 Poster: A snowHead
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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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Right, a few flat-bed trucks and some spanners, a replacement for the White Lady T-bar! 
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I watched them chopper bits in for a new lift in Zermat the other season..very impressive. Till you see the pictures of them building the 1st klien matterhorn lift station back in the very old days, just mental blokes with minimal safety gear hanging off rock faces and cables.
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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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OMG, how much mountain have they bulldozed! 
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There was a good view clip posted once showing them helicoptering the pylon parts into place, v impressive. I'll try and find it...
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roga,
Should have a look at how much bulldozering is being done at Les 2 Alpes, and its not even to build a lift, its just cos the terrain isn't quite how the resort would like it. Not what i liek to see in a ski resort.
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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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Dave Horsley, roga,
La Plagne's at it as well, this contouring pictured last year has beeen continued this summer
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Its all very impressive a !
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| roga wrote: |
| OMG, how much mountain have they bulldozed! |
I was at the top of the station a few weeks ago and it looked like the M25. Cant complain though as this re-management is going to really improve the connection and open the top massively.
The same thing is going on at Superbagneres but on a much smaller scale, to make it easier for beginners to gain access to the Techous Sector.
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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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| Dave Horsley wrote: |
roga,
Should have a look at how much bulldozering is being done at Les 2 Alpes, and its not even to build a lift, its just cos the terrain isn't quite how the resort would like it. Not what i liek to see in a ski resort. |
Me too, I think in the Alps this kind of 'terraforming' has got way out of hand.
Crazy thing is you can't move a rock on a Scottish mountain without a major public enquiry, seems to me a few of the Scottish environmentalists could do with cycling over to Alps and making a fuss over there rather than trying to bankrupt Scottish ski areas!
| Boredsurfing wrote: |
Dave Horsley, roga,
La Plagne's at it as well, this contouring pictured last year has beeen continued this summer
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Oh dear! 
| Ski Guide wrote: |
| roga wrote: |
| OMG, how much mountain have they bulldozed! |
I was at the top of the station a few weeks ago and it looked like the M25. Cant complain though as this re-management is going to really improve the connection and open the top massively. |
To my mind if a little effort is required getting from one part of a ski resort to another it's no bad thing...
| Quote: |
| The same thing is going on at Superbagneres but on a much smaller scale, to make it easier for beginners to gain access to the Techous Sector. |
...and if it's too hard for beginners then it's too hard for beginners and they need to improve rather than having the mountain reformed to suit them - personally I think it's vandalism and as I say above, I think it's a shame the environmentalists don't get their act together in the Alps because it's gone way too far in some places.
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thanks ski guide. hopefully i'll be back in peyragudes this january.....................fingers crossed for some snow. last year and the year before was pants. did the vallee blanche open at all last year?
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You know it makes sense.
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Totally agree about the excessive mountain modification. Some resorts look like a waste-land in the summer instead of natural mountains and meadows. It is worst in France, made worse because they have quite a lot of scree naturally. Walking in the mountains around Val d'Isere in Summer is super ugly. Big contrast to the natural landscapes you mostly see in Switzerland and Austria.
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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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In La Plagne's defence that area pictured above was planted with grass seed as soon as the earthmoving was complete. This is the lift companies policy, as well as the obvious environmental benefits there are benefits to piste forming and piste maintenance as well as skier satisfaction (less stones coming through). Where the old lifts were removed to build the new La Roche lift, where possible tree's have been planted suitably protected against the conditions, this summer they appeared to be growing very well.
Pessimists will say new trees allow them to remove tree's elsewhere for new building. But at least they are doing something!
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Poster: A snowHead
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I'm going to play devils advocate - there are certain bits that should just be improved which really doesn't take that much work..and I find it annoying when resorts don't take that option when it wouldn't cost them that much to remodel.
for example as a boarder the 'return run' to the main cable car in Kitzbuhl was a total PITA..however much speed you took on the steeps you just couldn't get up the upslope a few hundred yards above the lift. So you had to unstrap on a busy pist and because of the 'adverse camber' walk across the piste, down a bit and then strap on..really wouldn't be hard to fix and would reduce the risk of accidents..
St. Anton is another - they really really need to come up with 2 more feeder routes back to town from both the galzig bahn and the main moutain avoiding the dreaded 'happy value' or should that be 'car crash valley' - the 'most dangerous run in the alps' according to WTSS'08
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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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Dave Horsley, Not about how the resort would like it, but about what the clients insist on these days! Personally I'm not in favour of it in general, but there have been modifications made to our mountain which have improved the safety aspect 200% in certain places.
They also try to plant grass and it does grow (sort of) where none grew naturally. Ditto the trees in LDA on the face - they weren't there until skiing got well under way. So it's not that simple. Read the posts on here and see what most skiers are looking for. We all need to eat, and resorts need to attract skiers. Most skiers nowadays want 'designer skiing' with just the right easy, flattering blues, perfectly groomed pistes and only blue sky and powdery snow! If they don't get it they slag off the ski resort! Look at the fuss 2 years ago when there wasn't much snow at low levels. I can't even begin to think how many times I've heard 'but why don't they just make a blue run down (the face)?' When you start to explain what would be involved in creating a blue run down a black slope they do see why it's not that easy, but most would still like us to do it.
snowball, That's down to altitude and water and soil on the mountain surely, rather than 'terraforming'
Boredsurfing, Precisely - it's never black and white.
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easiski,
I know its what a lot of people like, and I don't mond the odd bit of rock removal and the like. I can also see that some work needs to be done when new lifts are going in, to actually build the lift building, take off ramps etc. What I don't like to see is the remodelling of slopes to such a large extend that basically each run is a graded gravel road, with all the natural features removed because they might make it a tad dificult for people. I like my sksi resorts to be fairly aux naturale. Thats one of the nice things about scotland - very little has been done to engineer the slopes. In fact the occasional rock removal might actually be usefull. I just think its a matter of getting the balance right abd I think a lot of continental resorts have gone too far towards the re-engineering of the runs.
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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, I accept that this is what most skiers are after, that's part of my gripe I guess and I think it's one reason why so many people these days aren't up to, or even willing to try, places like Scotland where thankfully things remain relatively untamed. The irony of course is that this is happening at the very same time as off-piste skiing has gained in popularity and as a result of equipment advances more people are able to get into the back country.
Personally I think if people's technique isn't up to it then it isn't up to it, they should get more lessons and resorts shouldn't be bulldozing runs to 'flatter' their low skill levels. Frankly if resorts refused to do this kind of thing people would still ski somewhere so I don't really accept the argument that it's down to client expectations and demands and resorts have no choice. After all there seems to be less of this kind of activity in countries like Austria as noted above, and I have to admit I've noticed this myself too.
It strikes me that if other sports were to take the same attitude we'd have canoeing rivers with all the big boulders and narrow bits removed and the water slowed down, mountain bike tracks with all the slippy and steep bits bulldozed out and mountains all over the place with steps and escalators up them to make climbing them easier! It's no wonder it's often difficult for me to defend skiing to friends who just walk and climb, particularly those in Scotland who look at the mess in parts of the Alps and suggest that if they allowed say Cairngorm Mountain to remove one boulder from the White Lady it'd be the slippery slope to Alpine style 'development'.
I rather agree with Dave Horsley above, it's about keeping a balance and some of the stuff that's gone on in the Alps is going way too far for my liking.
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[quote="easiski]
They also try to plant grass and it does grow (sort of) where none grew naturally. .[/quote]
There is some work going on at Superbagneres at the moment where the terrain is classified as "Zone Pastoral", this is naturally very grassy however not necessarily good for the cattle in places as the slope is difficult and when wet gets churned up. Doing what they have done in the pictures below improves the resort but also makes more grass available to the cattle. A win win for both the farmer and the resort.
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Dave Horsley, roga, In principal I agree with you, and I would, for instance, be dead against bulldozing across the summer pasture just to make a blue run down our face.
However, in areas that are already ugly, rocky and quarry-like (most of LDA above 2,400m) I can't really see the problem. If you look at the pix I took on the snow reports you'll see that although they're changing the profile, they're not actually digging up very much!
That's not true of everywhere of course, and I would personally prefer all resorts to be marketed for what's there, and not to the 'average skier' - but look at the figures: La Grave - 3,500 tourist beds; LDA 35,000. Most big resorts will fall into the same hole. who would be the brave resort who starts refusing to 'manicure' the mountain? Look at how many people now live and work in Aviemore compared to before all the hassle etc. How many people would lose their jobs, have to move out of the area and so on?
A happy medium needs to be struck, but as long as the average skier is content to skid around on gentle motorways (and how many times have I been called out on this site for deploring this?) rather than actually learning to ski, then resorts will have no alternative but to cater for this vast majority. 
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