 Poster: A snowHead
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I'm always impressed when people can reel off countless names of things they've skied or what they've done in a day. I'm usually appalling at chalet boasting or even understanding what other people have done because my level of articulation is usually limited to "popped off the back of that lift" or "it was some red". Even in places where a little local knowledge is useful like Whistler I've never definitively pinned down where places like Christmas Tree or Millionaire's Ridge are though I might have skied them.
Do I have some unique kind of ski dyslexia? It's nothing to do with not being able to navigate or read terrain. If pushed in France for a piste name I'll usually just guess it was called Marmottes or Emile Allais. I can remember Pierre a Ric mainly because I have a vision of Status Quo being stoned.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Buy the Blaggers Guide - all you need to know for those Chalet moments 
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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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Can you read the map? You can always check on the map afterwards where you skied and get the names from there. I am sure you would remember which lift you took to go up which is a good starting point.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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fatbob, I never remember piste or lift names. Not at all. Even if I try to.
BUT
I love piste maps. I can stare at them for hours. While skiing I know where I am all the time, I can locate myself on the map with no problem.
I could still try to draw piste maps of all the placed I have been to with quite good accuracy. Weird 
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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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fatbob, you are not alone with this, I can never remember names and numbers, I might occasionally remember an area name or name of a bar but that is about my limit. Wierdly though I have a real good sense of direction and rarely have to consult the piste map in my pocket after day 2 of the holiday.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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After several trips to L2A I'd more or less got them all cracked. Then 2 years ago they changes them all to make them "easier". The Grand Couloir is now Bellecombes 5, there's also 1 - 4. easier my ar$e 
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fatbob, I am so with you on this. I never remember the name of anything I've ridden on a given day, unless, at a push, I've been touring and the people I am with keep telling me the name of the hill we're on.
I have the same issue with classical music - while I have performed at a decent amateur level over the years in at least three instruments, and I recognise a piece of music, I can never remember its name or its composer. I can probably have a decent guess at when it was composed, but that's about it.
i have the same problem with the titles of books.
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i have the same problem with the titles of books.
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Especially those from Cathy Reichs
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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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Just say you've been off-piste....
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edde,
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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I don't remember the names of anything like all the pistes even in a smallish area I've skied for 10 seasons. Why would you bother? I'm pretty well OK with the lifts, though and certainly know my way around.
If I'm advising someone else who doesn't know the area (to go off skiing when I'm not going to be there) I need to look at the map so I can tell them the names of the pistes.
I don't know why anyone would think that was particularly odd. Do we remember the names of all the roads, let alone the sidestreets on our regular commute to work?
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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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Least some places actually name pistes. Some are just a number. Some are exotic enough to name them with a letter.
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You know it makes sense.
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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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Poster: A snowHead
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fatbob, You need to get to the next level, where you remember the locals names for the pitches...that aren't written down anywhere, e.g.
"under the orange chairlift"
"where <insert miscreant's name> got (or didn't get) <suitable_act_of_naughtiness> "
"by the excellent ham sandwiches"
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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fatbob, I am in the same boat, can never remember piste names.
Worse than
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where you remember the locals names for the pitches.
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We make up our own as well, Powder Island, Powder Paddocks, Face Plant Corner, etc etc, in St Foy the locals seam to have an thing about the female anatomy when naming stuff 
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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 "Earth, Wind & Fire" route in St Anton is great but I suspect there's only 3 people on the planet know it by that name. Sketchy Rock and Scary Trees similarly in lots of places.
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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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We (family and regularly-visiting friends) have our own names for local pistes and lifts, not usually very original (the red, the black, the loopy blue, the valley, the cheese factory, the goat farm, the car park, etc) and also certain bends or junctions that have their own names due to some embarrassing incident or another, eg Simon's corner, Richard's ravine.
One chair we call the "Right Said Fred" lift as my wife is adamant she once saw the Fairbrass brothers in a restaurant adjacent to it (I just saw a big bald bloke).
Perversely I tend to remember piste and lift names better if they are in a less familiar area that I visit occasionally. I know the Swiss side of the PDS like the back of my hand, but on less frequent visits to, say, Morzine or Les Gets it is useful to remember the names of the route home so you can follow signs without stopping to get the map out.
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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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I'm bad with piste names.
I have just once been on a Heli skiing holiday and it was a new lodge, so some routes had no names as we were the first clients to ski them. We named 2 new routes and I remember those. One was called "One Ski" because someone lost a ski down a canyon (the brakes failed to work) and the guide swapped skis and skied down on one ski (faster than we could on 2).
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Count me in this club. I can usually remember the name of the mountain I am on. I find North America especially bemusing where every gap between a couple of trees/rocks seens to have its own name
On the other hand, I could probably lead someone exactly around the route I did the day before without having to think too hard
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Maps ?? Piste and lift names ??
These are all a mystery to my good lady to whom I am her perpetual ski-guide. There have been occasions where she's not even realised we're in a different resort ! She just leaves it all to me. It does have some benefits as I can get her down blacks more easily (unless she sees the marker poles and then I have to use the "Oh, I didn't realise" or "No, they're just dark blue" excuses). She's more than capable, just can't be bothered
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In Villars, where my buddy has an apartment, we have names for various mountain features. I can remember them because I've been there so often.
Ikea: old, uncomfortable chair lift on the way towards Diablerets
Kingdom of Leather: nice comfortable chairlift up to the Spike (radio mast)
The Carlsberg: lift to the outdoor bar
Agricultural: the route through the trees around the back of the golf course
Green: anywhere in Gryon (names in a particularly poor snow year)
Easy now: anywhere in Isenau ...
Big schelp: bootpack from a track at the top of the Carlsberg lift
I might try and map Tignes in a similar way this year. There's no way I'll remember listed piste names, although my sense of direction's good enough to pull it together in my head so I guess I just need to give things memorable names and share them with ski buddies.
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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'm one of these scary people that remembers most things and I'm sure I annoy my ski buddies immensely. In Austria pistes often have numbers as well as or in place of names. I'm also pretty handy with a piste map. It does help if you have some knowledge of the local language as the names of places make more sense and are easier to remember.
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fatbob,
I'm the same as you if not worse. I often have to ask the way home at the end of a good day, chasing the last lifts as they close on the way. Ask me where I've been and I will usually just point upwards at a mountain (not any specific mountain, just one in view) - "up there somewhere".
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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I suppose these people that don't remember piste/lift names or even the pistes themselves can quite easily spend a happy week in a resort with 30km of pisted terrain. Every day will feel like a new ski area...
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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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queen bodecia,
Mrs M is the same. She can remember every branch of M&S she has ever been in, their aisle layouts, the prices..
Seriously she is brilliant with maps and directions. I can't understand why anybody would buy a sat-nav when you could just get a wife like mine.
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musher, I have never used a SatNav and I have never been lost. I love maps, I'd hate a life without them. And yes I know every street name on all regular journeys I make. Call me sad or call me clever, I don't mind either... 
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You know it makes sense.
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I tend to remember the names of the lifts, cos that's important when you want to get back there again. But then just "the red on the left" or whatever after that.
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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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I remember them when I lead my family around for skiing. Partly because I sometimes need to give them directions on which way to go if we split up.
But otherwise, I'm like the majority of posters on this thread, no idea at the end of the day what the pistes I skied are called.
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Poster: A snowHead
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I have no problems at all. Mrs NBT falls into the same category as dsoutar's missus, even in resorts that we've been to a few times she is lost
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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'm just as useless with names of pistes, lifts or mountain huts.
I probably know Verbier as well as any resort, having been there more times, but I've still no idea. The only ones I know are the ones with nicknames; James Blunt lift, M25 etc.
Strangely I can remember the names of Highway, Stairway, Col Des Mines, Tortin and the other itineries ok though.
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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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| fatbob wrote: |
| I have a vision of Status Quo being stoned. |
A tad harsh, they're not threatening another Xmas song are they?
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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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fatbob, I look less and less at maps. I think that's partly because I'm no longer worried about finding myself at the top of some piste I can't handle; and partly because I can't be @rsed to fiddle about with my (relatively) newly acquired reading glasses.
I tend to get a pretty good feel for the lie of the land quickly in a new resort; I'm not very good at putting names or colours to pistes and lifts though.
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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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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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I said I was bad at remembering names, but I'm very good at reading maps and getting to know the mountain. I almost always know where I am (and how to get to somewhere else). I just may not be able to remember the name.
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I'm very good at reading maps and getting to know the mountain
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yes, me too. I like to see where I am - not keen on random wanderings in a strange resort. I'm fine with maps (though the habit of printing some major piste maps with north somewhere other than at the top is very confusing when you have a feel for the geographical layout of the place from driving).
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We do have our own family names for pistes.
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It's sections of off piste in our case; Carnage, Annihilation, etc. 
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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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FAQ
