Ski Independence Blog
Archive for May, 2010
French World Cup Team in Tignes
May 21st, 2010The 09/10 winter ski season is well and truly over in the Alps at this time of year but with the 2010 FIFA World cup in South Africa nearly upon us many of the national teams are heading for the mountains to get some well needed altitude training with England in Austria and Les Bleus – the French team up in the high resort of Tignes in the heart of the Espace Killy area.
Up, up and away: Squad members Anthony Reveillere, Marc Planus, and staff member Stephane Diagana take a chair lift
It has been well documented that many of the matches at this year’s world cup will be played at over 1000 meters above sea level which can take its toll on your body if you are not used to it with less oxygen in the air. They say it can take 8 – 9 days to get used to altitude training which forces your body to provide more red blood cells which delays the onset of lactic acid in your muscles and aides quicker recovery. Any team who is training in these conditions stand a great chance of being fit and ready when it comes to kick off next month. If only Scotland had done this!
What better place to get this valuable training than Tignes?
The French team have been pictured running, cycling and even snow shoeing up to the Grand Motte Glacier that sits at 3650 meters above sea level. It’s been quite funny watching these football super stars plodding around on snow shoes on corduroy groomed pistes and cycling around the lake.
Beware of men who ski with a gumshield…
May 11th, 2010Sunshine Village is one of three ski resorts on Banff’s excellent tri-area ski lift ticket. It sits a short 20 minute drive from downtown Banff. It’s one of my favourite places to ski – it has a huge amount of interesting terrain, dramatic scenery, a great snow record and a long season, with skiing available well into May. Today was cold, bright and crisp with a load of new snow – perfect conditions for an adventure…
Saturday 10th April 2010: Michael Bennett (Ski Independence MD) and I found ourselves sipping small lattes in the Java Lift café in the amazing Sunshine Mountain Lodge, mid-mountain on Sunshine, waiting for our friend and guide for the day – Mike Moynihan. We had a cunning plan to ski two of Sunshine’s double black diamond extreme ski areas where special restrictions apply – both are gate-controlled by ski patrol, and both require avalanche transceiver, shovel and a ski companion. Nice.
Little do we know what is ahead of us... Mike obviously knows though!
We’d skied the first – Delirium Dive – with Mike years ago, and knew it was ‘testy’, but the second – The Wild West – is rarely open, and we’d heard it really was ‘wild’ in the extreme. There was a strong rumour that it would open today for the first time in months. Mike had mentioned ‘mandatory air’ and ‘extreme exposure’. We had mentioned going to the hot-tub – he was having none of it…
Skiing with Mike is always huge fun. He’s had so many injuries that he only skis half the day (his knees are both shot by lunchtime), but at the pace he skis it feels like a full day. He also skis with a gumshield! Oh, and he has a metal plate in his head somewhere… you get the picture. The day was heading towards 10 on the epicosity scale.
Mike turned up sporting an enormous pair of reverse camber skis – big, fat and shaped like a banana. The perfect skis for deep snow off-piste. We went for a very quick warm-up cruiser run on a nice blue groomer just to shake the cobwebs out. Most amusingly for my colleague Michael, these were his very first turns of the winter. How he laughed at the extensive warm up and gentle easing into a high adrenalin situation… Personally, I made sure my camera batteries were working.
Blog
