 Poster: A snowHead
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Has anyone got an idea of whether we will need snow chains to get to Baqueira, Spain. We are planning a long weekend at the end of Jan with flights to Toulouse and then a hire car to the resort.
Obviously the hire car company has not got snow chains listed as an option on the website .... so do you think I will need them?
Snow chain advice for Spain on the internet seems a bit thin on the ground, a bit like I though the snow would be but my wife's Spanish colleagues assure us that isn't the case.
Anyway I thought it time for another snow chain thread but with a difference...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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AndrewBailey, Have a look at the snow report thread for last year and decide 
http://www.snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=43179&start=160
We needed them on a drive from Pas de la Casa a few years back, the snow was all the way down to Gerona Airport. Avis offered them as an option, but we also noticed them being sold in the supermarkets for pretty much the cost of the hire.
We were stopped by the Police and told we could go no further unless we hads chains, so they are handy to have!
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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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Eurocar had them on their options list, last year but were about £40. If renting at Toulouse, you will have to pay an extra £45+ to take the car out of France to cover insurance in Spain.
If you live in Southern England, I would look to drive rather than fly and then rent a car. When we added up the total cost, a week's car hire was coming out the thick end of £300. Add flight costs, baggage allowance restrictions, cost of taking boards/skis and driving looks the better bet on this one. Calais to the resort is around 9hrs if setting a brisk but sensible pace.
Baqueira looks a great resort.
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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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If you are going to the mountains anywhere you might need them, I think it is cheaper to buy them than rent them, lots of garages have them, just keep an eye on the snow forecasts!
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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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Thanks for the (very quick) responses everyone. Since we are going for the weekend driving down really isn't possible but maybe next time.
I think we will ask about snow chains at the desk and also check the prices (online of course) for the supermarket purchase option. Since we would be flying EasyJet there and back I am not sure about bringing the chains back as hand baggage!
I would be concerned about driving without chains if the car has normal tyres. Having driven in Romania and Norway on winter tyres
bar shaker, Thanks for the tip about the extra car hire charges for taking to Spain.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Easyjet doesn't have a weight limit on hand baggage, so no problem there. Only difficulty would be if they could be construed as a dangerous weapon.
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We've had to use chains a few times going from Perpignan up towards Mont Louis and Andorra. You can buy them in the supermarkets and gas stations nearer the mountains. Once it starts to snow it seems to get bad quite quickly
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The roads on the French side of the Pyrenees don't seem to get cleared quite so quickly as on the Spanish side, and they are steeper twistier roads. I would be inclined to buy them over there if you need them. It is not often that they are needed, but when it snows lots, the police won't let you up the mountains without them.
As for the 'Ski chains in hand baggage' comments, please excuse my naivity, as I am only a newbie, but is someone baiting me? Only put in the overhead lockers what you don't mind smacking you round the back of the head at several G if things get lumpy. In the Kegworth disaster many of the dead were killed either directly by their own falling luggage, or had it break their hands and then burned to death in their seats when they couldn't undo their seatbelt - leading to a worldwide change in the pre-flight description of the correct brace position - and you all watch that, don't you? 
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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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I was joking about the ski chains as hand luggage! There is no way on earth I would bring them back above my head but now I worry that some other idiot might. Veryremote possibility though...
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You would be amazed at what people try to get on aircraft with as hand baggage. Had a flight delayed once when a double bass player threw a wobbly about there not being anywhere suitable for his instrument, and wanted someone who had paid less than him offloaded so that he could put his (non-paying) double bass in their seat. We get passengers all the time who have hand luggage so heavy they cannot lift it above their head into the locker. Muppets, the lot of them.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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pandora, With due respect the airline industry is only encouraging overweight hand baggage through its policy of increasing charges for hold baggage. So you're fighting a losing battle if you think that people will take less do to the remote chance of it falling on them in a crash. (Makes note to stash personal luggaage above someone else's seat when carrying boots in hand luggage  )
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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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The brace position is a 'survive or die' position. If the crash is mild you will live, if not, rather than be badly injured, you will die of a broken neck. Dead people require much less compensation than badly injured ones. If airlines wanted us to survive crashes, we would all face the other way... like the cabin crew do.
Your seat is rated at 76kg per place with the same G loadings as the overhead lockers. These are also overloaded on almost every flight. How big is the person behind you?!
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| Quote: |
The brace position is a 'survive or die' position
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I was under the impression that was a myth, which had been disproven here as well as on MythBusters.
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You know it makes sense.
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AndrewBailey, I spent the season there a couple of years ago and I think we needed chains about twice. Our Panda was on UK normal tyres anc coped fine even with an inch or two. On the whole they keep the roads pretty clean and there's only 1 section that's reasonably steep. On other occasions, when I've hire a car to go there I've not bothered. The bus service running up and down the valley is usually very good (at least if you catch the earlier ones) so if you do get bad weather the bus is an easy option to/from the resort.
The only worry is to\from the airport, but as the post's above say, I'd buy them if needed. There are a couple of big Supermarkets, one in Vehila and one just over the border from France.
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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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| DaddyLouLou wrote: |
| Quote: |
The brace position is a 'survive or die' position
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I was under the impression that was a myth, which had been disproven here as well as on MythBusters. |
Its not a statement that can be accepted or dismissed so easily as it depends on the accident circumstances.
If the bulk of the loading is vertical and is generated by hitting the ground at a high rate of descent with the aircraft flat, then the brace position is a good thing. If the aircraft were to fly into a hill/mountain side (CFIT) then the brace position would kill everyone whose head was less than 100mm from the seat in front although it is unlikely anyone would survive anyway.
At 6' it is impossible for me to assume the brace position on most LoCo airliners, without my head touching the seat in front. Where I to bend my neck forward/down and adopt the position, in any frontal impact, my torso would crush/break the vertebrae in my neck. My wife, at 5'4" would escape unscathed, except perhaps for broken legs and the shock loading on her body.
To say that everyone adopted the brace position and everyone survived is fraught with uncertainty. How could those too tall to have assumed the position have survived? How do we know that all of the rest did assume the brace position? Was the impact light enough that they would have survived by pressing their bent arms against the seat in front?
Crash survival is too rare an occurrence to bother about though. Aircraft crashes are amazingly rare. Ones that people survive, away from an airfield, are even rarer.
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FAQ
