Tuesday, September 29, 2015

How a professional skis big-mountain lines!

How to Ski It: 

Reggie Crist's INTERACTIVE guide to skiing Eduardo's in Las Lenas, Argentina

See how a professional big-mountain skier creates and executes a plan of attack on one of his favorite mountains in South America....click!


Tuesday, September 22, 2015

How to Ski Better on Pistes


Hot! Ski Technique: How to Ski Better on Pistes

There are few better places to boost your ski technique than on the groomed pistes of Morzine, France.

Welove2sk.comi give  some tips on how to ski these slopes more smoothly. We whittled the list down to four key points to think about while you’re carving:

1. Stay Centred Over Your Skis

Your weight needs to be evenly distributed right along the length of your feet, which means you’ll be able to maintain downward pressure right along the full length of your skis. Don’t lean back.
Four Steps to Better Carving | Welove2ski
RIGHT
Four Steps to Better Carving | Welove2ski
WRONG

2. Even Up the Weight Distribution Between Your Feet

Friday, September 18, 2015

As we’ve seen in previous years, the good folk of Avoriaz aren’t scared of a bit of new lift investment reports Source magazine in Morzine. Perhaps encouraged by the resorts continuous ranking in world snow record tables, there seems to be plenty to get excited about in Avoriaz this winter.
The Brochaux chair is that one that takes you back towards Avoriaz from the bottom of the Mossettes lift. It’s rickerty old 3 man, popular with snowboarders who don’t fancy the Mossettes flats into the Lindarets bowl. Its 6 man replacement should make the charge back into Avoriaz at the end of the ski day much easier for everyone too.
There’ll be new base and top stations too. The base moves by 30 metres and the top station lands 280 metres east of the ridge.  Work has already commenced and the project looks set for completion in December 2015. See pictures.

Monday, September 14, 2015

The magic on the bottom of your skis!

Its a fascinating subject- well, it is to us ski wax geeks!, but here's a little insight into the eco friendly waxes we use in the workshop at Doorstep Skis;

NST-Sports designs and distributes the eco friendly “wax” for alpine, snowboard and Nordic skiing. 

NST waxes are an innovative and ecological formula designed as a substitute for traditional waxes. Its originality lies in its high gliding performance combined with it’s long term efficiency.

FAST, EASY,EFFICIENT, and especially MOUNTAIN FRIENDLY
• NST waxes are ecological “waxes”. They contain no paraffin or fluorine additives.
• Its formula is composed only with non-toxic, environmentally-friendly ingredients.
• In contrast to traditional waxes, NST waxes do not gradually disintegrate in contact with abrasive snow and does not leave any harmful residue on the mountain.
• They are 100% biodegradable!


You‘ll be doing nature a favour by choosing it!

Made in the French ALPS

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Winter 2016 Opening dates and Times

To save you the hassle of visiting three different websites to collect information on when Morzine, Avoriaz, Les Gets and the Portes du Soleil open and close this winter, Source magazine Morzine have kindly combined all the details you need. Of course opening and closing dates are subject to change depending on snow conditions and if there’s even the vaguest hint of early opening, we’ll let you know as quickly as possible.
See dates and times...

Monday, September 7, 2015

Defining Waterproof

Every outdoor adventurer owns waterproof gear, yet few people fully understand it.
Part of that’s because there are no standards, and companies often use tests that favor their technology.

“There (are) different methods which can allow the fabric providers to make their product look better than another one just based on the numbers,” says Chad Kelly, eVent Fabric‘s global product manager. “This doesn’t actually mean it will be the most comfortable product out there, or the highest performing.”
waterproof01

And Jeff Dorton, The North Face‘s materials commercialization director agrees.
“If something makes their product look not so good, they tend to shy away from that test method even though it might be the best way to test it,” he says.

Still the Mullen Burst Test, and the ISO 811 test are two of the most common methods. Both measure the amount of pressure it takes for water to penetrate the fabric, but the Mullen measures the pressure in pounds per square inch while the ISO measures it in millimeters. A highly waterproof fabric withstands 20,000mm of pressure; some people say 10,000mm is the ski industry standard.

“10,000mm is really just a minimum for most people to believe it’s actually waterproof. In actuality, that’s a heck of a lot of water. There aren’t a lot of situations you can find yourself in where your raincoat will be subjected to those kind of conditions,” says Karen Beattie, Polartec‘s product marketing manager.

But the various situations create the need for a variety of products built for specific purposes. Having a jacket that keeps water out is one thing, but also making it breathable is another.
“Before Gore-Tex products were introduced over 30 years ago, the paradigm of being both waterproof and breathable was not possible,” says Tom Boyle, Gore‘s strategic marketing associate.

“In many cases you want that textile to breathe more because of the aerobic activity you’re doing,” The North Face’s Dorton says.
In these aerobic situations, a 10,000mm garment that’s breathable will keep you dryer than a 20,000mm garment that’s not.

But as confusing as the lingo can be, it’s up to retail employees to be able to decipher it-if they need to at all.
Bill Miller, owner of Hamilton Sports in Aspen, Colo., says his customers generally aren’t confused on the waterproof/breathable jargon. But he says that may be because most of his softgoods customers are buying Kjus and expect the product to perform.
“I don’t know how important (technical details are) to a lot of people,” he says.

And Heather Stanton, a buyer at Sturtevants Mountain Outfitters in Idaho, agrees.
“They usually know the name Gore-Tex and that’s probably the only name they know,” Stanton says.
Most customers walk into the store knowing they want something waterproof but look for employee advice to direct them.
Ultimately, customers want to go skiing, and if they like the jacket or pants and a salesperson says its good, then that’s all that matters, Stanton says.

Friday, September 4, 2015

PDS- still best value ski pass!

Each year Source Magazine Morzine like to compare our own Portes du Soleil lift pass prices with those of Europe’s other large ski areas. This always prompts loads of debate over whether the Portes du Soleil can be called a truly ‘linked’ ski area, but that’s really not the purpose of their comparison. 650km of piste (regardless of the ‘linked’ debate) are available to ski with one lift pass, and that’s the basis of our price comparison.
The Portes du Soleil 2016 lift pass is still the best value big area ski pass in Europe. With 650km of piste available for €247.50 per adult for a 6 day standard lift pass, it costs you just €0.38 per kilometre to ski in the Portes du Soleil.
Click here to see how the other big ski areas break down…

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Has Snowboarding Lost Its Edge?


Has Snowboarding Lost Its Edge?


LATE last summer when Shaun White, the two-time Olympic gold medal snowboarder and X-Games superstar, was charged with public intoxication and vandalism, he became at age 26 an accidental metaphor for his sport: a young phenom all grown up, and in a spot of trouble.

Shaun White, Olympian and X-Games star, personified the buzz of snowboarding.
After exploding onto the scene about two decades ago, snowboarding is now sputtering in the United States, according to a recent study by RRC Associates, which tracks trends that affect the winter-resort industry. “Today, there is every indication that the growth in snowboarding we took for granted has stalled, and visitation from snowboarding is headed toward a path of substantial decline,” Nate Fristoe, RRC Associates’ director of operations, wrote in the National Ski Areas Association Journal.

For several months now, Mr. Fristoe’s report has been the buzz of the industry. For some it’s also become a rallying cry to revive this sport, which, with its bad-boy image, was widely credited with saving a dull and moribund ski industry in the early 1990s.

From just 7.7 percent of all visits to American ski slopes two decades ago, snowboarders accounted for nearly one-third of visitors two years ago. Now that surge has fizzled. The percentage of visits to resorts by snowboarders even declined slightly each of the last two seasons, to 30.2 percent last winter, according to a survey by the National Ski Areas Association. 

Partying Hard In Morzine and Avoriaz

  Partying Hard In Morzine and Avoriaz ...