Snowgo

Colorado ski and snowboard blog

This new blog, Colorado ski and snowboard, looks promising.

Bluebird opening for Mammoth

Those lucky Californians: Mammoth opened yesterday after a big early snowstorm dumped over a metre of snow.

They have a gallery of their bluebird opening day. Nice.

Carte Neige

Natives has a useful article on exactly how the French Carte Neige insurance scheme works including exactly what it does and does not cover.

Aspect Journal

Its not often that I find a new web site which I fall in love with at first sight. Aspect Journal is one.

Aspect Journal does not publish industry news, product reviews, resort profiles, weather information, "how-to" articles, or insider guides. Rather we focus exclusively on quality storytelling—the kinds of stories that writers need to write, and that readers increasingly long for.

For a flavour of the site read the story of how one man and his family coped with summer.

Ski show report

Every few years I go along to The Ski Show and vow never to return. Well its three or four years since my last visit so I had forgotten what a waste of time and money it was and I went along last night.

I timed my visit to take in one of the four daily "Passion 4 Snow" shows on the big air ramp in the centre of the hall. The ramp was quite impressive as you can see but the show itself was lame with only about half a dozen skiers/riders who did two or three jumps each followed by a single inline skater and a pair of BMXers doing some vert stuff.

Looking around the show the stands seemed fewer than I remembered from previous visits with less resorts represented and fewer (none that I could see) freebies being handed out. Snow and Rock and The Snowboard Asylum did have big stores as usual but there was no evidence of any great bargains.

The much hyped Boardroom bar was closed and set to open only at 9:30 after the main show closed.

If you are in London and don't mind shelling out to get in the Ski Show maybe worth a look but I certainly would not travel for it and it always leaves a slightly sour taste to have to pay to have stuff sold to you.

Tickets are £10 on the door or £8 +75p booking fee by calling 08705 90 00 90 in advance (XFM have an offer on whereby quoting "Bflyer" when you book gets you tickets for £6 after 6:00pm on weekdays).

Review of European terrain parks

The Observer has a good extract from the new Time Out guide to Skiing & Snowboarding featuring reviews of some recommended terrain parks.

Three year old shreders

Being the father of a two year old, I have always taken an interest in the annual discussion at rec.skiing.snowboard about what age to start kids snowboarding. The usual consensus seems to be at about age seven as smaller children generally do not have the necessary balance skills. So I was interested to read that Intrawest resorts are now promoting a new program to teach kids as young as three to ride.

Maybe I will take my boy to Les Arcs next year.

3-D piste maps

I just came across this neat innovation: MountMaps, fold-out piste maps that give a simplified 3-D topographical view of a ski area.

The product is launching at the Daily Mail Ski and Snowboard Show on 13 October and should then be available from the MountMaps site priced at €5 (initially they only have a map of the Three Valleys).