 Poster: A snowHead
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Hi all. I am spending a season in the Alps, but will not be skiing every hour of every day, as I will sometimes be minding our baby whilst my wife gets on the mountain.
To this end, and knowing that I need to work on my fitness, I would like to get into some ski touring - the kind where you are not doong anything gnarly, but really just going for a long walk. I can do this on warm-ish days with the baby in a hiking backpack, nicely wrapped up.
To this end, can I do this with a touring setup? Or actually, is all I need just a cheap cross country setup? The advantage of the former is that it is a bit more versatile an could be used for ctual touring, of course. I know absolutely nothing about the latter, but google appears to tell me that cross country skis and boots are pretty cheap and not as much as a faff to get fitted etc as ski boots. Is this correct?
Does anyone here do cross country skiing? And specifically in the Portes du Soleil? All tips, routes etc welcomed gratefully...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I’ve done a lot of touring and Nordic skiing. Personally I wouldn’t do either with a baby on my back, and have never seen anyone doing it.
I have seen people Nordic skiing with a sledge containing a baby which seemed safe enough.
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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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There’s a few cross country threads on here. There’s classic or skating. You do it on the flat. Slopes are terrifying on cross country skis. I recommend to try it.
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Loads of things crop up here, @Harry Flashman! I've done a fair bit of cross country on prepared tracks (and little bits of "off piste" crossing between tracks).
Just from my own experience, I wouldn't contemplate XC skiing with baby strapped to my back. Leaving aside the question of cold, you can expect to fall - and fall pretty violently. When you first start you tend to fall over backwards (on top of baby) and when you get more competent, forward (catapulting baby head first out of backpack).
If it's good enough weather, my exercise of choice with baby would be snow-shoeing. You are unlikely to fall and if you do fall, it will be slowly - more like toppling over than the kind of hurtle you can do on cross country skis.
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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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| jbob wrote: |
I’ve done a lot of touring and Nordic skiing. Personally I wouldn’t do either with a baby on my back, and have never seen anyone doing it.
I have seen people Nordic skiing with a sledge containing a baby which seemed safe enough. |
Thanks all.
Nordic with sledge. That sounds exactly what I want to be doing.
I have done touring, but sold my setup, and frankly it's all a bit big, heavy and expensive to re-equip just to take the baby out for a scenic walk.
Snowshoeing is another excellent option of course: thanks Pam!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Hmm. Don't know about sledge. Absolutely fine on the boring-dead-flat. But hard work to tow uphill and could overtake you, going down. Snowshoeing, with long poles (like classic XC poles) is very stable. Most areas have lots of prepared tracks. I've also done snowshoeing away from any prepared tracks but you need to be aware of avalanche risk, of course. And in Les Saisies, at times of heavy snow, some of the prepared snowshoe tracks were closed because of avy risk.
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A couple of winters ago we picked up a couple of sets of classic x country skis and poles at our local bourse de ski. They were ex rental and so very cheap but we show no signs of being held back by any technical limitations so far (our own lack of finesse is quite enough on it's own!) Might be worth looking on ebay.fr/uk for similar or le bon coin. Have touring skis too. Not feasable to use those on ski de fond tracks - too wide and too much like hard work. Suggest you hire for the day for first few attempts, rental is dirt cheap. At 90€ for a season pass for the whole Haute Savoie it's a brilliant, economical alternative to alpine - go for it!
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