Alpine skiing and snowboarding

[RdKetchup]

Couldn't find a thread about this, let's see if there is enough interest to keep one alive.

Went skiing with my father and my oldest daughter yesterday to a medium size ski resort, Bromont.

Conditions were not very good, so my daughter was not confortable on the biggest mountain, and we spent most of the day on the smallest versant, but I went and did two quick runs by myself to push a little.


I was wearing a GPS watch and heart monitor, and was trying out a new mount for my GoPro.

Peak speed of only 56 km/h, but heart rate peak of 198 BPM :shock:

Unfortunately, the batteries repeatedly died, resulting in a longest clip of only 1m20s, and the angle of the camera was wrong, pointing too low

Hopefully I get the battery situation fixed when I go to Whistler later this year

 

[RdKetchup]

3rd day of skiing in 4 day today, tried again the PD POV GoPro mount. This was at Mont St-Bruno, a very small resort, but the closest one to my place, and the biggest ski school in Canada, so perfect for my daughter ski lessons (at 55 seconds we can see her in the chairlift waving and shouting at me).

Got a better angle (and slightly better battery life), but only the first video came out nice, the next 3 have some weird artifacts.

I will try to tweak the angle more, I would like to see the skis a little bit.

 

[eizbaer]

Awesome, keep it coming! Make me even more jealous that I still haven't been able to figure out my skiing holiday this year

 

[MWF]

*cough* Alpinemeet *cough*

 

[eizbaer]

Yeah, doesn't work... because of work

 

[MWF]

You Germans and your Draconian employers. Here you should be able to book a long weekend away with two weeks' notice and have that request granted unless there are exceptional extenuating circumstances.

 

[eizbaer]

Something like the main 2017 meeting of an 18-partner research project that I am in charge of on the exact thursday and friday of alpine meet? Because that is totally happening

 

[DaBoom]

So, head to the Alps on Friday evening and join for the rest of the weekend (and following week for me)?

But to add some content as well, my snowboarding has been concentrated basically to said alpine meet, so only a week or so a year. The downside of visiting the Alps, everything even remotely nearby is rather.. small.

And since Alpine meets are mentioned, have some clips from previous two:

How I prefer to spend my time "on" the slopes, given the opportunity. And when it comes to this year, I think I'll try skis as well. It'll be interesting, as the technology has advanced a bit in the last 20 years I've using snowboards only.

 

[MWF]

Yeah what Mikko said - I'm there until the following Tuesday and he is there until the weekend after. Would be a shame not to see you and it sounds as if you could do with an unwind after such a stressful time. Would be the cherry on the cake if you can.

EDIT Also Mikko what's your shoe size? I'm a Euro 43 so maybe we can share ski hire and I can borrow your board boots and try boarding. Could be a giggle.

 

[DaBoom]

Depends on a brand, but in the same ballpark (41-43). I think I'll rent my own skis at the start at least, might slow things down too much if I'm trying to learn the skis while trying to teach snowboarding.

And since gear is mentioned, what kind of gear do people have on this front? I've had my set of K2 gear for over 15 years now. 147cm Tricky board, with K2 clicker binds and boots. I've occasionally used my brothers 155cm Salomon board of same vintage for more stability on slopes, but I've found it to be too heavy to handle for me. I also never found a good, stable setting for binds with that board. And I still have my Head skis in a storage somewhere. Old enough to pre-date the carving era. :lol:

 

[CrzRsn]

This is the first winter I can remember where I didn't go skiing
Although last winter, we drove up to Mont Orford in Quebec, but it was so warm there wasn't any snow to ski on. The border agent actually laughed at us when he saw the skis on the roof of my dads car.

 

[RdKetchup]

This is the first winter I can remember where I didn't go skiing
Although last winter, we drove up to Mont Orford in Quebec, but it was so warm there wasn't any snow to ski on. The border agent actually laughed at us when he saw the skis on the roof of my dads car.

Orford is nice, but I prefer Jay Peak (in VT) by far.

 

[CrzRsn]

Orford is nice, but I prefer Jay Peak (in VT) by far.

I don't know how we stumbled on Orford or why we stopped going, but my family and a bunch of family friends used to go there all the time 10 or so years ago. After that we did 2 years at Tremblant then 6-7 years in a row at Sunday River.

 

[mgkdk]

I miss skiing used to go with my parents once a year to norway or sweden when I was a kid, but haven't been skiing in maybe 20 years I've mostly done cross country actually as that was what my parents did and as I was a shy/introvert kid I just went with them.

 

[RdKetchup]

Tried using my Peak Design Capture Pro and P.O.V. kit to mount the GoPro to one of my boots. It works nicely.

I'm really bored with that small mountain though, I think next year I will switch my daughter to a ski school on a bigger one.

 

[RdKetchup]

Springbreak, took the family to Whistler, BC.

First time skiing in mountains this big, it requires quite a recalibration of what my skill level really is. Beginner trails here contain sections that would make them expert trails in Quebec.

Day 1 it was cloudy, windy and the visibility at the top was pretty bad, and since I was skiing alone, I didn't dare try anything harder than an intermediate level trail, and I didn't even reach the Whistler peak.

Day 2 was sunny, and I took a leap of fate, and went down the Whistler bowl, an expert trail off the Whistler peak (sadly no video of that run).

Whistler peak is the peak we see behind me in this picture, Whistler Bowl is the shaded area right of the peak (the picture is taken from roughly where the video start) :

It was tough, but also a lot of fun. Since my legs were killing me after that, I didn't go for a second run there, but I did a few more expert trail in a different section of the mountain (Starting with "Little Whistler").

Video of the second run of day 2, a mix of intermediate and beginner trails:

Camera angle sucks, next video will be from the helmet mount.