 Poster: A snowHead
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We have organised our next ski holiday which got me thinking about my first ski trip with my secondary school to Foppolo in Italy. This would have been in about 1982 and although only a small resort it clearly got me hooked.
I was fortunate to go with the school a couple of years later this time to Les Carroz. I have been back to Les Carroz / Flaine a few time but not Foppolo. I wonder how many of those I went with still ski?
What prompted other people to first go skiing and where did you go and have you been back there?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Mt. Hood, Oregon. Just passing (in the summer) and seemed like a cool thing to try.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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LDM, forced to by my parents aged 4 at Cairngorm. Never really got over it. The mental anguish has forced an inordinate amount of expensive therapy, mostly snow based and a relocation to a climate more sympathetic to my needs.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Like you LDM my first trip was with the school, over new year some time in the early 70`s. To Maurach Eben in Austria and I loved it.
Next trip, a few years later, was to Super-Molina in the Pyrenees and that nearly put me off forever. There was virtually no snow, lots of horrid ice, and indeed conditions were so bad they closed the resort and bused us into Andorra where there was a little more snow, but still poor conditions!
Took a lot of persuasion by a relative a couple of years later, who was an army ski instructor, to get me back to skiing. He and his colleagues were very patient and I loved the tiny, very pretty, Bavarian resorts we skied in and we returned for several years.
I would love to go back to Maurach Eben and see it as it is now, and from an adult perspective.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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I cant remember the full price of the first school trip but remember my mum giving me £11 every Friday to take to school to pay for it.
I guess you pay for the Teachers too as they are working!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Les Gets 1997, with brothers, because somehow we got outvoted for a family holiday as kids... Disney or Skiing. Disney won with 2 votes vs Skiing with 3. Got the vacation we should have had in 1987.
Went back there 5 more times skiing, and again since mountainbiking.
I'll be the only one that still skis, although one brother may have defected to tethering his legs together to slide sideways.
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I went because a friend at work had skied a few times and I thought I would enjoy it. He was going by himself to Tignes for two weeks late season as is skiing buddies couldn't go. He suggested I just go for one week as I might not like it but I was sure I would so went for two weeks. I was right!!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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4ish on the Penken cause my parents had been skiing there for a few years.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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I was a late starter to the whole skiing thing - first trip was to Andorra in 2012 aged 38 - I just never got round to it before (summer hols was always a priority). Now I love it, and have I've ditched the summer holiday for the past few years so that I can go skiing at least twice!
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Mine was totally accidental. Myself and a mate were on a two week climbing trip in the Rockies one Feb and due to heavy snowfall there was too much avi risk to get to teh ice falls for a few days. So he talked me into trying skiing for 4 days and I fell in love with it. The next year I did another 2 days while climbing in la Grave, then the following year it was a week in Alpe d'Huez with my new B2's. I loved it so much I looked round for another trip that season, saw this thing called the EOSB and joined sHs. My soul was then sold 
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You know it makes sense.
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Harwood ski club (rip) in 1979 aged 4 and for the next 4 years every-time it was open until we moved to just outside glencoe. gutted it has closed as took my wife to all the Scottish resorts last winter and was going to try and get to harwood this winter to show her where the money problems started 
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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School ski trip to Andalo in 1979. As a working class boy from the Valleys there is no way I would have discovered skiing as I was growing up if it hadn't been for that school trip, and probably not much chance that I would have thought of trying it as an adult. So I have a lot to thank Mr Brown and Mr Bowen, the two teachers from my school who arranged the trips I went on, for introducing me to something which has become so important in my life.
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Poster: A snowHead
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I was hooked on skiing as a kid watching David Vine on Ski Sunday but could never afford to go. First time on snow was ADH in 1988 with a bunch of friends. I had a course of 6 lessons on a dry slope (Bebington Oval) just prior to going. The rest, as they say, is history. Still got to get the time, money and permission to go on a bash 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Scarpa wrote: |
| My soul was then sold |
Not 'sold' my boy: invested!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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My 6th form college was doing a ski trip to Maurach, Austria which I would have just let pass as 'something other people did' but a girl in my form class, who I quite fancied, talked me into it by telling me the girl in the form next door, who I also quite fanciedOK, I was 17: she was playing on the inherent weakness of 17yr old boys!! 
It was that good, I went in the upper 6th too 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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School trip when I was 7, so 1984. La Plagne. I still remember it vividly, and got my ESF "deuxieme etoile". I still remember the Atomic straight skis (in mini size) that I was on.
My parents never skiied, so I did not go again until the ripe old age of 25! Friends' trip to Soll. I skied sporadically afterwards, and liked, but did not love it. Break for 4 years whilst with someone who didn't ski at all - we did beaches instead. Progressed to blue run cruiser with dreadful technique, going everywhere too fast, crouched forwards, sitting back, and having a great time.
5 years ago I met Lady Flash, who is a fanatic and has skied every season since she was 3 i.e. 30 years of several weeks a year (her parents have a lodge in the US - she's American, and grew up on the mountain). Had to very much up my game. Suddenly started doing 20-30 days per season, lessons, proper training and saw extraordinary progress, culminating in a full, non-working season 2013-14 which has really sorted my skiing out and sealed the addiction.
I now can't imagine life without the white stuff and planks.
So, technically, I've been skiing for nearly 30 years. I should be a lot better than I am!
Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Wed 17-09-14 13:37; edited 1 time in total
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Never been back to La Plagne. Would like to!
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1999, first lessons at Tamworth dome. I SUCKED soooo badly. First trip was in 2000, to Mammoth in California which, in retrospect, was a long way to go to try something for the first time - but it was the turn of the century and snowboarding tuition in Europe was all ESF in tight pants and eurocarving. It was there I had the 'click' moment and it all started to come together.
I left with boots, bindings, a 160 Burton Charger and a second-degree sunburn after forgetting sunscreen on the first day.
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Aged 4 while growing up in Austria. This would have been in 1964 so we still had leather laced up boots and skis made of solid planks of wood 
Was my main motivation for moving from Dundee to Munich back in 1985. Never looked back!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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admin, would that be the same area as Maurach Eben? I wonder if it was an area particularly popular as a school trip destination?
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Our first experience of skiing on snow was in the early '90s in Petroșani, Romania while we were visiting friends. There's no resort but they do have a chairlift. It's meant for foot pasengers so you have to carry your skis and run off at the top! We've since been back to Romania but not for skiing.
Last edited by Ski the Net with snowHeads  on Wed 17-09-14 14:04; edited 1 time in total
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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A course of 6 lessons at Carlton Forum dry ski slope in Nottingham in Summer 1984, followed by a beginner's week in Alpbach Austria. From then on I was hooked! 
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Started late, this year 
Why, we wanted to try something different instead of hot sunny holidays, and my brother in law + friends ski every year. I went from, "I don't know what to expect", to "I'm now f*cking excited" after getting there on our first day and seeing people come down the piste, and now I'm obsessed.
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You know it makes sense.
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I had forgot about the first lesson at Woolwich dry slope - two very short runs with a rope loop to pull you up! (early 80's)
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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A few winters ago I accepted a company transfer to Geneva. I had no interest in skiing before that, but figured I should give it a go.
Had a horrific private lesson (in Chamonix) with an ESF instructor that left me convinced skiing was the worst idea in the world, and swore I would never do it again.
The next winter a friend invited me to join in on a chalet holiday, which I really wanted to do for the social side/laughs and drinking, so I decided I would force myself to learn to ski at a basic level, no matter how much I hated it, to be a bit more sociable on the holiday. I got really lucky and had a private lesson with a fantastic instructor at the start of the winter who had me absolutely loving skiing within the first 15 minutes! Skied a fair bit that winter and by the end I was addicted.
The next winter I skied every day I wasn't working, joined snowheads, went on a bash, and several other ski holidays with friends. Last winter I quit my job and got an apartment in Chamonix to be a ski bum (and still went to 3 bashes!) Same apartment booked for this winter, woohoo! Though I'll have to actually work too, boo 
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Poster: A snowHead
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Les Deux Alpes in about 1988, with a group of friends - 6 of us in an sc apartment for 6, never again! I was working for a now defunct outdoor retailer and was expected to sell skis etc to people. I remember the manager trying to explain to us how the gear worked and finding it really hard to see how a long straight plank could be made to go round corners, and how something that held your boot onto the ski could also let you off it. So I thought I'd better take myself off skiing and find out!
I've now been every year since except for 2, often two weeks and occasionally three, and I've been working at a dry slope for the last 13 years.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Stoke Ski Slope - mmmm the smell of beeswax, burning bases and melting flesh after a fall takes me back
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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School ski trip to Serre Chevalier in 1980. 24hrs in a school minibus each way, sleeping in a hostel down the valley and bussing up each morning. Absolutely loved it, I have never been back there though. Still remember the four clip boots BEFORE the 80s hideous rear entry things and plate bindings. There is nothing better for a complete beginner than skis fastened to your feet by a short length of wire which smack you on the head every time they come off in a crash 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Took a taster snowboard lesson with my Dad on the dreaded dendex at Sunderland. I was hooked so we booked a beginners snowboard course. That winter my old man took me to Zell Am See and i loved it.
Went back to try on the dendex again after returning home - maybe a bit too confident and managed to cut my left knee and jeans open, second attempt right knee so decided dendex wasn't for me.
6 - 7 Years later i decided to go work in Switzerland. By the end of Jan after Snowboarding for a few months 6 days a week i decided that i should really learn to ski while i was there. Probably only done around 10 days on a board since but i am tempted to get one this year.
Been in the alps for 4 winters now - heading into my 5th
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RUGBY PETER, yes, my trip was certainly more than my father earned in a week, too.
It's interesting how many of us started with a school trip. My son in law does school trips - or did before he had his own kids and was no longer willing to give up a week's holiday for it. Their school prioritises kids who wouldn't otherwise have a chance to go skiing, which seems right. In 1963 we were all total beginners - I doubt whether there were many girls in the whole school (the top girls grammar school in Cardiff, quite a priveleged cross-section of state school kids really) who had ever been skiing.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Went along for a mate's 40th Birthday in 2008, Claviere, Via Lattea. Was more interested in going for the après ski if I'm honest and had to borrow ski wear from friends, but was surprised and delighted how much I enjoyed the daytime experience just as much as the evenings Will be going back to via Lattea (Milky Way) for the first time since, in March next year - Sauze d'Oulx.
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FAQ
