Piste Bashing

I hate to keep comparing to the US, but most place there hand out grooming reports at the base. You know exactly which runs are groomed on any given day. It should not be that hard to do these days.

sfiddik wrote:We were out in Alp D'Huez on 25th Feb for a week and loads of the mountain was left untouched by the piste bashes.

Our home run which was a red run was moguled to death and was not touched once in our whole week meaning that after trying that on the first day with tired legs we voted for the blue flat home where you have to push yourself along.

We were severely disappointed with the piste maintenance during our week. It made it dangerous as you could be dropping off down a run thinking this is fine until you find yourself on a mogul field. Not safe for people wanting to try a red run for the first time.

They were also preserving runs for their local slalom courses! They were all kept nicely groomed! Sorry we as tourists have paid a lot more than local or seasonaires to ski the mountain! We went through a closed sign to ski on beautifully groomed red run that was closed because they were holding some kids slalom event on it a bit later.

A couple people thought maybe that it was due to the lack of new snow and that over pisting the snow is bad etc. but I think it's down to bl**dy lazy French! It's been like this in many French resorts to the point now we have decided to boycott the French resorts from now on.

Weather does play a part in decisions on grooming, as groomed snow melts a lot faster than if it were just left. Also if the temps are not low enough at night, the grooming can make the conditions even worse if there is going to be heavy use.

I feel the frustration about runs used for racing. Racing is often a good revenue stream so gets special treatment.

I just got back from ADH last week and what you would expect to be groomed was groomed. I personally wouldn't expect a black to be groomed because its labelled as a black, don't want to make it to easy. Although by 11am there were moguls all over the place and it was a nightmare. I found it slightly better away from the motorway runs but still some of the worst I have experienced.

I don't expect blacks to be pisted and usually over here they aren't.

However a couple of weeks ago I took a friend to do a black expecting a nice steep mogul field (as it had been before) and to my disappointment it had been groomed.

I have no idea when and why they choose to groom pistes here in France or anywhere in fact. The red and blue pistes seem to be groomed everyday.

sfiddik wrote:........They were also preserving runs for their local slalom courses! They were all kept nicely groomed! Sorry we as tourists have paid a lot more than local or seasonaires to ski the mountain! We went through a closed sign to ski on beautifully groomed red run that was closed because they were holding some kids slalom event on it a bit later......

Last time I looked a season pass was considerably more than a one week pass!!! :roll:

Dorset Boy wrote:

sfiddik wrote:........They were also preserving runs for their local slalom courses! They were all kept nicely groomed! Sorry we as tourists have paid a lot more than local or seasonaires to ski the mountain! We went through a closed sign to ski on beautifully groomed red run that was closed because they were holding some kids slalom event on it a bit later......

Last time I looked a season pass was considerably more than a one week pass!!! :roll:

I will never ever criticize the guys who maintain the pistes. As far as I am concerned they do an amazing job and I don't for one moment believe that they are being lazy or selfish. There are many reasons why decisions are made to groom or not groom a piste and I am sure they know better than us.

...and I think you'll find it's the locals and seasonaires that groom the pistes and pretty much make it possible for the tourists to ski at all! :roll:

Plus the Club des Sports in various towns that run most of the junior races pay a pretty penny for their exclusive use of the Stades.

In fact anyone can rent the piste to run a GS or Slalom should they feel like it.

I'm hoping that my first post didn't come across as 'whinging' as that's not at all how it was intended, I was simply curious. Obviously black runs in France are not pisted deliberately (unless Snowbandit is heading for them with a friend ) as the majority prefer this, which is fair enough. As others have pointed out, they're black for a reason and in France this appears to include moguls as well as steepness, which I now know for future reference. It's useful information to have, especially for those who have skied elsewhere and think they can safely get down a black only to find that this isn't the case in a new resort.

I was obviously just unlucky with the mogulled red in question and there was probably a good reason why it was left as such.

As an aside, I didn't actually tackle any of the black runs as I could see the condition from the chair lift and given my current ability, knew I'd be pushing my luck. However from what I could see, only a handful of skiers on the runs were actually 'skiing' them. The rest, including a lady with a very small child, were clearly out of their depth and struggling down one slow turn at a time with a lot of falls. In general the runs were carnage and probably ruined for those with the skills to really enjoy them.

Deliberately leaving runs unpisted on powder days is an entirely different matter and one which I'm sure most skiers, myself included, would approve of :D