Great expectations

A snowHead

I don't know about you, but when I started ski=ing I was expecting to land at a snowy airport; go, by coach, through a snowy landscape to end up at a snowy ski resort. I've always had plenty of snow to ski on, but these three expectations have never been met. What I'm trying to say is there has been much less snow around than I had been led to believe - anybody else feel like this?

A snowHead

Sort of, have gone skiing via Turin, Chambery, Geneva, Lyon, and Munich on a number of occasions but have never found snow at the airports.

Strangely the snowiest journeys to ski I've have were to Cairngorm and Glenshee when I used to go there from near Edinburgh in the 80s. Remember driving all the way on snowy roads and being frustrated when the snow gates on the A9 were closed or getting all the way to the bottom of Cairgorm only to find that the access road was closed snowHead

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Ian Hopkinson, some time of the year you can experience this in the Front Range, even landing in Denver after a snow... Certainly, if you fly into Yampa or Aspen, you'll experience this. And SLC often gets snow, so it would be this way, too. New England is also usually experienced like this. Of course, New England is much more a "postcard" than any other place!

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New England much more 'postcard' than any other place. There speaks a septic who's never been to Europe.

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Ian you have obviosly never landed at the correct location, take my holiday this year, departed UK just before the snow hit in feb (hours before) arrived geneva, snow on the ground and some coming down, 4 hour train journey through snowcovered landscape with occasional Blizzards to finally arrive in snow covered resort.... Bliss

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Ian,
I agree with you. Sadly often it is just not like that Sad

Almost every holiday (of 11) various times of year and both sides of the pond, I have not encountered snow until well up the twisty road to resort.

Perhaps we have been unlucky??

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David@traxvax, I apologize for being unclear. I meant "than any of those other places". Embarassed

After all it is free

Hm, don't pray for snow at the airport. You'll only be diverted to somewhere else, 5 hours drive away.

I suppose I should add that we've always skied first week of January or mid-March...we did drive through snow to Birmingham Airport in March though!

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Most snow I've ever seen before getting to the top of the mountain was a couple of years ago travelling by coach to Saalbach. Only troubel was that most of it was on the motorways in Germany and held us up for hours. Toofy Grin

so I'm with maggi, on this one - I'd rather get there first ! snowHead

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Isn't it just the worst, though, when you arrive in resort and there still isn't any snow around? How disappointing is that? That was my experience on my very first ski trip - didn't see snow til we got to the top of the gondola!

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Going to Tignes this year (Feb 1/2 term) there was snow around from about 1K outside Geneva airport - and it was "snowy" from Bourg upwards.

I know what you mean! All the brochures have pictures of snowy villages and it takes a while to realise that even if there isn't much snow in the village there can still be some excellent ski=ing up the mountain.

Last year we went to Ski Welt first week in January and when we arrived there was no ski=ing below middlestation and a rather pathetic looking strip of carefully nurtured slush down the nursery slope. Fortunately it started snowing the evening we arrived and we had really good week. Arrival in a brown valley and village was really depressing though Sad

You know it makes sense.

If you go at the end of February then there is more chance of snow from the airport to the resort. The last two years we have flown to Salzburg we have been surrounded by snow from the airport all the way to the resort. This year the weather was clear as we descended into Salzburg and the view was stunning. I did arrive one year in Soll to be greeted by a similar scene you described but fortunately we awoke to a foot of snow the next day!

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Went to Mürren in Feb 04 and arrived at Berne airport with patches on the ground.On the coach upto Lauterbrunnen the snow patches got bigger and bigger. For me,to see snow in Lauterbrunnen means the snow above in Mürren well be good. One year (02) we didn't see snow until we got to the top of the funnicular and that was a bad sign of not enough snow.Luckily within 2 days we had large 2 day dumps of snow.

A snowHead

I would second what AB says - Cairngorm is a good place to find snow on the way to the car park. Only problem is, you're on the edge of your seat when you see it to hope that it continues, but doesn't get any worse - it's such a fine line between the resort actually being open for skiing and the road being closed because of too much snow!

Safest bet is to call the local information number that tells you which runs will be open etc. and the state the of the road.

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

[quote="masopa"]I would second what AB says - Cairngorm is a good place to find snow on the way to the car park. Only problem is, you're on the edge of your seat when you see it to hope that it continues, but doesn't get any worse - it's such a fine line between the resort actually being open for skiing and the road being closed because of too much snow!quote]

The other problem being that the link road holds and keeps its snow longer than most of the runs on the mountain! So finally getting to the carpark can be a big dissapointment...

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Sad but true, markP!

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Calgary airport was very snowy in January - when we were leaving Sad

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Went to Tignes before Christmas and the snow line started about 10 minutes out of Geneva. Wonderfull coach drive all the way. Made the three hours fly by.
On my first ski holiday which was to la Thuile in mid March there was hardly any snow anywhere even in the resort.
Every one was a bit dubious, then in the morning we made the cable car ride up to the slopes, to be greeted by this wonderfull snow filled landscape.

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God, takes me back to my first ski holiday. We were meant to fly into Bergamo and it was changed to Turin. Sat on a coach for 3.5 hrs before we even saw a damn mountain, let alone snow.....arrived in resort, cold still no snow. No sign of skis, snowboards or anything remotely snowbound...... (it was dark).
Got up next morning, hotel owner bundles us in his little camper van (transport to cable car included) and we queued for a matter of mins before boarding the cable car (which incidentally was identical to the one that crashed due to a stupid aircraft pilot playing chicken with the wires back in 97/98 - that was 10 mins from our resort....). Three mins later we crested the top of the mountain and a white xmas card opened up in front of us. So that holiday took me over 16 hrs to see snow.

Fx

After all it is free

Ian Hopkinson, our collective (romantic) memory suggests winters were always snowy (and happy - no suffering) from the dawn of time. This is of course an illusion.

"Longterm" (social) memory (grandparents and before) recalls the Thames freezing over and paints those Victorian Christmas cards with deep snow everywhere. These scenes were prompted by the mini ice age of 1300 to 1850 (see Christian Science Monitor article and WHOI article )

Then more recently an extreme persistent negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation in the 1960s has our short-term memory (parents and us) full of recent winters being just like the wonderful winter of 62/63.

The common idea is that the world has always been as it was in the 60s with cold winters and hot summers, and nasty global warming is ruining it all. Global warming seems to be real, but we are not warming up to an abnormal temperature, just returninig to the average. Remember from Walking With Dinosaurs that 70 million years ago there were green lush forests on Antarctica, not ice caps. And see these articles from Webmesh and Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change

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Dave Burt, when were you a lad - was it the 60s or pre-1850 in the mini ice age?

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I remember chasing wooly mammoths out of my garden with my burning firebrand as a kid. Had to fend off the pterodactyls by chucking snowballs at them...

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DAVE BURT - "Well, when I were a lad, Sheffield got several feet of snow every winter. Built igloos in the garden most years. Remember five-foot snowdrifts even at Easter. All true. But try telling that to the kids of today, and they just won't believe you"

1964 to date.......just down the road (there was no motorway back then) in Nottingham lived a little girl, called surprisingly Fruity, who remembers Xmas day in the snow and playing almost every winter up on t'hills with me sledge (tin tray) and wearing one of those enormous Dr Who scarves (John Pertwee/Tom Baker).......

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Pete Horn, not quite correct. I have misplaced my favourite site for showing the effect of continental drift on climate, so two will have to do instead.
First a series of maps showing the break-up of Pangea. You will see that there has been a landmass near the south pole for some time.
Then an article explaining the importance of an isolated landmass at the south pole to keep the cold ocean currents swirling around antarctica that is necessary for the start of glaciation.
The global temperature during the time of the dinosaurs was probably 10C higher than now.

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

When I were a lad we got snowed in every year without fail. One year we had two Land Rovers and one tractor stuck on the track to our house. We also put snow poles up so you could see where the track was.

No school, work, buses or bread. And it sank-in in that order too.

We still get snow, but it doesn't stick and you can drive through it.

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I lived in Yorkshire when I were a lass & we too had proper snow - proper big stuff that meant you had to dig your way out of the house. Only remember school being closed early once because of snow though - we had to fight our way in whatever the weather. snowHead

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Eh, Bunny, kids these days don't know they're born.

After all it is free

I built an igloo on Hampstead Heath in the winter of 1963. Unfortunately local estate agents wouldn't touch it.

I attempted to build a snow hole in my back garden sometime in the early 80's. My dad happened to spot me in one of my 'digging' phases, rather than one of my 'throw snow out the back' phases and consequently thought I'd suffocated myself in a snowdrift... Embarassed

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I remember great snowfalls in the Chilterns. Now we don't even seem to get any North of the Border...

Help!!

Great expectations

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