Rambling Comments

Back from Saas-Fee - 2004

2004-09-26T12:49:41Z

We've just got back from a week of early season ski training in Saas-Fee. We went with the Warren Smith Ski Academy, again, and had a great time. The weather (wind mainly) meant that we didn't ski as much as we'd hoped, but it was still a very good trip. I'll write a report later, for now, just holiday snaps...

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Back from Megève

2004-04-04T19:05:58Z

Just got back from a week's spring skiing in Megève. This is probably our last trip of the 03/04 season :(

We had a great time; skied on amazingly empty slopes; ate at a selection of wonderful restaurants and had some great guiding and ski lessons with Lucy Withall of the ESF (a great ambassador for the region, and all-round super woman ;) ).

Just holiday snaps....

]]> Megève is conveniently located about an hour's drive from Geneva and within striking distance of Chamonix, Les Contamines, Morzine, etc... We had expected to have to hire a car and head off to the surrounding resorts due to lack of skiing at Megève but there was plenty of fun to be had on the local slopes and we never found a need to leave them.

At this time of year it pays to ski with someone who knows the area well. We couldn't completely avoid the frozen corduroy of early morning or the slush of late afternoon but we did pretty well thanks to Lucy. She's lived in the area since she was 2 and so knows a thing or two about how the sun affects the slopes and which area to head for at any given time of day depending on the sun, etc...

The slopes were very quiet for the week before Easter. Probably because the place is a nightmare, its horrible; don't go there; you really don't want to go to Megève, ever, honest ;) Leave it nice and quiet for us...

The snow was best up at Cote 2000. Lots of fun was had on the rolling reds and blacks and had snow conditions been a little better we'd have headed off piste into the wonderfully inviting open bowls...

HeadCam2

2004-01-26T15:01:08Z

My new head cam arrangement worked well in Meribel. As you can see from the picture below, the new camera is much smaller than my previous rig.

]]> The camcorder lives in my rucksack, the cables for video and remote control come out over my shoulder and the connections all happen in my chest pocket. The remote allows me to turn the camcorder on and off and start and stop recording. The bulletcam's battery pack sits in my chest pocket and can be disconnected from the camera to save battery when not recording.

I'm pleased with the results. I managed to capture 4 hrs of footage on one battery charge and with much more control over the camera than I have had before.

Captured in Windows Movie Maker 2.0.

A normal link in case the active movie thing above doesn't work.

Back from Meribel

2004-01-25T14:10:12Z

Just got back from a week's skiing in and around Meribel. Great snow, great company, a good time was had by all.

Just holiday snaps....

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We stayed in the Indiana Lodge and travelled with VIP. Thanks to Eli and Al, our chalet hosts, for excellent service, great food and interesting puzzles over dinner.

We had a couple of days of snowy weather at the start of the week and then mainly clear days. Excellent snow cover (probably the best snow I've ever skiied in Meribel), we managed to get down to Courchevel 1550, Meribel Village, La Tania and over to Val Thorens and the snow was wonderful. We also skiied down to St Martin but the snow down on the lower blue was a bit crunchy and artificial feeling...

Powder and fresh stuff on the way down to Courcheval 1550.

My only disapointment was that I didn't ski the Meribel Couloir this year, the snow looked good but on the day I thought about it the couloir's were roped off and I'm not one for crossing warning lines...

Sunshine and high winds as we went to Val Thorens and over to Orelle. Unfortunately Bouchet was closed so we didn't manage to get to the top of the peak we were hoping to reach...

Take the last lift up, sit and wait and things get quiet pretty quickly.

Ski Weekend, Courmayer, Gressoney, Chamonix

2003-12-18T08:34:13Z

We flew to Geneva last Thursday evening and skiied in Italy and France over the weekend.

Just holiday snaps.

]]> We were travelling with Ski Weekend. They usually run you around the Chamonix resorts, but at this time of year there's often not much open in Chamonix itself so they take you further afield.

Day 1 was a quick trip through the Mont Blanc tunnel to Courmayer. Which had good snow, nice pistes and few people.

Day 2 was a trip slightly further into Italy to Gressoney. Which had loads more snow than Courmayer (it's higher, and gets its snow from storms that come from a different direction to most of the alps). There was some good off piste, fewer people, and an interesting lunch.

Day 3 was spent in bed with food poisoning (not the Gressoney lunch...) :( I needed the sleep...

Day 4 was our last day and we skied in Chamonix on The Grands Montets. The conditions were the worst of the weekend, but we were a little weak so took it easy.

All in all a great 4 days.

Images from Saas-Fee

2003-09-22T10:56:30Z

Just holiday snaps...

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Colorado 2003

2003-05-11T21:34:38Z

In March we skied in Colorado. Beaver Creek, Vail, Breckenridge and Keystone. Excellent conditions. We were in Vail on the day after the big dump in March and had 18" fresh powder on top of the grooming. I took the video camera out when were we in Breckenridge. This is the result.]]> I filmed the guys whilst skiing around them. I didn't use the head cam this time, just held the camera and pointed. Given that I didn't use the view finder or the screen the results are pretty reasonable.

Captured and edited in Premier 6.0. Captions and wmv creation in Windows Movie Maker 2.0 (just for the ease of doing a progressive download file).

A normal link in case the active movie thing above doesn't work.

No doubt the file requires that you have all the latest Microsoft stuff for it to work, but what the hell, all the people that are likely to be interested should be able to view it.