And practically everything is untracked...

Yeah well i would drive for extraordinary conditions

haahha.
Busted.
Now you have to go.
The conditions are extraordinary.

[skieurmalade]

ok if this american were to leave right away from Utah and fly out there without much more than a grand in his pocket, I just want to know if my chances are above 20% of finding a job with a season pass if I'm a good cook and waiter with good appearance. I might do it either way, but I would love an inside opinion... and no I don't have a visa.

[bbirtle]

If you were going to drive all the way to bovec, in the same time or less you could be in Haute Valais (Zermatt/Saas-Fee). Saas-Fee got snow enough over the weekend to open a trail/track from mid-station to village. Still, very rocky off-piste. Needs another 30 - 50 cms.

Not sure about Zermatt...

I was at Zermatt this weekend. At least over at Kliene Matterhorn, 90 km/h winds on Friday destroyed a lot of it, but there was still some good pow over in Cerninia and in a couple little sheltered spots. More high winds on Sunday closed all the lifts - even Schwarzsee - so I fear it's all gone now.

Rothorn is open and that might be nice, but as it's not glaciated I'm afraid off piste would be pretty rocky... Schwarzsee trees hold the pow, but it was looking way too thin to me.

[bbirtle]

ok if this american were to leave right away from Utah and fly out there without much more than a grand in his pocket, I just want to know if my chances are above 20% of finding a job with a season pass if I'm a good cook and waiter with good appearance. I might do it either way, but I would love an inside opinion... and no I don't have a visa.

I think some places are easier than others. Anywhere in Switzerland I think will be very difficult, since they are much more strict on visas. I met an American girl last January in Zermatt and she was trying the same thing, and gave up after a couple weeks. On the other hand, I know one American that did manage to find a job at a bar, so I guess it's still possible. Here in Chamonix I would think it's possible - I know many people working under the table.

The timing may be critical too... beginning of January seems to be when everybody and their brother shows up in town looking for work and accommodation. Maybe best if you come ASAP to try and avoid the crowds...?

PS - I don't think most jobs like this, in Chamonix anyway, will include a season pass... but they aren't as expensive to buy as most US resorts.

[wildstyle]

ok if this american were to leave right away from Utah and fly out there without much more than a grand in his pocket, I just want to know if my chances are above 20% of finding a job with a season pass if I'm a good cook and waiter with good appearance. I might do it either way, but I would love an inside opinion... and no I don't have a visa.

check out this links for jobs in the alps. A good first stop. Maybe you could get some contacts before you get here.

http://www.natives.co.uk/skijobs/skijobs.htm

[blissard]

mini TR from last saturday
We were originally headed for les7laux, but were unable to find a bus so we took the one with the Alpe d'Huez sign. Had to change bus in Bourg d'Oisans because the driver blew a tire when laying on chains or something.
Waited an hour, got an espresso across the road -it tasted terrible

As we approached Alpe d'Huez we could see there was a nice amount of fresh snow from the night before.

The visibility improved a bit throughout the day, and there weren't too many people laying down tracks in the fresh snow. Got a few nicks to the bases, but not more than could be expected. At altitude there were a lot of exposed rocks, down below the snow was soft, and a bit wet as the day progressed.

Lifts in the lower part of the area

Towards the village

All in all a (very) good day!

[Lostinthetrees]

ok if this american were to leave right away from Utah and fly out there without much more than a grand in his pocket, I just want to know if my chances are above 20% of finding a job with a season pass ... and no I don't have a visa.

My friend, pop open up a new thread. This is snow for euros. Not job advice for ...

I will contribute but not here.

[Franz Klammer]

Oooh yeah.

We had quite bad visibility from time to time but there is potential outside the resort. Nice couloir lines and open faces too. From the upper lifts there are easily accessible offpiste. Quite lot actually.And practically everything is untracked...

Nassfeld can indeed be great - it's a family resort so when it dumps there, it doesn't get tracked out nearly as fast as other resorts.

Meathelmet, do you remember where you went off-piste? Troghoehe, Gartnerkofel?

http://fuz3.sil.at/im/skimaps/nassfeld/flash/ for orientation

[Meathelmet]

Meathelmet, do you remember where you went off-piste? Troghoehe, Gartnerkofel?

Well,honestly, it was a kind of blur with the shitty visibility,eager locals and over anxious riders...

So we didnt do any extremo stuff,just mainly lift-to-lift things.

But in short.

Start Carnia and around.
Spent 3 hours there in knee deep without seeing one other living soul,not even the lifties...
Left and right to rastl.

Shit laugh toffel.
Both left and right,we didnt dare to drop very deep into the Trogtal area due to the avalanche situation (you could cut slabs free at your will,soft 10-30cm ) but you could get down straight from the cabin. Noice.

Around madrice the were lot of nice puny,little nice stuff,but that you can call inbounds. Didnt drop down towards italy.

Gartnertoffel.
The time we were there,the visibility was donkeyballs but got a glimpse of the possibilites on that side. Un-frigging beliavable couloirs on that side,especially the one with the stone bridege...Photo of the year kind of place.
But suprisingly we did skip that place...Sideways traverse to couloirs that end up in one of the biggest terraintrap that i have ever seen...

[TeleAl]

08 December 2005 Leysin, Suisse Altitude 1264m

It's Day 7 of this micro storm, and it ain't over yet.
About 50cm outside my door.
Pumping nicely outside at the moment.

Check out the sat image:
http://www.met.fu-berlin.de/wetter/meteosat/met_512.mpg

[subtle plague]

infos for the interested: the crystalball tells me that the northern alps will be hit next week. more details on sunday in your reliable thread .

the krippenstein opens dec. 17th and bovec too (they've updated their site) but since all the funkyness will (or seems to) impact the northern alps, the kripp would be my bet. with a 130cm base and plenty in the forecast this could be interesting.
engelberg should get its first significant snowfall too, but without any base it should rather snow 2 meters before i'd consider it.

[supercastor]

still raining in grenoble, isère (7laux, alpe d'huez etc.) is gooood
snow forecast for tomorrow again, sun back on saturday. Wow
Roo and MulletMan are up there now, looks blank but they'll make their report in the evening.

had news from chamonix : very good too, my friend had to unsnow her car to go to work too much time this week (she added "couldn't go up there to snowboard, unlike those *** americans" ).

La Clusaz opening this WE, locals told me it was ridiculously insane. Lots of people on the Balme area expected.

[Dodger]

Thinking of going to Alpe d'Huez next week arriving Sunday evening. Sounds like it could be good. Anyone else there then? Will have 12 yr old daughter in tow, but if can get her to go to ski school could be free to do some real skiing part of the time.

Keep those snow reports coming!

[TeleAl]

Just back from a hike up the hill for some turns and to get some observations.
Snow is very nice. We skied off piste, on piste, and off piste again.
There was enough snow, but we could use more. A little shallow in some places off piste.

Feels good to be gettin' some.

[Ripzalot]

Just back from a hike up the hill for some turns and to get some observations.
Snow is very nice. We skied off piste, on piste, and off piste again.
There was enough snow, but we could use more. A little shallow in some places off piste.

Feels good to be gettin' some.

what, no pics?

[TeleAl]

09 December 2005 08h30
Leysin 1264m
Another 30cm outside my door.

[bbirtle]

Around 1 meter at Les Grands Montets midstation, all fresh, with no base under that. Many doing the gullies above Plan Jordan and some skiing all the way to the bottom. Saw a piste masher high above and both Bochard and La Hearse bringing up patrollers occasionally... to open soon perhaps?

Bring rock skis and have fun!

[KANUTTEN]

Any word on Engelberg and St Anton?