10/11.3: Ski Test: Dynastar Sultan Legend 94

Day Three of our ski season coincided with the Avoriaz Ski Test. Nice of them to think of us. A Ski Test is where you can, in exchange for a blood sample, your family history to 6 generations, and you own head (on a plate), you can try out any skis you like. You get an hour and a half to go and do whatever you want.

The ski test stalls in Avoriaz

I have been itching to try out the Dynastar Sultan Legend 94s. I'm an intermediate skier and have been on Rossignol Bandit B78s for the last three years. Nothing wrong with the Bandits but I am beginning to think that their "all-mountainness" means that, yes, you can go anywhere and they can do anything, but also that that means that they don't do anything particularly well. They aren't good carvers, i find them wobbly on hardpack, and just average off-piste.

Specifically, i've found that i'm sinking in powder and I need to put a lot of energy into the turn to get it to happen. As I said, i'm only intermediate (and a very aggressive skier) so this is certainly down to bad technique but at the same time, i think a fatter ski is going to help.

For those still reading who don't have a clue what i'm on about the numbers in the ski name indicate how wide the ski is at the middle of the ski. My current Bandits are 78mm across the waist and the Sultan 94s are 94mm at the waist (the waist being the middle of the ski). Fatter ski equals more float in powder. More float in powder equals awesome skiing experience - like flying down a mountain just a few centimeters above the ground at 30kph.

So anyway, we eventually found the Dynastar stall and i asked about the 94s only to be told that they had four, but that they were all out on tests. Just before starting to weep, a man appeared next to me (clad in golden armour which shone with a light from within - Armor +6) and presented the lady at the stall with a pair of skis. Not just any skis but Sultans. Not just any Sultans but 94s and not just any 94s but 178cm (length) Sultans.

Incredible good luck as that is the perfect length for me. After getting my hire card (which actually was very straightforward: drivers license and credit card) i was clutching the 94s only moments later.

Eagerly clutching my Sultans

The label said "Come On Ski", so we did heading over to Fornet. The variable conditions we've had here over the past two weeks were actually great for my test. I found ice, steeps, some shallow powder, bumps, and nice groomed pistes as well. Each ski is only 16mm wider than my Bandits but the difference is incredible. Even on only a very light dusting of powder you're riding much higher. And even on crusty stuff i found that i was on the snow as opposed to in it like i am on the Bandits.

I have a lot to learn and clearly, this being the first fat ski i've skied, the skis are much better than me, but that's the point - to learn something new. I found that they are much more stable than my Bandits. They have wider sidecut of the Sultans at 18m vs the Bandits with 16m. Even though these are really off-piste powder skis, i found them much more fun to carve on the pistes. Bumps were more difficult and I couldn't really do my whippy turns that i can do on the Bandits on moguls.

Natalie off-piste on Fornet. I really like this part of the PdS.

The biggest test was going back to the Bandits after and hour and a half on the Sultans. My Bandits felt weak and whishy-washy after the power and stability of the Sultans. I think I adapted to the Sultans pretty quickly. I realised immediately that these were a totally different beast. On powder I found myself being super-aggressive as usual, but these didn't like that at all. I needed a much lighter touch to carve a turn on the powder. I can't wait to try them in proper deep stuff.

As Natalie said, the fact that I noticed the difference was a good sign. I'm not really good enough to ski these yet and I'll have to take it easy at the start, but I think they will be an excellent 2nd ski for me. Father Christmas, are you reading this?

PS. Avoriaz did a great job keeping the resort open on Saturday. Heavy rain has decimated the snow all over the Portes du Soleil but they managed to groom some great pistes and even build the Arare snowpark. The snow has started again today, so it's still looking like a very good start to the season.

Catered Chalets

This is going to be a weird post. With all the major humanitarian problems the world suffers with I can't see that there will be a lot of sympathy for my little rant here, but anyway, this has been bugging me so...

Chalet holidays are too cheap. Since moving out to France we've met a lot of chalet operators and not one of them can actually afford to live out here the whole year round purely on what their chalet generates in the Winter. And yet they all continue to make a loss and do oodles of other jobs to compensate and carry on living their Alpine lifestyles. I think this is madness. There are about 100 independent chalet operators in Morzine. They're all in close competition with one another and they all charge about the same amount.

Peak weeks are about 500 - 600 EUR and low weeks are about 400 - 500 EUR. For that you get 7 nights accommodation, breakfast and a 4-course evening meal. So that's an average of about 70 EUR per night per person. A four-course meal at a restaurant (and a lot of chalets serve very high quality food made by professional chefs) would set you back at least 30 EUR. And there's usually free wine. So let's say it's 50 EUR a night to stay and 20 for food. Most places now have en-suite bathrooms, saunas, and outdoor hot-tubs. All this for about 70 EUR a night.

So now, my question is, where can you stay, anywhere in the UK, for 60 GPB a night with breakfast and supper included? You can't even stay in a Travel Lodge off the M25 for that money. The last time i stayed at a Travel Lodge off the M25 (which was recently unfortunately) i don't recall seeing the hot-tub and sauna either.

Basically I just don't get it. Your lift pass is about as expensive as your accommodation. Why do chalet operators willingly make a loss and their lives so difficult? They could charge double and it would still be value for money: 140 EUR for 4 star accommodation with breakfast and supper? Last month we paid over 200 GBP for Natalie to stay in a random 4 star hotel in London for one night - no breakfast and no supper.

They are driving themselves out of business. It's not even cheaper to stay self-catered. We've tried both and there's really no super-cheap option. Possibly Caravaneige would be cheaper. Caravaneige is staying in a caravan in a campsite in the snow.

So... what am I saying? I think i've even confused myself here. What I'm saying to my non-chalet-operator readers is that you should stay in a (good) catered chalet or hotel because it's unbelievably cheap! Most chalet companies have a lifespan of about 5 years - and then the owners give up and run self-catered apartments or just pack up and leave. It's also really only the English that do catered chalet holidays. The French, Dutch, and Germans stay in small hotels or self-catered or in the aforementioned campsites. I suspect unless something changes (like the Euro plummeting) that the traditional English catered chalet holiday could be coming to an end.

As I said, not really earth-shattering. I don't expect this post to be on CNN or anything, I just think it's strange to willingly make a loss and work so hard just to be out in the Alps. When you read on the operator's website that they love the mountains, I can attest that, and this (sort of) proves that, they really do!

Slackcountry

I recently learned a great new phrase: "slackcountry". Slackcountry skiing is, as far as i can make out, lift-assisted backcountry skiing. Back-country skiing is skiing off-pistes where there are no chairlifts. So, for example, in the Portes du Soleil we have le Vallee de la Manche. This valley runs from the tops of the Fornet valley down to Morzine at the Nyon cable car. You can get a lift right to the top of Fornet and then climb over a little ridge and then get about 4km of unspoilt (i.e. no lift-pylons) off-piste skiing.

This run most definitely falls into the slackcountry category. I think other qualifying slackcountry skiing might be where you use a lift for a portion of the climb, and then skin up (walk up on skis) the rest of the way. And although it's not pure randonee, I think it's an excellent way for Alpine skiers to get into Randonee skiing by skiing close to the relative safety of the resort.

Having said that, all off-piste is dangerous and you should always hire a guide with transceivers. Especially down the Vallee de la Manche. This valley is notorious for avalanches and you should absolutely only ski it with a qualified guide. We skied it for the first (and so far only) time with a chalet "ski-host". He had no transceiver and was leading a group of poor skiers down it in unpleasant conditions. Not very smart but at the time we didn't know any better. Spend the money, get a guide.

Natalie and the Swiss Wall

This deserved a post all of it's own.

Again those pesky Dents du Midi ruining the shot. If it's not blatantly obvious by the title, this was taken at the top the Swiss Wall looking over into Switzerland.

The Swiss Wall: Summer Edition

Every ski resort seems to have at least one feature which makes it (in)famous. For the Portes du Soleil this has to be the Swiss Wall. The Swiss Wall is an itinerary route from France at the top of the Col de Chavanette which you access at the top of the Fornet valley down into Switzerland (although I think the top of the Col is actually technically in Switzerland as well) at the beginning of the classic blue cruiser: Ripailles. This links you up with the Les Crozets ski area.

It has a reputation for being dangerous and there are various rumours that several people a year kill themselves on it. As far as I can tell, this is total nonsense (although i do know of deaths on The Wall, but not in the "Lemming-like droves of people hurling themselves onto the rock-hard moguls" that the hype would have you believe). If the run was that dangerous the Pisteurs would simply close it down or mark is as out-of-bounds. I'm pretty sure though, given the extremely wide variation in skill level of people i've seen skiing it, that many people do hurt themselves on it - but this is true of any run if you're going too fast for the conditions or the slope is better than you.

Last year we witnessed an English mother and (we presume) her daughter who can't have been more than 10-years old. The mother was screaming at the child to make a turn and get down the mountain. This was at the very top, the most scary part where it's probably 45 degrees. There were huge moguls like normal. The mother was probably 25m further downslope from the child screaming (angry screaming) to get a move on. When the child finally made a turn, fell, and slid down face first probably 15m bouncing over the moguls, the mother simply said sarcastically: "Well that's one way to do it".

The person should have had her lift pass taken away. It's really quite unpleasant when you see parents yelling at their kids on a ski holiday (this was not the first time). The worst part was that when the mother herself made her next turn it was clear that she had no idea how to ski herself. Neither of them should have been on that slope. I heartily recommend that you ski it the first time with someone who has done it before and can show you the way. I also recommend that you don't take young children down it. You do ski children skiing it, but generally you can tell that these children live here and probably first donned a pair of skis aged 2. i.e. better skiers aged 7 that I will ever be.

Anyway, this post was supposed to be about the Wall itself, not crazy people skiing it.

Natalie at the top of the Swiss Wall showing off the Dents du Midi

This summer Natalie and I walked up the Col de Chavanette to take a look at it without snow. I thought my keen and massive audience would like to see how it looks in the summer. While out walking in the summer i often ponder various slopes, mentally rating them from "totally skiable" (meaning i probably couldn't ski it) to "definitely skiable" (meaning i would try to ski it and fail miserably).

This is the very edge of the precipice, looking down on what would normally be huge moguls.

So what is The Wall like in the summer? It is very steep - you can't walk straight down it , but I think it would distress people dreaming of one day saying, as I proudly did several years ago, that they finally skied the Swiss Wall, that in the summer cows graze on it and that our dogs ran up and down it like it was any other playing field. Worse, there's a track you could probably drive up on in a Fiat Panda - ok maybe a quad-bike.

Looking back up to the top from skier's right. In the second shot (which you can click on) you can see me dangling my pole to give you an idea of the steepness. I bet some very clever person can determine from the aspect and resolution the inclination of the slope... and post it as a comment! I tried it with an on-screen protractor and got about 42 degrees. i.e. Steep.

I tried to take photos to allow me to actually measure the angle, but i think the ground inclination is definitely 40 - 45 degrees at the top, as previously stated. 50 - 55 may be pushing it. However, in the Winter it is covered in huge moguls which definitely change your skiing inclination. There are also massive boulders and the jeep-track i mentioned earlier cuts deeply into the hillside making 2-3m vertical drop-offs in some places.

Here i've lined the base of the camera up with the slope to try and convey the steepness (i think we need a word like stepth in the english language).

We scrambled all over the top of the wall looking for good photo opportunities. This one is taken from slightly further over to skier's left and i'm wandering down to take a closer look at the jeep tracks.

This next photo is taken from the edge of the lip at the top. This is the part where people normally chicken out. Ok, that's not very nice and not at all in line with my rant about unsuitable skiers skiing it. 

*Ahem*, this then, is where sensible people who know their own ability make the decision to go or not to go. The nasty thing about the wall is that you can't see it until you're on it. The crazy-bad-skier-mother who was screaming at her child told the child that she was "just" afraid and that she could ski it. Fear and confidence are the only things holding people back with their sking. This moron-bad-mother-skier didn't seem to get the fact that the fear was the problem, and that she wasn't doing much to help her daughter not be afraid.





And since the dogs did not stay still long enough for me to prove that they were bounding all over the Swiss Wall like it was a flat meadow, here they are:





Scarlett on the left, Runa on skiers right. Dents du Midi wouldn't get out the shot.


And finally. This is the last sign you'll see in France before attempting The Wall.





See you on it this season!

10/11.2

Day Two of the 2010/2011 ski season! This time we headed out with Craig, our friend and neighbour who is a BASI 4 ski instructor who's passed all the crazy French tests to be able to teach here. For example, one of the tests involves you being critiqued on your technique by a team of extremely exacting instructors by video. In another test you have to beat (or come very close to) a high-ranked FIS champion skier down a slalom course. In a nutshell, he's an amazingly good skier! We also skied with his Dad, Arnott, and two other friends: Beverley and Alison who are respectively massage therapists and run their own transfer company.

It was an incredibly advanced group of skiers. Everything happened twice as fast as normal. We skied entire pistes without stopping once. It was amazingly good fun. I learnt a lot too, just by skiing behind Craig and watching his carving technique and the way he bounced down the moguls. Hopefully his wife Dani, who is also a ski instructor and former #1 British ski champion, will be able to join us next time. It's quite cool being way out of my depth!

10/11.1

Saturday was Day One of the 2010-2011 ski-season! Natalie and I went out and bought our season passes: EUR 1224 (ouch, plus insurance at EUR 112). We get the Saison Indigene pass which is quite a bit cheaper because we live in one of the communes connected with the Portes du Soleil (St Jean d'Aulps). Considering one week's skiing is EUR 232, 600 for the whole season isn't bad at all.

Then we headed up to Les Prodains (the only lower-level lift that was running) and took the chair lift up over the Arete des Intrets. It took us 30 minutes to find parking because everyone in France, remembering the last two weeks of constant snow-fall and perfect clear blue skies on Saturday, had the same idea to go skiing at Avoriaz. All three carparks at Les Prodains were full.

Natalie on the famous Bleu de Lac blue piste with Avoriaz in the background.

We nevertheless managed to find freshish powder that had been quite well tracked out but still fun on the Arete. We had a quick burn down to Lindarets. I was slightly disappointed with the quality of the piste bashing. It always seems to get so badly churned up in Avoriaz for some reason, turning normal blue runs into mogul fields. Other resorts seem to manage to keep their pistes perfectly smooth all day so i don't know why Avoriaz often has gnarled up pistes.

Me in the powder on the Arete des Intrets which was unpisted but which is normally a black run.

Anyway, after taking out a second mortgage on a chocolat chaud and a coke in Avoriaz (EUR 6), we headed home down the deserted pistes of Le Crot. All in all it was a brilliant first day.