J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Trencher

andyoneil wrote:
When we skiied in Vermont a few years ago the Americans we shared lifts with were not keen on putting the bar down - they reckoned that getting stuck in there was far more of a hazard than falling off :shock:

Yes, it's pretty common in the US for people ride up with the bar up (sorta like not wearing a helmet in Europe) :wink: At the hundreds of small ski areas where the lifts seldom get more than twenty feet from the deck, it is common for there to be no safety bar on the chairs. Never heard of people worrying about getting stuck with the bar down.

Snapzzz wrote:[
Last year in La Plagne my wife, daughter (10) and myself were shuffling forward for a chair when my wife got a little tangled up in her own skis. She hesitated and missed the gap so i stayed with her to help. My daughter continued to board the chair (that we were now behind) and took off alone. She was too small to reach the safety bar and rode the whole journey without it.
We were in the next chair back shouting at her to keep still and sit back.
I still have nightmares of her falling, us having to watch it and worse still having to ride the full trip before being able to get off the help her.

This is the reason ALL children should be accompanied and i firmly believe the operator in La Plagne in our case should have stopped that lift when he saw my little one board alone.

I don't think the liftie wouldn't normally worry about a ten year old riding the lift on their own. You might have tried asking for the lift to be stopped, Most lift operators will normally hit the switch when they hear someone shouting stop stop stop (in appropriate language of course). what good it might have done depends on how steep was the take off. If your daughter was beyond reach from the ground, then it was too late. Not all lifties can read the circumstances. At ten for all he knew, she could have seven years skiing under her belt.

It's also easy to forget to keep those toe nails cut very short in ski season.

Those guy need parachutes for back up :shock:

Scary stuff. It sounds like this kid was on a ski team, and I know with local kids here that it's easy for them to become complacent about lift safety when they are on lifts all winter.

Not that I would recommend it for kids, but I've had some luck deterring squirrels from trash bags with Chinese chili oil. The one I saw, started rooting around in the bag, suddenly jumped several feet in the air, and shrieked all the way back to the trees. I later saw him frantically washing his face in the bird bath. Anyway squirrels it seems learn quickly.

Boots, boots, boots. Unless you have some major issues, your wide stance may be because that's where you can get your skis flat. If that's the case, you are limiting your skiing significantly. An alignment check and some boot work might make for all sorts of major improvements in your skiing. I know you didn't want to hear that :wink:

Cookies72 wrote:Lol - I did mean a handle on the kids - like the ones on life jackets we use to haul them back into the boat with.

Wasn't literally going to weld attachments on the kids as the wife would object...

not a bad idea for the three year old as they spend a lot of time falling down and when you pick them up by the scruff of their jacket, it pull all the clothes underneath.

Have very low expectations, especially for the three year old in terms of endurance and how far they will get (although there are always exceptions). Two hours (including breaks)for a three year old is a very long time Going in for snacks and hot chocolate will be as exciting as the skiing at that age. Magic carpets are a boon to young skiers and the three year old may not progress beyond that. Do not hold your kids from behind as you ski. They learn little and if you fall, the kid gets squashed. Better to learn to ski backwards in front of them. Reins can work, but most people don't know how to use them safely, or in a way that promotes good skiing. Most kids will only need reins for a day or two.

If it's very cold, you do not need to worry about clothing being waterproof. There isn't even any humidity to speak of. None of my cold weather gear for construction work in the winter is waterproof. If it's warm enough to get wet, you don't need the very cold weather gear.

You have the wrong type of rocker skis Pav for ice. My skis have early rise tips (tip rocker)and are designed for just one thing, carving on hard packed icy snow. WC GS skis now have tip rocker as well. As I was getting at above, I think the manufacturers are not pushing early rise tips to advanced front side skiers because they fear the rejection that parabolic skis suffered when first introduced. This design is used on all GS and SL racing snowboards now, but so far only on GS racing skis (AFAIK).