J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by moremountain

This is probably too late for you but may help some one else in the coming seasons.

Buy some impact shorts and knee pads - check online stores for bargains. I know you may feel like a crash test dummy, but I so wish that they were available when I first learnt.

Avoid the bumps and ski another 25 years!!!
My father now has a false knee due to dodgy cartlidge injuries then continuing to play competative sports and now he can't even walk in snow in case he slips.

Spend more time searching for that powder.
Jon

Would have to agree with pavelski. Save you money on the tools as you can get most things from a DIY store and spend your saved money on quality wax.

Here is the warning though... once you have tuned your skis ( or board in my case ) you will become a slave to it! But there's nothing better than riding on factory sharpe edges and a newly waxed base. Just watch the temp on that iron!!!

Happy waxing

Jon

Get a very good / big stomp pad.
Get on the lift by yourself if poss or with a friend who snowboards.
Don't think about it for the whole lift journey - smoke a fag, take some photos. The more you think about it the worse it is.
As you approach the top lift up the bar and move your ass so you are sat almost sideways with you board pointing forward. Hold onto the back of the chair with your back arm and the front of the seat with your front arm. As the lift slows down, put your back foot on your stomp pad, put the board down, take off your front arm and move your back arm to the front of the seat. Use the set to pust off from and as you leave the chair glide down the hill as if you are boarding with both feet strapped in. It may help to have the toes of your back foot slightly over your edge and as you get to the bottom of the slpoe do a toe side turn and you will come to a stop.
Bear this in mind - Don't panic and eventhough you think you are going fast with one foot out you are not! May also help to scoot around one foot out to get comfortable with it.

Hope this helps

Jon

Having spent a season in Whistler I am familiar with Prior. Lets hope the get the following they deserve inn the UK
Are they still doing the Kybers board this year?
Seriously thinking of getting a split board for this season - sick of hiking thru waist deep powder!!!

Jon

I believe that problems arise from instructors in Europe not teaching piste awareness / mountain awareness in the beginer ski and boarding lessons compared to instructors in Canada and the USA.
From doing many seasons and now living in a ski resort in Europe I see the same thing week in week out. Holiday makers stopping underneath the brows of hills, whole families stopping in a line across the piste to look at piste maps, weekend warriors screaming down black runs just because they feel they have to do a black to prove their manhood, pulling out on pistes with out looking up hill, blaming the person in front of them for cutting them up when they have right of way, Dads taking the family off piste with no local knowledge / knowledge of the avalanche conditions / with no safety equipment. People need to realise that the mountains are not like Alton Towers and they are pretty much unsafe unless you follow certain guidelines and safety precautions.
Whether you are a boarder or skier you only get respect if you respect the mountains and the people on it - even if they are obnoctious 60 year old skiers in purple one pieces whose aim is to "take out as many pesky boarders as possible" ( an actual quote from a guest that stayed with us!!!!) and the sooner that this boarder skier arguement / conversation disappears the better for all mountain lovers.

Cheers

Jon