University Project - Fears and Frustrations of Skiing

A snowHead

8tj6, As you were coming from behind its technically your fault. Its your job to avoid these idiots.

A snowHead

When arriving in a resort do you find it a hassle planning a route, would it be easier if there were a route planned for you, maybe set to different standards?

Is it frustrating arriving at a restaurant to find that the food is abismal?

What extra information would you like to see integrated in mapping of a resort?

you views are very helpful...

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

toogie71, one frustration I have is that arriving in a new resort and having to lead the family around the mountain, I wish I could tell whether this next red is a near black or just a steepish blue? Similarly, it would help to have (some or more) altitudes on the piste maps so that you know which way pistes are going.

Information on which runs have the best bumps and jumps for the kids (and kids at heart) would be good too.

Better bus timetables and other infrastructure information would be useful as well. Just got back from engelberg and the bus routes and times were all on the back of the piste map, which was really helpful.

I'd love there to be better managing of lift queues, but can't see that happening Confused

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Ray Zorro,

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

toogie71, Some suggestions that might be of interest to an engineering student:

Lifts, can they run quicker up the hill but be nice and slow to get on, with no calf bashing please. How about heated seats for those numb bum days?

Ski boots - just sort them willya - why can't they be comfortable AND supportive, AND easy to put on / take off.

And seriously, as a skiing parent with two boarding teenagers - why can't someone invent a step in binding for snow boards that works? My kids have to faff about doing/undoing their bindings about 50 times a day. I just step into my skis and 'click'. SURELY it is not beyond the wit of man to devise a step in binding for snowboards?

(or maybe it is, and don't call me shirley) Very Happy

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AxsMan, The Flow binding is pretty close. Some boarders love them (all thw ones I skied with this trip did) but others hate them.

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

The_Hirsty, Yes I've seen them but you still have to 'do them up' don't you (albeit only one strap once they are set up).

My ideal would be a binding that you fitted to your boot, but which separated from the board and could click in/out like ski bindings do. Once you've done it up, you just click in, and click out without having to mess with the straps. I don't see why this is not possible?

After all it is free

Not living in the alps Little Angel

AxsMan, It should be. I wish I was more design minded because the person who cracks it will make a packet.

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sheepmadang, Unless of course you need a shite! Then salophettes go around knees because of the height of ski boots up the calf!!

Airports, would be my worst gripe but it is soon forgotten when you are on the mountains!

snow reports

AxsMan, Re Ski boots, as a friend of mine says. "made by the devil"

Walking on the ice in ski boots
Walking down stairs in ski boots
Arriving down on the slope all 'ready' to go and then finding you've forgotten helmet/gloves/sunglasses etc. and having to go back for them
Not knowing what the kids are up to when they are being taken up the top of the mountain by my friends
Hard snowballs
Steep runs
Getting up after falling over whilst keeping both skis on my feet rather than doing an impersonation of a beached whale
Avoiding guided missiles on the slopes (snowboarders - sorry folks but it often is, and children under the age of 6)
Aching muscles

Two children aged 8 and 5

You know it makes sense.

This year the only thing that I found annoying was the lack of somewhere to store our luggage on check in and check out day!

Piste maps are often a little artistic about getting from A-B, we took a first week snowboarder down a cut up red having promised it would only be blues... oops!

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

Thank you to everyone who is contributing, it is helping a lot when it comes to my project. I have decided to focus my Final dissertation on navigation and safety within resorts. This will be targeted at mainly family members. Worries that I feel are most relevant are

- keeping track of your children when skiing down the mountain, sometimes kids can hurtle off, whilst the mother/father looks after the other child,
- varying degrees of ability within the family
- navigating the resort when you first arrive, not knowing where to go, depending on your ability
- finding somewhere suitable for lunch in a family environment.
- avoiding lift ques
- realistic representation of your position on the slope (often difficult to tell where you are related to another run due to perspective of the map)

If anyone has any other thoughts or issues about the mapping and navigation, or even safety issues, i would very much appreciate your input.

Thanks again to everyone who's contributed

A snowHead

A snowHead

A simple and cheap thing that resorts could do to help beginners avoid the nightmare of finding themselves stranded on a mountain with a red or black their only means of getting down would be to put the appropriately coloured "dots" next to the name of the chairlift both on the piste map and on the chairlift sign itself on the mountain to indicate the runs the lift leads to that can/must be done before either arriving back at resort or at a lift that descends to resort. As there would be a maximum of 4 dots this would not be a space hungry exercise.

Sometimes piste maps can be very ambiguous and I am sure it has ended many a beautiful relationship.

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

I've only just come to this thread, but I hope this is helpful:-

Graded runs vary in difficulty and steepness. I found the piste markers in Italy helpful as they gave a maximum gradient. Now I know this isn't the only criterion of difficulty, but it certainly helps somebody who isn't confident to know if this run is a bluish-red or a blackish-red, for example.

Varying degrees of ability. There is only me and my husband, but he's been skiing for 30 years and more, and I'm in my fourth season. It must be frustrating for him to ski with me, when he knows however much I improve, he'll always be better/faster than me. We cope by either me going in front and him giving me a start and then trying to catch me, or him going in front and waiting at strategic points for me to catch up. The former is better, as sometimes he doesn't catch me and it allows me to stop when I need to, not when he thinks I need to, which aren't always the same thing.

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Mapping & Navigation.

As a novice I greatly fear what I might find when taking a piste for the 1st time. I would always take advice, but know that the more experienced don't always notice a slope that would be a challenge to someone of my level. Have just returned from Vallandry, where I was issued with a separate piste map supplement which had on one side recommended routes for "novices capable of skiing alone" and for intermediates on the other side. It's an excellent idea, but it doesn't 100% match the main piste map! I'd like to see more map information on blue pistes as it's those where we novices cut our teeth and are likely to be fazed sometimes. If you can ski reds, you're probably that much more experienced. The limiting factor for me tends to be steepness, so what would help would be an indication of where there are steeper sections, perhaps indicated by there being red bars across the blue? Instructors/more experienced people have said several times of a section of a blue "well that bit's more like a red really".

Despite good marking, I was intensely annoyed when using the Cabri "protected" beginner area at the top of the Peisey lift as on numerous occasions groups of very fast skiers shot through it taking a shortcut. THat is totally unacceptable when you're trying to concentrate on technique exercisesl it is pure bad manners. To deal with it whilst still allowing entry for users at the top of the slope, perhaps a gate like those at the entrance to lifts might be installed.

A frustration of age is that the piste map writing is so small and it's a right pain to have to get out reading glasses to see it with. Perhaps a larger print version could be available?

(Age 50, grown up kids)

Help!!

University Project - Fears and Frustrations of Skiing

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