What's the best stack you've ever done/seen?

A snowHead

I'm not talking about horror stories of people breaking legs or skiing into trees, but what are the best tales of blundering ineptitude by old hands or first timers you've witnessed on the slopes?

The best I've ever seen was a mate last year in LDA who skied over to join us at the edge of the piste, kept going, skied half way up a near-vertical snow bank, stopped, slid backwards about a foot before the backs of his skis dug into the snow and then proceeded to do a backwards roll back onto the piste, coming to rest in a kind of face-down splits position. Embarassed

Genius.

A snowHead

Was once sat on a lift watching a learner coming down the hill. We've all been there and direction control was how should we say, limited. Thankfully there were no obstacles anywhere near her. However a wooden hut in the distance around 10m off the side of the piste magically drew her towards it. I swear it was the only case of 'wood magnitism' I've seen to this day (between her wooden skis and the hut). She fought bravely but the force was too great (Capt'n, she cannae take it) and she was sucked into the side of the hut with a slap.

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

In Selva several years ago, when we emerged from some powder just off-piste, the last in our group fell in a heap over a jump at the edge of the piste. When he stood up, head to toe, there was just pure white. The guide has to say it was the first time he had seen a real snowman.
Funnier in real life, it always is.

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In the park at VT last year, decided to work a bit on taking off switch. First attempt, on the green line, in front of a load of people (including a few pretty English girls)...nowhere near enough speed, and just fell off the edge of the kicker and landed in a heap on the other side Embarassed

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Most embarrasing for me was only a couple of weeks ago on the plastic.. 'Right baby all you have to do is gently roll your knees to the right to get the ski turning right', I said to my girl.... off I go gently down the slope, I put me knees over for a nice gentle carving turn only for pretty much nothing to happen!!! Straight on over the very best John Nike rippled plastic carpet, across the grass and into the gravel and finally to a terrain stop by way of a live power cable that the ski tips went under Embarassed

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Schladming a few years ago.

I was going down run 9 on the Planai (marked black on the ground, red on the piste map?).

Started to turn, near the edge of the piste, lost balance a bit so straightened back up (This was before I learned that it usually works better to turn down the hill when you make a mistake).

Unfortunately, I didn't have room to straighten up, so hit the side of the piste. Both skis stopped dead as I hit the soft snow, I didn't. Perfect double eject, straight over the edge - a 6-10 foot drop. Fortunately, I went over the gulley, and made a perfect Alex shaped hole in the snow bank the other side, with no injury at all. But the Equity guide was white faced as he looked over to see what had happened to me.

And it took a good couple of minutes for me to scramble back up to the piste, with the help of the guide holding out a pole for me to pull up on.

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

We where in Aspen snowmass a few years back and spending a day cruising the piste at high speed. As we where coming to the slow ski area and lost concentration hit a ridge becoming airborne and landed in a huge snow drift face first beside a restaurant full of wealthy fur clad ski cougars apparently non of whom where impressed with the language of the human snowman that disturbed their afternoon socialising

After all it is free

Before they put up a suitable barrier/netting, I heard stories about skiers ending up in the car park at Rossendale dry ski slope. The car insurance claims must have been something special.

I remember my brother in law learning to ski, he forgot to stand up getting off a chair lift, ended up lying right back over the backs of his ski's and gently sliding down the run off and into the middle of the piste. He went quite a distance and couldn't stop. The lift operator just raised his eyebrows but I was in serious pain from laughing.

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Pretty much everytime I decide to practice my (non-existant) off-piste skills, I seem to produce an even more embrassing crash/wipe-out.

The really annoying thing, is that it's inevitably under a chairlift in full sight of about 50 people!

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

180 to forgetting-that-I-wasn't-on-twintips that day just under the derby chair at les arcs. Two juddering skis buried backwards in the snow up to the bindings in the "you landed here" position, myself some distance off and accelerating.

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Somewhere in the French Alps about 10 years ago.

Sitting on a chairlift , watching a set of poseurs doing jumps, spead eagles - that sort of thing.

One of them face plants big style - Shout from 2 chairs ahead .

"Norway - Nil Points"

- Laughter all up/down the chair lift Laughing

A friend of mine in the pyrenees about 15 years ago..
Full speed/schuss down a rolling steepish piste where you could get plenty of speed. He stupidly took my hint when I pointed at a little "natural" kicker with my pole.
When it was too late to do anything about it, he realised his mistake (the kicker was small but steep), stood up from the schuss position and took off....
....(in slow motion in my head) then started a slow but steady back flip, somehow completed it, landed on his skis, then crashed... Cool

The crowd around was mightily impressed, he was sh***t scared of any bump for the day after that...and 15 years on I 'm still laughing hard when thinking about it... Very Happy

You know it makes sense.

A friend skiing in a gunbarrel-style chute, a natural half-pipe if you will. He skied off the top to turn and drop back in but got his weight too far back and went over backwards. He ended up in a tree hanging upside down by his skis that had wedged in a branch, but couldn't reach his bindings to release himself. We had to attempt to walk up the side of the chute (quite soft snow) and use our poles to undo his bindings, but attempting to put any force into releasing the binding meant sliding back down the chute and having to climb back up again. He was eventually released after a good ten minutes up there. This being back in the days of Harry Enfield's Television Programme ( http://uk.youtube.com/v/bZJgsXO1FxI ) and the three aliens, he was regaled with 'Tree, tree, tree!' for the rest of the trip.

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

Me with two-week skier Mike in La Plagne some years ago:

1) crossing between two pistes on a "track" pisted by other skiers, I have gone first and am looking back up at Mike coming down.
Me shouting "watch you don't go into that soft snow on your left Mike"
Mike (inevitably) "what soft sn..........."

2) coming down a track which does an "S" across a bridge then goes uphill on the other side.
I advise getting "a bit of speed up" on the approach to avoid walking up the hill
Mike goes like a rocket across the bridge then turns too sharply, diving head first into the ravine (it was a bridge, see). French couple sitting at a camping table on the bend having their lunch are dumbfounded. I side step down the ravine and extricate Mike from the rocks below, then we both climb back up. French man offers Mike a plastic cup of wine, gratefully received.

A snowHead

In Verbier in March, skiing at speed my mate tried to overtake me, as I turned left saw something coming at me in the corner of my eye and instinctively put my arm up (with pole in hand) punched his googles off, he skied over the front of my ski's and took off head first, his ski tips touched the ground about 20 metres further down the slope, skis came off he then landed another 10 metres further on, his poles, goggles ( now in bits) ski's hat were spread widely across the piste, once I saw he moving and okay promptly wet myself laughing.

A snowHead

La Plagne, my third week of skiing. Instructor had us doing lots of little jumps. One involving dropping in to a little man size depression and popping out with a little jump the other side. Bob I think he was called dropped in but leant so far back he sprung his bindings and just his skis popped out, perfectly in line but with no sign of Bob. A minute later a rather embarrassed Bob appeared, as his sympathetic class mates rolled around the ground laughing.

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

I chargrilled a truly astounding piece of Dexter ribeye and served it with garlic and Roquefort butter.

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Whilst on a chair lift in Meribel saw a guy on a board go to jump over a rock of about 10 foot in height, he got up the front face and off the rock, but there was a tree right behind the rock and the top few inches were just a little higher than the rock.........he caught the tip of his board in the tree and ended up upside down in the tree with the base of his board facing directly upwards. He was OK, but his pride was somewhat hurt as 2 chair loads of us saw him do it and burst out laughing all at the same time

I think he was pretty mortified!

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

skitrack, reminds me. I've told this before but it still makes me laugh.

Les Arcs terrain park or snowboard park as they were called. The coolest French dude on the planet and he knows it. Cool outfit, cool friends, cool everything and the best jumps of all.

End of the day, huge crowd taking in the scene, lying around in deck chairs drinking vin chauds. Our hero decides to go for another big one. The usual hush as everyone knows he goes biggest. Up in to the air he goes, super styled and lands . . . perfectly.

Slides over to the bar, takes off his board, gets a drink and now performs his piece de resistance where he stands/stamps on the end of his board and grabs it mid-air, except that this time he misses and hits his drink/face.

The place fell apart.

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certainly a trend for La Plagne mishaps in this thread Smile

well here's another, about 12yrs ago...

Was skiing with a mate and we were cruising around all morning and over lunch decided to hire some proper long GS skis for the afternoon to crank the speed up...

So we jumped out of the gondola at the top of the Roche de Mio and decided to wind the speed up on the now pretty quiet Tunnel run back to Belle Plagne. Anyone who has skied it will know it has two quite pronounced pitches at the top before it goes flatter towards the tunnel. So we booted it towards the first pitch and my mate at the last minute decided to haul up and join about 6 people stood looking down......I was carrying just a 'tad' more speed and decided i'd just do a nice little jump and carry on. This strategy was a good idea for about 2 seconds before i realised the reason those people had stopped was it was heavily moguled Embarassed

I cleared about 6, then proceeded to lose skis, glasses, cap, glovws etc as I scrubbed the speed off hitting moguls like a skimming stone snowHead

I got a round of applause and a nose bleed from being cocky...

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

Some years ago I was skiing with some friends and we decided to cross some unpisted snow between one piste and another piste. I set off first, and soon found that the snow surface was breakable crust. Moreover, I was on Kneissl Big Feet (for those that don't know, these were precursors of Snowblades, fun on piste but not ideal for other conditions). I had got up a bit of speed when, due to the small surface area of the Big Feet they broke through the crust, my feet stopped dead and I got pitched forward into a magnificent headplant! Embarassed

My friends were laughing their heads off! Smile

After all it is free

Alastair Pink, I seem to remember that same headplant technique in a snowy Murren a year or 2 ago Toofy Grin

FenlandSkier, Ah, but that was different skis and due to poor visibility on my steamed up spectacles! Toofy Grin

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Oh sh**, i'm heading to La Plagne (which seems to be home of the stack) in March and I have the worst history of stacking it ever (my nickname skiing is the stackie monster Embarassed

). 2000overdrive, you may be in for something special Shocked

!

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A few years ago in Livigno I was sat at the bottom of a nursery slope watching my beginner mates practicing. There was one really annoying bloke - a beginner but thought he knew it all giving people "tips" and generally making a nuisance of himself. I suddenly saw him hurtling towards the fence of a carpark obviously completely out of control. He hit the fence, released both bindings and front flipped through the air about fifteen feet before landing on the roof of a Fiat in the car park. Shocked

Luckily he was OK - the huge dent in the roof must have lessened the impact!

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.
For those who did not see
this very funny self-inflicted crash when it was on here last year. (I hope he wasn't hurt!) Shocked

Cartoon stuff. It is very short so everyone I have played it to has asked for repeats.

In Sestriere earlier this year I spotted a little kicker at the side of the piste and went for it. And fluffed it, landing in a heap of limbs of skis. Sig. other who had spotted my take off, but not my landing, decided to follow - and landed right on top of me. And our friend - hearing sig. other's yelp of fear and interpreting it as joy - also followed. And landed on top of us.

"Stack" is the right word. It was like a Razzle centrefold.

You know it makes sense.

A friend of mine is a good skier but somewhat of a lunatic and I have seen him seriously stack it a few times. Once he flew off a jump, promptly crashed in true "yard sale" fashion and got a round of applause from a stationary chair lift that were watching the whole thing. We have a few of them on video too so I should really put them on youtube if I can get him to send them to me.

The most embarrassing thing I have done is fall while getting off a chair lift only to get smacked in the back of the head as the chair swung around to go back down again. Embarassed

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

A snowHead

I remember doing an Alastair Pink stylee once... Didn't really hurt but I was groggy for a few minutes...

Vars, late 80's: My sister once ended a high speed schuss by starting her braking turn just as the piste was "kicking up" a bit. She basically took off sideways at the top of the kick and landed on/rammed my dad who ad stopped there...She ended up with one of my dad's pole literally wrapped around her leg! One destroyed pole and one hell of a bruise!

A snowHead

this thread is useless without pictures...

Now this is a good example of a 'stack picture'

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

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

No, no, not the helmets, anything but the helmets Evil or Very Mad

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My best one was in Austria two seasons ago. Last morning, late transfer to airport so we skied the local slope. All the locals were out skiing, most of them racing. I had new skis I'd bought the day before, and wasn't used to them. I set off trying to make the most of my race skis, but flat light meant I mis-interpreted a hollow as a bump. This was directly under the chair lift being used by the local racers. It is amazing how much equipment you can scatter how far across the slope if you are really trying - any how much snow you can get in your goggles Embarassed

I also got a round of applause skiing down into Meribel once. There were a whole crowd of people collected above a slight ridge in the piste. The reason for this was that it was sheet ice, but I didn't realise until I went over the ridge. I fell over, turned round the wrong way, slid all the way down the icy pitch, and despite the powder skirt, ended up with an awful lot of icy snow in my jacket. Still, I amused a whole lot of people. Should have gone down the off-piste bumps instead, but I was a relatively beginner at the time...

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

About 4 or 5 of us stopped when passing the top of an icy mogul run in Whistler because a kid of about 10 was lying in a hollow about 2 bumps down with his skis several bumps below that. We were just deciding what to do when his dad appeared on the track behind us and saw his lad on the slope.

Dad went to the edge and before we could stop him (half-formed shouts of "Don't ta.." were in our throats) took his skis off and stepped onto the run. He got about 2 feet down before his feet went and off he went for what seemed like an eternity, bouncing off the bumps and flying into the air. Eventually he came to a stop at the bottom.

We all held our breath thinking he must be dead, but then he got to his feet and started to climb back up through the trees on the side Toofy Grin

The kid had been staring up at us the whole time, still terrified of moving and had missed the whole thing, but for some reason his dad could not be persuaded to do it again Confused

After all it is free

Yoda, excellent.

Once I stayed at the SNow King resort in Jackson Hole and the hotel has some doors at the back that open onto the slopes. They're not supposed to be left open but one day they were and a load of snow had blown in. One intrepid but stupid skier decided to hurtle down the slopes at speed and into the hotel corridor, of course once he ran out of snow, his skiis stopped almost immediately and he came flying out of his bindings.

On a simiar vein, at the Aiguilee Percee chair, I tried to ski right up to it and get on almost in one movement (there was no queue). Unfortunately I didn't manage to get my skis inside the posts that they use to sort out the queues when it's busy and did a similar think to that above, stopping more or less by the person running the lift Embarassed

Mind you, could have been much worse in terms of actual injury so I was lucky just to hurt my pride

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My other half a couple of years ago in La Thuile - there were 4 of us split in to 2 sets of 2 on the chair lift - me and the t'other half and our two friends a couple of chairs behind. We get to the top and both get off... Or so I thought. I look behind me, but cant see the other half. She ended up in her own little world (as so often happens) and completely forgot that she had to get off. She ended up on the chair lift, passing our friends just coming to the top. The liftie wasn't impressed when he had to scramble through the snow and try and help her off. Needless to say i pretended she wasn't with me......

Help!!

What's the best stack you've ever done/seen?

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