 Poster: A snowHead
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David Murdoch and Frosty the Snowman, he's fine and is up and about and back at work (despite banshee wailing and fishwifery from me trying to convinve him to stay hom at least till next week). It's a 'stable' fracture so they just said no lifting or sport until end of Feb, but nothing to stop us hitting the snow again in March to [sarcasm] wreck our skis and roll in the mud [/sarcasm]!
[sarcasm for the doom mongers who might have thought I was serious, explanation of sarcasm here for those same doom mongers who seriously can't believe that anyone would ever ski in Europe again].
Happy sliding all 
Deliaskis
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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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easiski, and so am I, but the doom-mongers are determined to spoil it for us.
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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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tomski01, maybe but the prices in the bars and restaurants are ridiculous. I can't afford to go back.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Helen Beaumont, i was only fishing!  Dont make me down about my chosen holiday plans/destination before it has started, i am not a doom-mongerer!
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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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easiski, i appreciate that...thinking i was trying to make myself even more excited thats all!
did anyone see the thing on Scotland on BBC News this morning by the way? Looked quite snowy (and blowy) up there!
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brian
brian
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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tomski01, sorry, I dodn't mean to be negative. We were a family of 4, hence the expense.
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brian
brian
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What I don't get is thread after thread saying "if booking for December/January or April go somewhere high with reliable snow etc. etc." and everyone agrees and says "yes the low resorts can be dodgy early and late season".
Then when the situation actually happens there's all this weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth as if we've had 50 unbroken years of metre deep powder at 900m throughout the alps from November to May.
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just to illustrate the point this is a picture from opening day in Meribel december 9th when all the papers were reporting the death of skiing. Needless to say we had a great week!!!!!!!!!1
 [/img]
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You know it makes sense.
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| Helen Beaumont wrote: |
| tomski01, maybe but the prices in the bars and restaurants are ridiculous. I can't afford to go back. |
Merlin's famous $6 burger, Beer at $14 a pitcher seems pretty good value to me relative to the Alps. There are reasons to bash US and Canadian skiing but I don't think affordability of food & drink is really one of them (& remember Whistler is probably the equivalent of Courcheval in ramped up prices).
This isn't the first & won't be the last time the season in Europe has a late start & it doesn't mean you can't have a fruitful trip. I'm hoping to work on skills building if conditions aren't good enough for me to be doing what I really want. Those skills may include Ptexing I suspect 
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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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| Quote: |
"if booking for December/January or April go somewhere high with reliable snow etc. etc." and everyone agrees and says "yes the low resorts can be dodgy early and late season".
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I must say for early season my own moto is book late as much as book high because variation in snow quantitiy can vary as much by geography as altitude (see last season) For April I agree with going high and north facing.
Though I agree with your point that current conditions although dissapointing in many places are not entirely unexpected and for many people avoidable.
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Poster: A snowHead
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fatbob, but I don't ski in Courchevel either. I wasn;t bashing Whistler, I loved it, but my wallet didn't .
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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 think we're all spoilt these days - I don't want to start a "when I were young" thread, but back in the day we skied whatever was there, or not. I think this is probably the first year since the proliferation of snow cannons when we've had both warm temps and not massive snowfall early in the season. therefore peeps who've skied only 10 years or so, expect to have either natural snow or artificial or both. this year the lower elevations have neither in great abundance.
One year in the early 80's I went to Wengen for free at Christmas because there was no snow - officially closed, and a rich guy changed his holiday, but had to pay for it anyway. Well, there wasn't NO snow - just not enough to officially open. We went up in the train, and we skied down wherever we could. We damaged our skis badly, but IT WAS POSSIBLE TO SKI. On Christmas day it started to snow, and then they opened ..... It's never as bad as the press say - you can nearly always ski a bit, and as fatbob, says - if it's restricted you can work on skills - you can still enjoy yoursleves, you can still have a holiday, and you might even discover other things you enjoy doing (like snowshoeing), or whatever.  Think outside the box
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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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The reports we are getting from the seasonnaire pros are generally positive and we're starting to see some excellent shots. Since they don't normally get out of bed unless it's perfect they must have had some mighty fine days judging by the images we're seeing. Get on out and send us some photos of what's going on!
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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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easiski, well said and a very good point, I think this probably is the first year for the snow cannon generation where temps just haven't been low enough for the artificial backup to operate. Referring back up to a previous post, poor expectation management on the part of the industry.
I remember a day off in my first season, mid feb I think and it was tipping down rain in Morzine, I was lying in with only a monstrous hangover to keep me company. My boss came into my room and asked why I (by then acknowledged to ski in any conditions, being Scottish) I wasn't up the hill. My "It's raining" excuse was demolished with a, "haven't you checked the snow line, it's at 1,400m you idiot" rebuttal.
Swift up, dressed, and up for a excellent tree lined powder day with virtually deserted slopes (in the middle of the Vacances Scolaires...)
Moral of the story? Don't give up on the conditions until you've tasted them yourself. Or, if there's a boat going out, better on it and disappointed, than not on it and disappointed later in the bar.
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It's good to see some reasonable views on here regarding this snow/ no snow business. I came back to regular skiing about 7 years ago, having not skied since the late 80's. I remember some truly awful Feb. vacations (conditions-wise) in Flaine and Avoriaz around '87/'88, but it didn't stop us having a blast. Just go and find what snow is around and ski on it! On my Christmas/ New Year trip to the Pyrenees (where there truly is no snow), I still managed a few days on the slopes, and took advantage of a couple of closed pistes to have my first go on touring skis/ skins etc. And I loved it! And probably wouldn't have taken the time to do it, if there had been tons of powder around.
We've had crappy starts to the season before, and will again. It doesn't mean that the whole season will be snow-free. My advice? Book for mid-March. It's always great (and quiet).
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FAQ
Hopefully some of the drifts might survive 
