Its Snowing!

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In Saalbach at least!

I was looking about the Saalbach website and noticed that one of the Live webcams had a picture of the mountains with snow. I thought it must be an outdated picture, but infact Saalbach and im sure many other places in the Austrian Alps received their first Snowfall ( above 1500m ) yesterday and today. As a snow junkie im getting very excited about the upcoming season after seeing this

RectalWareZ

Excellent, Damn i wish i didnt have restricted web access at work, Man i envy you!

EileenG

Val Cenis definitely had a good sprinkle of snow at 2000m a couple of days ago, and the upper slopes still have traces. Looking good for winter!

foamcutter

Hey Overflow............... it must be that new "Black snow" as it blacked out over there.


I must remember to check in daylight hours
Too much of a rush to get to saalbach.com and forgot that it was 8pm over there.
Roll on winter 08-09 in Austria.

However it's been snowing here in Dundalk. Here's a snowman

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foamcutter wrote: »

Hey Overflow............... it must be that new "Black snow" as it blacked out over there.


I must remember to check in daylight hours
Too much of a rush to get to saalbach.com and forgot that it was 8pm over there.
Roll on winter 08-09 in Austria.

However it's been snowing here in Dundalk. Here's a snowman

Hehe yeah the image is actually refreshed every few minutes on the saalbach.com server I should have just attached the image.

The snow looks great there in Dundalk, the non-melting kind, i like it

foamcutter

The snow looks great there in Dundalk, the non-melting kind

But rubbish for snowballs and skiing. !!

ShayK1

traces in Bavaria too.
http://www.snoweye.com/?page=de-oberbayern&big=11

Polarbear2020

OMG is anyone else ridiculously excited by all of this...:P:P:P


...or is it just me??

EileenG

I showed the Val Cenis webcame to my kids and they all went hysterical. And I'm already obsessing over the RTE weather reports, willing big fronts to pass over the Alps.

Imposter

Calm down for christ's sake, it's September! :pac:
Once I optimistically get my skis waxed in November then it's time to start getting excited

(btw - it's due to be quite cold here in Austria again next week so probably more lowish snow)

Polarbear2020

Imposter wrote: »

Calm down for christ's sake, it's September! :pac:
Once I optimistically get my skis waxed in November then it's time to start getting excited

I'm ashamed to admit it but my ski's live in the corner of my room just behind my TV, and I'm known to take them out of there bag on regular occasion just to have a good look at them...to make sure they are still ok ofcourse:o
Plus there is that re-occuring dream where I'm on a ski lift travelling for what seems like a lifetime up a slope anticipating the run ahead but without fail I NEVER get to the top.
Hell yeah am I excited about the prospect of snow:P:D:D:P!!!

robinph

I'm so glad I got my fix of snow in New Zealand over the last few weeks, makes the withdrawal symptoms easier to handle before I'm able to go to the mountains again in Europe.

RectalWareZ

how was new zealand? Did u do any hel-skiing?

Don1

Don't mean to irritate anyone but I still have a week or so left in New Zealand. Gonna be spending as much of that week up the Remarkables as I can.
Then its back to crummy old Ireland to make some money before heading off again!

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Don1 wrote: »

Don't mean to irritate anyone but I still have a week or so left in New Zealand. Gonna be spending as much of that week up the Remarkables as I can.
Then its back to crummy old Ireland to make some money before heading off again!

Damn You! Im in Norway but we wont be getting any snow till December at least!

Don1

It's a tough life but you struggle through as best you can. Home Saturday week. I give it until the following Monday before I start freaking out and counting the days until Germany. :P

Mitch Buchannon

Was in Chamonix last week for a few days and my transfer driver told me they had snow recently. High up mind you. There wont be boarding there for a while yet. I can wait, Im heading out in January for a week and again in March for 2 weeks. Bring it on !:D

robinph

RectalWareZ wrote: »

how was new zealand? Did u do any hel-skiing?

New Zealand was fantastic, and the skiing was good too. There were a few too many other activities that distracted me from actually doing that much on the snow whilst I was there though.
Exhibit One Exhibit Two Exhibit Three Exhibit Four Etc etc etc

Anyway, I did manage to get to try out four of the ski fields between both islands. I did both fields on Mount Ruapehu, those being Whakapapa and Turora. Note: Whakapapa is said Fcukapapa, seriously. Ruapehu is an active volcanoe, although it's not actually gone off in a few years now but the back of the piste map is a bit different from what you'd normally see in that rather than warnings about skiing out of bounds they tell you about what to do if the volcanoe does happen to go off. :eek:

From Whakapapa you get great views of Mount Doom, real name Mount Ngauruhoe, which is the volcanoe next door. Whilst on the mountain I was actually getting a bit annoyed with the number of t-bars and the slow old wooden 2man chairs that they have, but the number of runs that they have available on both Whakapapa and Turora was pretty good, if only about the same as you'd find at a smaller European resort. There were some better runs available at Turora I think and a few big jumps for you boarders to show off on as well as what looked like it was a boarder/ ski cross run but was only partially built when I was there as they had had too much snow recently. They had actually lost their snow depth measureing stick due to the amount of snow they had just before I got there and they reckoned they had about 4.7m, the stick only went up to 3.5m.

Cardrona is half way between Wanaka and Queenstown in the South Island and access is up a dirt road which concerned me initially, but I got up there fine in my HiAce camper and there were a few other bigger vans that had made it up as well so it's not that big a deal really. The building at the bottom of the slope is a bit... erm ... odd looking. The weather was a bit too rubbish for me to get any pictures of it the day I was there unfortunately, but I was thinking of Toy Town and expecting Noddy and Big Ears to be appearing at any moment. This ski field was tiny and only had three chair lifts, one of which was out of action the day I was there. It does have a couple of trickyer runs though through some rock and although one lift wasn't running everywhere was accesible. I think its supposed to have a decent snow park there but I didn't see it through the clouds, the chairs here at least were more modern ones with some padding on the seats. My time at Coronet Peak was unfortunately much the same as Cardrona with the weather, but it was a bigger ski field and I only encountered the one t-bar. There seemed to be more runs to choose from but the weather was so bad that I never really knew where I was going.

All of the New Zealand ski areas seemed to have pretty badly marked out runs so you'd never actually know what you were on in relation to the piste map, that never really mattered though as it was all fairly safe between areas or just wans't possible to go the wrong way. They could do with a few more new lifts in the North Island, but personally I think I slightly prefered the North Island areas of the ones that I tried. All ski field are just that though and you have a minimum of 30 minute drive up the mountain to get from resort to the actual snow, the roads are all perfectly driveable though although I have heard very bad things about the road to The Remakables I never made it up there. Everyone is a lot more talkative on the lifts in New Zealand, maybe its the Kiwi's themselves, or maybe its just that in Europe you never know what language the person next to you on the lift might speak so everyone just keeps quiet. I didn't get on a single lift with someone else though without them starting up a conversation with me, that could also have been to do with them wondering about the camera attachment on my helmet though I guess, but it was all a very very freindly place.

Don1

They're re-opening Coronet Peak as they got a 30cm dump, the biggest of the year, a week after they closed it! Typical.

foamcutter

What did you do with the snow Overflow ???

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foamcutter wrote: »

What did you do with the snow Overflow ???

I stole it, i put it all in my freezer, i take it out when i want to snowboard

Seriously though it melted the next day, but its actually forecasted for snow this weekend.

claw14

Letting it down in Livigno this morning !!!! WoooHooo

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claw14 wrote: »

Letting it down in Livigno this morning !!!! WoooHooo

Wow thats a lot of snow! I wanna go!

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Oh yeah its coming down heavy in Saalbach too!

Polarbear2020

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
:D:D:D:D:D:D
Helloooo ski season...well nearly!!

foamcutter

Are you playing with photoshop again Overflow or is it for real? (to late to check ... only that black snow)

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foamcutter wrote: »

Are you playing with photoshop again Overflow or is it for real? (to late to check ... only that black snow)

1px white paint brush, it was painstaking !