Snow Angel Nannies

Taking a skiing holiday with children can be stressful. Of course it can also be a lot of fun, and the kids will often take to the snow a lot more readily than the adults. You can reduce the stress with good planning, research and a sensible choice of resort, but there are still many things to think of, especially if you want to ensure you have time to ski or snowboard yourselves.

An alternative which people might not consider is to hire a private nanny. Having somebody to else to look after the childcare can take the stress out of the holiday, whilst of course retaining the fun factor. A private nannying service is much more flexible than a creche - the nanny can bring the children to meet you for lunch or hot chocolate breaks, take them to ski lessons (and collect them afterwards of course), look after in your own accomodation, or take them to activities in the village. Basically, this kind of service gives you the peace of mind to enjoy the slopes, whilst knowing your children are well looked after and being able to see them when you want to.

A private nanny might sound like an expensive option but the service costs less than you might think. One nanny can look after up to four children (depending on their ages), so if you ski with friends, more than one family can share the cost. There are things you will want to check before booking - does the company use qualified nannies, are they properly registered and insured etc. - but if you use a reputable company you can ensure a relaxed and stress free ski holiday, even with the kids in tow.

If you are travelling to the French Alps to ski, Snow Angel Nannies are very professional and have an excellent reputation around the resorts they cover. The company was set up by Alexandra Chapman (pictured above), a ski instructor in Les 2 Alpes after she saw how many of her clients struggled to find suitable childcare whilst they were skiing themselves. All the nannies are fully qualified and the business is expanding to cover more resorts each season. You can book or find more information through their website. Unfortunately they don't operate in Andorra yet, so this is not of much help to people visiting my resort, but hopefully a similar service will open in Arinsal in the future.

Ski Servicing Myths - The Fingernail Test

In Europe, if you are going to ski at this time of the year it will be on a glacier. The pistes will tend to be firm, so your edges need to be sharp. If you are not going to ski, then it is a good time to prepare your skis ready for next winter, rather than wait until the last minute. Either way it seems a good excuse to mention one myth of ski servicing which I keep hearing.

The fingernail test, or thumbnail test, is supposedly a way to tell if your edges are sharp enough. Simply scrape the flat of your nail over the ski edge and see if you scrape away a sliver of fingernail. It is certainly true that a sharp edge will easily take away a little bit of nail. The trouble is that fingernail is soft enough that even a blunt edge can scratch it easily enough. A couple of weeks ago I neglected to tune my edges between days on bulletproof icy pistes. I was sliding around all over the place, really struggling to find any grip and make the skis carve in the ice. I learnt a lesson about putting the time in to service the skis every evening when the conditions require it. However, at the end of that day my skis still passed the fingernail test, despite being completely blunt.

The best way to know if your edges are sharp enough is to run your fingers across them (but not along them as you will tend to slice them open). With practice you will learn what a really sharp ski feels like, and what a blunt one feels like.

My New Blog

I have just launched a second blog at http://tryingtospeakspanish.blogspot.com. As the name suggests it is all about learning Spanish, so although not really related to the content of this site, it is quite relevant to my own career as a ski instructor in a mainly Spanish speaking ski school.

There may well be a little crossover with this site, as the Spanish I have learnt tends to have a bias towards skiing related terms. However for most readers interested in the ski and outdoor focus of this blog, then unless you have an interest in learning Spanish as well then there might not be that much to interest you, so I won't take it to personally if you decide not to spend any time there.

Having said that, I thought I should mention it, just in case regular readers are interested in what else I am getting up to online, or in case you noticed a new blog appear in my profile and wondered what it was about.

The new blog will probably have more regular posts than this one, but shorter ones. I imagine it will have less photos as well, as I take plenty of photographs of mountains but far fewer of anything very typically Spanish.

If there are any other skiers out there who want to learn Spanish as well then please leave a comment and let me know what you think so far. For the rest of you, I promise to get back to some skiing in the next post.

Three Cols Tour (Les Trois Cols)

Following on from the EMS course mentioned in the last post, we have to log a number of days ski touring before taking the exam course. My first tour following the course was the 3 Cols route in the Chamonix valley. This starts from the Grand Montets cable car (or the Argentiere refuge), descends to cross the Argentiere glacier before climbing to the Col du Chardonnet, a rappel down and a ski and skin lead to the Fenetre du Saleina and Col Superior du Tour, before skiing down to Le Tour village. This was a full day out, with 1200m of ascent and some really spectacular scenery. Thanks to Sandra for a great day.

EMS - Mountain Safety Training

In the past I have mentioned the Eurotest and how it can be a major hurdle for ski instructors wanting to work in France. The French have also imposed a second test - the Eurosecurity - which is now part of the top level qualifications for Eurogroup countries including France, Italy, Austria and the UK. Whilst less known and for most people less difficult than the Eurotest the Eurosecurity course is a lot more useful and practical for working ski instructors. The idea is to achieve a minimum standard of mountain safety awareness so that clients can be confident that a top level qualified instructor is competent to take them off piste safely.

I have just attended the training part of the Eurosecurity or EMS (European Mountain Safety) as it is named in the British system. The second part will be a three day examination next winter in La Grave. The photo above is from the first day of the course, ascending the Col des Crochues in the Chamonix Aiguilles Rouge range.

The second and third days of the course took us to the region around the Grand St. Bernard Pass which links Switzerland and Italy (above - setting off from the Super St. Bernard car park; below - arriving at the St. Bernard Monastery where we spent the night.)

Above - St Bernard Pass. Below - Day 3, ski touring in Italy and Switzerland

Overall I have to say that this was one of the best of the many ski instructor courses I have done. It was definitely one of the most enjoyable, partly because there was no exam - not until next year anyway - and partly because we got to explore a lot more of the mountains than on most courses. It was also a very useful course. I often ski off piste with clients in a fairly limited way, within the remit of my current ISIA Mountain Safety qualification i.e. within the ski area, close to marked runs, accessible from ski lifts.
   "Can we go off-piste?" is a common question from my more advanced groups whilst "Can we learn to race?" is something I almost never hear. However skiing off piste entails all the risks of the mountain environment - avalanches, navigation hazards, rocks, cliffs, trees etc. so it is important for the instructor to be aware of the risks and to work within the remit of their qualifications to minimise them. An instructor who has passed the Eurosecurity is then qualified to take clients off piste or ski-touring on non-glaciated terrain for up to one day. For trips beyond the remit of this qualification the client would have to book a UIAGM/IFAMG qualified High Mountain Guide.

Ignore the Snow Reports

Many a UK skier spends the winter months avidly scanning the snow reports, either to decide where to book a skiing trip to, or to try and figure out what the snow will be like when they arrive at their destination.

The trouble with snow reports is that things change, often quickly. A lot of snow can fall over a day or two, meaning that those pessimistic reports from the week before are quickly out of date. Compare these photos of Arinsal (one from my window and one Vallnord Webcam image) to the sunny photos of my last post for example.

The other problem with snow reports is that the numbers are not that relevant. People often say things like "Resort X has 150cm of snow and Resort Y only has 90cm, so Resort X is better this year." I have to say that as long as any rocks are covered I have never noticed the difference between skiing over 20cm or 200cm of snow depth on the pistes. Even if it did matter, the snow depth changes constantly as the ground underneath is not flat, and the snow is moved by both the wind and the piste grooming machines. The biggest factor that determines the snow depth measured is where exactly the measuring stick is pushed into the ground. Each resort will use the same spot for their measurements, so it is fair to compare this winter to last winter, or this week to last, in the same resort. Trying to compare different resorts based on snow depth is pretty meaningless though. The cumulative snowfall for the season - i.e. how much snow has fallen - might be a more useful figure to compare resorts for their snowiness. This will be a much bigger number than the snow depth as the light fluffy snow that falls will compact into dense heavy snow over time.

If you live close to a ski area, or a few of them, looking at the snow reports on a daily basis when deciding where to go and what to do is definitely a good idea. If you live here in Andorra for example you have plenty of options for your weekend skiing. If you live in the UK then the Scottish reports are the only ones really worth looking at outside of your holiday. Looking at the reports during your holiday is a good idea as well, particularly if you plan to go off piste. Looking at the reports in advance though is often just going to make you pessimistic ahead of what will probably out to be a great holiday.

The final point I want to make on this is that snowmaking technology has come a long way in the last few years. Here in Arinsal for example, almost every run (95% of the ski area) has been open all season despite a sunny January and early February with a lot less snow that average. Not only have the pistes been open, they have been well maintained and kept in good condition the entire season. For beginners, many intermediates and in fact anybody who prefers to ski on-piste to off, the conditions have been every bit as good as in a really snowy year with the added bonus of being able to ski in the sunshine most of the time. The only disadvantage is that the (fantastic) view across Andorra is a bit greener than people have been expecting.

Spring (???) hill walking photos

It isn't exactly the hill walking season here in Andorra, but with unseasonably warm temperatures, sunshine, and receding snowlines on the south facing slopes (still plenty of snow on the ski pistes though) I decided to take a walk up the hillside behind our appartment building. Partly because I have always been curious to have a closer look at the bordes (farm buildings) which perch on the hillside opposite the ski area, and partly because I rarely get the chance to go out walking during the ski season, with being on skis pretty much every day.

For those interested in walking the Andorran mountains, and seeing a quiter side of the country away from the ski areas and tax free shopping, there is a very good Cicerone Guidebook - The Mountains of Andorra: Walks, Scrambles, Via Ferratas and Treks which covers the entire country (it is quite a small country so there is plenty of detail). Unfortunately getting a decent map of the area is not so easy, as none published here are very up to date or accurate. The 1:25000 map published by the government stops at the border, with adjacent parts of Spain and France left as white space - looking at it one half expects to see "Here be dragons" scrawled across the edges of the map.

Here are a few photographs to show you a side of Andorra not often seen by visitors to the ski resorts.

Les Marades piste (left) and Coma Pedrosa - 2939m (right)

Bordes Del Torner

Bordes de Prats Nous

Pal and Arinsal ski areas

Coma Pedrosa valley with Coll Carnisser in foreground

Bordes de Percanela