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Wild Snow backcountry blog

Thursday, 03. 29. 2007  –  Category: Skiing, Snowboarding

New to my Bloglines feed subscription list is WildSnow.com. I love the site already having only read a few posts.
Mainly I love it cos of the unashamed SEO (search engine optimisation) thrown at it (SEO is my day job). Stuff like “Lou Dawson’s Backcountry Skiing Weblog Blog and Website” is brilliant SEO overkill.

I [...]

Val Thorens weather and webcams

Wednesday, 03. 28. 2007  –  Category: Snowboarding

Val Thorens is booked! So with the final trip of the season lined up, I’m checking the weather forecasts, snow reports and web cams daily now and hoping the conditions are going to hold.

Val Thorens late season trip

Saturday, 03. 24. 2007  –  Category: Snowboarding

I’ve decided to go to Val Thorens for what will be my final snowboarding jaunt this season. Planning a week from the Easter weekend. Have been once before, so have an idea roughly where I want to stay. This map has been really useful.
Val Thorens town map
The plan is to stay [...]

Les Arcs weekend break

Sunday, 03. 18. 2007  –  Category: Snowboarding

Well, technically not a full weekend, but have just come back from a day on the slopes at Les Arcs.
After months of hassle with lastminute.com trying to sort the tickets out, we booked onto a Eurostar from London to Bourg Saint Maurice leaving on Friday evening arriving 6:30am Saturday, before heading back to London at [...]

Chamonix Valley

Friday, 03. 16. 2007  –  Category: Snowboarding

Quick post to give you a heads up about a new site set up my an old mate of mine. Chamonix Valley.com is a comprehensive guide to Chamonix.
Sections worth your time if you’re heading to Cham’ include the Chamonix blog with regular snow reports from around the valley, (like this one from Brévent/Flégère), Chamonix [...]

Snowboarder dies after crevasse fall

Friday, 03. 16. 2007  –  Category: Snowboarding

Sad news of a British woman dying whilst heli-snowboarding on the Zermatt glacier.
The 33-year-old woman fell as she skied at high altitude down a glacier on the Swiss-Italian border.
Police in the Valais area said the woman fell 15 metres into the crevasse at 3,060 metres above sea level.
They said she was among a group of [...]

Snowboard furniture

Friday, 03. 2. 2007  –  Category: Running, Snowboarding

Bored with the usual sofa beds and want some funkier furniture to remind you of your love for all things snowboarding?
Try these for starters:

Thick snowboard socks?

Wednesday, 02. 28. 2007  –  Category: Snowboarding

I have got about 4 different pairs of socks for snowboarding, and of them I will only ever wear one pair.
Whenever I wear anything else I find they’re too thin, and I don’t have anywhere near the same control over my board that I do with the snug fit of my thickest socks.
I bought the [...]

Snowboard quotes of the day

Wednesday, 02. 7. 2007  –  Category: Snowboarding

1. “Go big or go home”
2. “F##k you lastminute.com” - more to come on this one

Bonfire Radiant snowboard pants

Monday, 01. 22. 2007  –  Category: Snowboarding

I bought a pair of Bonfire Radiant pants just before my last trip. Here’s a review:
I was after a fair of fairly high spec pants, and the Radiant pants fit the bill at 10,000/10,000 waterproofing and breathability. These are the two stats you need concern yourself with when buying outerwear I discovered after [...]

Avalanche survival tip: don’t swim

Monday, 01. 22. 2007  –  Category: Snowboarding

Interesting post at pistehors.com which picks up on comments by avalanche expert Dale Atkins who has nearly 20 experience working as a senior avalanche forecaster, ski patroller and rescue worker.
Atkins says that the most important thing to do if buried is to maintain a breathing space around your mouth. In twenty years of investigating incidents [...]

Romanian snowboarders no-snow protest

Wednesday, 01. 17. 2007  –  Category: Snowboarding

A group of snowboarders held a protest in Romania recently about the lack of snow.
Romanian snowboarders blocked traffic by staging a protest in front of the national weather institute to complain about the lack of snow.
The sit down protest in the capital Bucharest only ended when weathermen told them their complaint “would be passed on [...]

Morzine, Avoriaz and the Portes du Soleil

Monday, 01. 15. 2007  –  Category: Snowboarding

I stayed in Morzine for 10 days over New Year and got most of my snowboarding in at Avoriaz. Here’s the trip report I’d been promising.
After an overnight stop in Geneva on December 28th, we got our transfer to Morzine first thing the following morning. We checked into our apartment and those of [...]

Snowboard insurance

Tuesday, 01. 9. 2007  –  Category: Snowboarding

I tend to deal with travel insurance annually, rather than each time I go away. It really takes the hassle factor out, and as I’m fairly lazy with such things, suits me down to the ground.
I’m onto the third year now, but it occurred to me the other day that my initial policy may [...]

Another snowboarder jailed

Thursday, 12. 21. 2006  –  Category: Snowboarding

Following the conviction of two snowboarders in France for manslaughter after a teenager died in an avalanched they caused, another snowboarder has been sentenced to 6 months imprisonment in the States, Jackson Hole News reports:
Greg Doda, 18, of Crownsville, Md., had pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide, a misdemeanor, and received a one-year sentence Wednesday [...]