Poster: A snowHead
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All,
Sorry to say conditions in SDL are very poor with all pistes showing signs of rocks and cutting up badly. Where there are not rocks the pistes have patches of pure ice. I have extensive base damage to my skis and unfortunately there were numerous accidents on the slopes due to the ice.
Another bad thing is the link is out to Sestrier meaning this is only possible using a ski doo which takes 6 skiers at a time. It is possible to ski across but the run is far too rocky (IMHO) to try.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this resort needs a major fall of snow (1 meter min) as the snow cannons are not coping.
Regards,
Carl
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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That is exactly why I would not go to that area as the snow is shite
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Agreed, Lossy. I was very disappointed with the conditions, especially as I have been to Sauze in really dry years and had better conditions with far more open. What really disappoints me is when I read snow reports, such as that dated 6 January on the Ski Club of GB site, which describes conditions on piste as powder. What crap! All I skied on was ice, hardpack, grass and rocks. And where the official depths come from escape me - 70cm on the upper slopes? I think not.
I have a feeling the lift company may have made more of an effort to get runs open using what snow was available off piste, but the conspiracy theorist in me suggests they are preserving what they have for the crowds due to descend for the Olympics.
All in all, the worst conditions I have skied in for nearly 20 years. I consider myself badly let down by the massive inaccuracies in snow reports upon which my booking was based.
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Any signs of the much needed snow in many resorts, such as SDL, yet?? I can only see sun sun sun all the way
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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It was very cloudy there this morning, but I wouldn't expect any snow. It is forecast to be a dry week, too. I hate to say it, but without a decent dump, as Carl says, it is going to be grim.
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It was cloudy yesterday but not really a hint of snow and things don't look too promising. Like the chap above I was very suprised just how bad conditions were considering favourable reports, 50 cm on upper slopes? There was no more than 20 - 25cm off piste, and pisted runs were down to a layer of ice 10cm thick. I just feel sorry for the poor people who arrived today, I really hope it snows for them.
Nevermind, I am off to verbier Feb 25th for a week !
Sauze could be a great resort if the snow was right...........
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Forget the snow depth figures 9 lifts open out of 22 says it all
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I am praying for you now!
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Sauze is a great resort with good conditions, that's the sad thing Carl. Enjoy Verbier - unfortunately I now have to wait until 2007 for my next trip. I'll be a lot more careful in my choice.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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This is making me really depressed as I'm off to SDL on 29 Jan. I've a funny feeling we're only going to use Sauze as a flop house and drive elsewhere.
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I'm off to Livigno on 28th Jan and have been watching the weather recently over the alps....this high thats sitting there ain't budging for now...however looking at the long term forecasts (and I know they arent that reliable, but I'm beggining to worry so will grasp anything that looks positive ) shows that it will move aside by next Tuesday'ish, and precipitation forecast for several days.
Like I say, I dont read much into the long range forecasts, but could this be a sign of change?
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You know it makes sense.
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Bear in mind Stu that Sauze and Livigno are likely to be affected by quite different weather systems. Sauze and the rest of the southern French/Italian Alps get their snowfalls mainly from weather fronts moving up from the south, which is why the resorts in those areas can have serious droughts.
The majority of Europe's resorts, and I suspect Livigno is included in this, get fronts which move down across the continent from the north - I have literally seen a huge dump fall in France whilst I have been sat in sunshine across the border in Italy.
Keep smiling - you're going on holiday!
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Sauze D'Oulx always seems to be crap when I look at the snow report! Does it ever snow there?
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Poster: A snowHead
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Everywhere seems to be affected by this high over europe at the moment, so not the only place suffering but due to lack of base in the first place it's taking a hammering at the moment. The webcam looks pretty good but this could be very careful and clever "snowmanagement" by the owners etc
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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The webcams are all at high points, Dan. From the chairs last week the snow looked fine. On our first trip up the mountain we all commented how white it looked. It was only once we got in amongst it all that we realised how poor it was.
I will never trust a webcam or snow report to tell the whole story ever again. I even managed to get an apology (of sorts) out of the SCofGB for their inaccurate snow reports.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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skibandit, maybe skofgb should have said:
1. piste ploughs doing a good job .
2. if you are Bode Miller you will enjoy the challenging conditions.
3. Bring your ice skates.
4. Only use hire skis.
5. Conditions are crap go anywhere else!
6. Cancel the Olympics we have no snow.
Last edited by Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see? on Thu 12-01-06 14:35; edited 1 time in total
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I see in the 6 day snow-forecast website there is some colours showing on the maps...they are forecasting some snow over most of the alps.
Get snow dancing now..
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My feet are moving like crazy...Bring on the snow.
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Pete1909, same time as we're over in Sauze
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Peter Ross, I couldn't care less what they put on their reports, as long as it's reasonably accurate. The fact is many people, myself included, rely on snow reports because we aren't blessed with the gift of second sight. If they're miles off the mark, it costs money and wastes a weeks' holiday.
You waste a weeks' skiing if you want to - I only get to go once a year, and it really hacks me off when snow reports are not even remotely accurate.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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34cm on 6 day
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Don't get too excited guys. From experience, if this snowfall is the total predicted over several days, you will be lucky to see half of it. The only time you can really trust snow-forecast.com is if the fall predicted is a major dump over a short timescale.
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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I'm off to Sauze this weekend and I found this report on http://www.sauzeonline.com/forum/toast.asp?sub=show&action=posts&fid=7&tid=49
Sounds like folk going to Sauze at the moment are getting a raw deal. Having said that I expected the snow conditions to be much worse than thre report seems to indicate.
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Re: Olympic Closures (simonairheadz)
Posted: 11:55:40 pm on 1/18/2006 Modified: 12:11:50 am on 1/19/2006
ok here goes,we just got back sunday night.it was a joke!!!!! the snow conditions were twice as good as last year at the same time,but only 6 runs sauze side open!!! 3 red 3 blue,on the first day i skied all the closed runs and other than the fact that they hadnt been bothered to piste them they was plenty of snow cover(considering the run to jovenseux was open so that tells you the snow was good!! anyway the link to sestriere was closed as the lift had had it and given up the ghost!so they put on 1 skidoo towing a trailer used to carry beer crates up the mountain,which carried 6 people at a time(after watching this i realized the uphill lift to yhe bubble lift was 50people an hour!!!! which didnt help the line of 100 people.a quick call to crystal and my question to the insurance company was answered!! no one was insured to be towed allong in a none purpose built carrier without a seperate policy!!so as sancisario was totally shut (due to them keeping the snow there as spare incase they had no more,and due to its the shooting cross country there,there was no way to get to any of the milkyway unless you were prepared to invalidate your insurance!!(also in the lift office in sauze from sunday they would not sell an all area lift pass!so those of use that had allready prebooked them could not legally use the rest of the milky way!! so there it was WE WERE SCREWED ! the only saving grace was the weather it was great and really good skiing to be had.so now the problem was there was no piste bashing going on,only 2 bashers this side of the mountain!all the manpower and machinary was in sestriere!any way when i did venture over there after getting first lift (9.00) joke!!!! sestriere was as awsome as ever and so well pisted loads open and lots of work going on,i skied there the rest of the week and sauze got no attention at all from the people that were ment to be working on it.if youve ever had the wool pulled over your eyes then you know how we felt!!all in all it was a joke,i have been to sauze 5 times and as my previous messages have shown ive had a great time,but this finished me off,let down by the rep on the coach who didnt tell us the extent of the closures at all,let down by the people who maintain the mountain and didnt bother to put the small amount of work into preparing the closed pistes that only needed minimum work to open them,and let down by crystal who are still selling the same holiday at full price with full price all area lift passes and up untill sunday couldnt be used anywhere exept sauzes 5 runs as jovenseux had now shut!!!! a total utter rip off, i just hope you all have a far better time than we did (by the way the websites we looked at on our laptop at the time were all saying 12 runs open )WHAT A CROCK!! THIS I GUESS IS THE REWARD WE GOT FOR OUR REGULAR TRAVELER STATUS LOL good luck all hope you have a good time, now friday im off to book 2 weeks in canada for feb!!!! so its goodbye euro p.s on the way home on the plane 2 j,d,s and ginger £5.00 i didnt have much sterling so asked to pay in euros (9.00 EUROS)!!!!!!!!!! WAS THE REPLY,,,,, JESUS GET RICH QUICK EH?after a large gulp i told him he could take it back as i wasnt paying that for it lol (and it was a really large gulp lol) xxxx
p.ss also ment to say we had to fly into genoa as they found unexploded ww2 bombs near the runway lol!!!!!!!! (what the hell took them so long lol)
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Poster: A snowHead
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My brother in law has just driven through the valley to Turin and the temperature at Sauze was 20c!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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chris, dreadful!!!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Hmm, could this be why I've seen a cheap deal for 2nd week in march flying from Glasgow? I was tempted until I read the above!
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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yeah i came back from sauze thoroughly disappointed!!!
what little snow there was wasnt well cared for....so much ice/grass/rocks! i opted beginner boarding for the first few days as the conditions were so poor there would have been little to entertain a good skier...but also very difficult to learn on.
There appeared to be a decentish number of snow cannons, but they only seemed to use a few of them! and those were on all day so you would be boarding on ice and then hit a mound(around 50cms deep)of powder then be straight back onto ice! The ones in use were not particularly good either....at the top of the main run one was faced in the wrong direction for the piste....maybe making a collection for olympic weeks?!?!?! i also saw a tree with more snow on than the piste..there was literally about a foot sticking out horizontally! lol
I did however see the weather station from which the blatantly misleading reports seem to have come from...it was located at the bottom of a dip where there was a large amount of drift collected!
certainly not somewhere for you to take your own ski's/snowboard!!
Even the rep's said they hadn't been up skiing/boarding for at least 3weeks as it was so poor!
on the last day they opened the chair to sestriere.....but we were told that the conditions over there were also pretty bad...so didn't bother!
Sauze is a lovely resort tho! it should just be backed up with alot more snow cannons and better piste maintainance for when conditions are so bad.
Still had a wicked holiday tho!
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I am truly appalled to read the cut and paste from gally. It is what I suspected all along whilst I was in Sauze, and having been several times in the past they will never again be receiving my hard earned cash. I shall be consigning the slopes of Sauze to the bin, where the lift company deserves them to be.
What a pity.
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Blimey, if you think Sauze was bad, don't bother going over to Sestriere! We came back a week ago, and Sestriere was all but closed with the Olympic preparations and so we skied Sauze, Claviere/Montgenevre (by bus), and Sansicario (again by bus).
People who are heading that way should be away that Sestriere and Sansicario are totally closed to recreational skiers from (IIRC) 29th Jan.
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come to the Beaufortain, just about everything open, good cover, no ice. no UK tour operators.....
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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pam w, where is that in relation to Sauze? I think I'm going to hike it to Serre Chevalier to ski. Or is the N9 open to Val D'Isere?
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halfhand, no the N9 will not be open.
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