Zermatt Grooming Problem

Sue wrote:

Zermatt has a policy of official moguls on blue pistes for the punters
to practice on. They devote part of the width of some very wide pistes
to them. They're very nice regular bumps, obviously looked after by the
ski schools.

Visions of ski instructors carefully crafting bumps with small
trowels... how on earth do they look after the bumps?

I know competition bump courses are sometimes (often?) man-made. They
actually create the course by digging holes rather than building bumps,
and then ski the course to smooth out the holes a bit, but I don't see
hwo a "natural" bump run can be deliberately maintained, not even by the
Swiss. Maybe they train the moles to do it?

Well said. And more to the point, the ski schools in Zermatt have
absolutely no say as to how the pistes are maintained and groomed. That is
the sole province of the newly merged ski company. In fact, it is the ski
instructors who are most incensed at the reduction in grooming. For obvious
reasons it is making their lives quite difficult.

Richard

Sue wrote:
In message , Richard and
Barbara writes
We are Americans who have been skiing annually in Zermatt for more
than 20
years. We love the Village and the skiing. We have many friends who
visit
annually as we do, and many friends who live in the Village. The
improvements to the lift system are absolutely great. BUT, there is
a big
problem, and everyone who knows the area is talking about it.
Grooming of
the pistes has clearly been reduced. Wide trails have become
narrower.
Pistes that should be open, remained closed after a big snowfall.
Moguls
were not smoothed over on blue pistes. All of this is hurting
Zermatt.
Experts aside, a reputation for poor grooming will keep visitors
away.
Everyone assumes that the lack of grooming is a money saving measure
taken
after the merger of three competing transport systems. Before the
merger,
grooming was extensive so as to keep skiers from moving to a
competing area.


Zermatt has a policy of official moguls on blue pistes for the
punters
to practice on. They devote part of the width of some very wide
pistes
to them. They're very nice regular bumps, obviously looked after by
the
ski schools.
These are marked with official picture signs, equally unhelpful to
speakers of every language.


I only wish this were true. I am slowly (very slowly) developing some
skill with bumps, but I wish there were red bump runs to practise on.
The only moguls I ever find in French resorts seem to be huge ones on
steep blacks.

[ok, over new year we found some fairly gentle bumps on a black in
Meribel, but only because there hadn't been much snow, and the rocks
showing through the backside of each bump made life a little tougher]

The Zermatt safety service has a problem with crashes involving
skiers
doing about Mach 2, and is basically in favour of bumps to slow the
punters down.
(The solid-ice bumps at the bottleneck in the piste nearest the
Matterhorn didn't slow me down, they paralysed me completely. If it
wasn't for peer pressure I'd still be standing there.)

--
Sue ]

Richard and Barbara wrote:

We humbly apologize. How stupid of us to have forgotten that only off piste
skiers subscribe to this News Group. Where do we find the 95% who prefer
groomed pistes?


I'm an intermediate and I'm still happy to ski in a resort with mixed
grooming. My favourite snow type is well-bashed hard piste with a couple
of centimetres of fresh powder on top - until I learn how to handle the
real stuff, of course!

Not sure if it's still the case, my experience (from nearly a decade
ago) was that Megeve in France was the most heavily groomed and
manicured resort I've been to. I hear that Italians prefer not to ski on
moguls so more recently in the Milky Way, we found most pistes flat and
smooth (including the blacks), so you might want to try the other side
of the mountain in Cervinia.

IME in recent years of reduced snowfall most resorts are doing more
pisting than they used to if only to push what snow there is on to the
pistes and maximise exploitation of the natural and artificial stuff -
perhaps this is why the group were chuffed to hear of an exception to
this trend.

-Sarah

"Sarah Eggleston" wrote in message
...

IME in recent years of reduced snowfall most resorts are doing more
pisting than they used to if only to push what snow there is on to the
pistes and maximise exploitation of the natural and artificial stuff -
perhaps this is why the group were chuffed to hear of an exception to
this trend.



Very true, also resorts are saving money - no-one is making much out of
skiing.
--
Simon Brown
www.hb9drv.ch

In message , Richard and
Barbara writes
Zermatt has no such policy. The only official mogul runs are called buckel
pistes. They are clearly marked on the map. And they are never on blue
pistes. I am not sure where your information is coming from, but it is not
accurate.


I'd heard it beforehand on the net somewhere, so I went out and looked
for the bumps. They're only little patches, not whole mountainsides
like the ones marked on the piste map, it'd be fairly easy to not notice
them or not realise they were deliberate.

One lot were between the Rothorn bar (the one with the round thing) down
the ridge towards the place where 22a and 23 diverge. Another was lower
down in that area, but it was too warm for them and they'd got very
beaten up. A third was along the side of one of those huge pistes on
the Theodulgletscher - that was probably a red, but these bumps weren't
on a steep bit.
All these were marked with signs like the pictogram on the piste map.
They were divided from the rest of the piste by an extra row of blue
piquets, and roped off from the off-piste. There was no doubt they were
deliberate.
I took a couple of pictures to send to a friend who'd refused to believe
in bumps on blue pistes - I could mail them to you if you like.

Bumps can grow anywhere skiers turn - I've seen some sweet ones on a
green piste at Val d'Isere.

--
Sue ]

In message , Steve Haigh
writes

Visions of ski instructors carefully crafting bumps with small
trowels... how on earth do they look after the bumps?

I know competition bump courses are sometimes (often?) man-made. They
actually create the course by digging holes rather than building bumps,
and then ski the course to smooth out the holes a bit, but I don't see
hwo a "natural" bump run can be deliberately maintained, not even by
the Swiss. Maybe they train the moles to do it?

Pistebumps are the urban wildlife of landforms, I love 'em so much that
one day I'll learn how to ski them properly!

Bumps are caused by skiing, right? They're the piles of snow people
throw up when they turn. If they make neat regular turns, they form
identical piles of snow in a regular pattern; if they hack about at
random the heaps are all shapes and sizes and there's no pattern at all.
Once the bumps exist, people tend to ski round them so the pattern is
maintained. You could get a regular pattern by starting with the
year's first snowfall and skiing up the bumps carefully yourself, or
more economically by leading a ski-school conga line over them a few
dozen times.

I've seen neat regular bumps on pistes of all grades, in places where at
least some of the skiers knew what they were doing or were following
someone who did.
I've seen 'orrible lots of random heaps with no rhythm at all on resort
runs of all grades - and memorably on a "black" run at Les Gets (a
cruiser resort) for a couple of days after a dump. Those got skied out
fast, perhaps because hardly anyone could turn round them. I suspect
inept skiers create hard-to-ski irregular bumps.

--
Sue ]

In message . com,
writes

I only wish this were true. I am slowly (very slowly) developing some
skill with bumps, but I wish there were red bump runs to practise on.
The only moguls I ever find in French resorts seem to be huge ones on
steep blacks.

[ok, over new year we found some fairly gentle bumps on a black in
Meribel, but only because there hadn't been much snow, and the rocks
showing through the backside of each bump made life a little tougher]


There were acres of bumps between pistes on the Meribel side of Les
Menuires last year. They were OK for size and not too deeply cut but
the weather was getting warm and they turned out to be sticky on the
surface and hard underneath. Better skiers than me were getting
something out of them.

Your mogul experience is bound to depend on the weather. For small soft
bumps, go early in the season in cold weather and pray for a dump - then
keep an eye on the ground just outside the piste markers.

--
Sue ];(

The only grooming problem I encountered in Zermatt (26-28 Dec) was due
to the 4-star hotel neglecting to provide shaving soap and a comb.
Luckily I was enjoying the fluffy powder just off the side of the
pistes so much that I didn't scare the regulars in the village too much
with my unkempt appearance.

Back to Zermatt's future - when will the Project lifts (as marked on
the piste map) be completed? The current linkage between the sectors
is tedious in the extreme - especially when, as the OP pointed out,
they close the few linking pistes because they haven't been prepared.
I look forward to returning to Zermatt when these linking lifts are
completed - what a fantastic place to ski (and grow facial hair).

"Simon Brown" wrote in message
...
"Sarah Eggleston" wrote in message
...

IME in recent years of reduced snowfall most resorts are doing more
pisting than they used to if only to push what snow there is on to the
pistes and maximise exploitation of the natural and artificial stuff -
perhaps this is why the group were chuffed to hear of an exception to
this trend.



Very true, also resorts are saving money - no-one is making much out of
skiing.

It's a false economy to cut back on pisting. Most of the money in the
business comes from the fresh hordes of beginners.