Author: rosshewittguiding

IFMGA Mountain Guide, Skier at Black Crows Skis, Alpinist, Mountain Biker, Life Lover

Must Watch Ski Film ‘Born In Chamonix’

27th Nov 201827th Nov 2018by rosshewittguidingLeave a comment

Born in Chamonix is the latest ski movie to drop out of the mythical ski town and is the product of local skier Tof Henry and film maker Daniel Ronnback. Tof is a 100 kg+ powerhouse who could have given Jonah Lomu a run for his money on the rugby pitch but he’s a skier. Its been interesting watching Tof’s skiing evolve from a Cosmique and Rond guy to big mountain shredder focused on skiing fast and fluidly on good snow. Getting these runs to ski like this takes cunning and patience. Often when riding the first Midi cable car of the morning there are many people hoping to do these big lines and are looking at you to see how you see the conditions because they aren’t confident in their own conditions. As Tof says, when you see its on, you just have to go and go fast. I’ve had the pleasure of skiing a few Mallory’s and some other big lines with Tof last year and hope to spend some days with this young man again before I need a zimmer frame. Make no mistake, these are some of the hardest, technical and steepest ski lines in the World.

Born in Chamonix [FULL FILM] from ARMADA SKIS on Vimeo.

NovemberPOW

23rd Nov 201823rd Nov 2018by rosshewittguidingLeave a comment

For skiing its still really pre-season here in the Alps. So far there have been a number of storms off the Mediterranean depositing snow to the South of the main divide of Mont Blanc and the Pennine Valais Alps. Tignes, Aosta, Cervinia have good early coverage with Gressoney reporting 1-2 m. The next storm is about to roll in off the Med and I’ll be trying to hit Gressoney mid week once it clears.

Yesterday I went for a ski tour with fellow British Mountain Guide Jon Bracey to border of Italy and Switzerland thinking we could catch the fall out of the storms. I’d say we definitely scored a ‘win’ with about 40-50 cm of powder in our 500 m 40/45 degree couloir but it’s very hit or miss and the mountain one valley was bare. So it’s good if you choose location carefully but for the moment Chamonix, Arolla, Zermatt, St Anton still await the big northerly storms. With all the southerly Foehn storms I’m sure there is a lot of snow in the Valley Blanche and even the North Face of the Midi is pretty white but the snowline stops at the foot of the Chamonix Aiguilles and doesn’t cross the valley. Wepowder have hinted Andermatt caught the snow from the south but I haven’t checked this.

If you are holding on to book a last minute Christmas ski holiday then I would choose your resort based on current snow conditions and not just hope it will come to your favourite resort.

First Turns of the Ski Season

4th Nov 20185th Nov 2018by rosshewittguidingLeave a comment

The Indian summer in the Alps came to an abrupt end overnight with the arrival of a monumental storm of the Med that battered the Ligurian coast, washed out roads, left many stranded without vehicles and sadly killed 10 or so people. I was away visiting my sister in Basel but was keeping a close eye on how much snow it would bring to the Alps south of the divide with Wepowder forecasting over 2 m. My friend Chipie who came on my last Baffin expedition was in Tignes and he keeping tabs on the snowfall as the storm progressed. Late Thursday night he sent me a note in the form of a photo of himself shredding powder – it took me about 3 seconds to text him back that I would be there in the morning. I spent the rest of the night feverishly searching for all my ski kit and packing the car, went to bed as excited as a kid the night before Christmas, got a few hours sleep and hit the road at 6am to make the 3 hour drive.

Arriving in Tignes there was certainly a couple of feet roadside but the visibility was poor and we spent the morning doing a very humid skin about 400 m vertical out of town. Once back in Tignes there was signs of the sun coming out and we decided to be positive about it and go up the Grands Motte. The clouds parted, the sun came out and so it began, with a little taste of the magic, hooning down the glacier whooping with delight, blowing up cold smoke behind us.

We were back the next day for more and found some good turns but strong wind was starting to do its dirty work on the powder and strip the glacier back to bare ice. The pistes up there have great corduroy and were perfect for carving turns, race training and getting the glutes back in shape. Hopefully this week will see more snow arrive from the south and build on whats there.

It’s great to get some preseason skiing in to see where the body is at and have a chance to work on the ski fitness before the season proper begins. It also reminds me what kit works and what I need going forward. This year I am proud to have the additional sponsorship from the specialist online ski and snowboard shop snowcountry.eu who will plug my gear gaps and the Sapaudia Brewing Company for rehydration matters!

5 Tips to Improve Your Off Piste Skiing

29th Oct 201829th Oct 2018by rosshewittguidingLeave a comment

We all watch those jaw dropping films of skiers shredding down spines in Alaska and pulling surf turns on perfect powder turns and cant help to be inspired and motivated to emulate these feats. But making the transition from the piste to off piste can be a daunting challenge when initial forays into the fluffy stuff seem so hard and leave us stuck upside down with a lost ski! The pros make it look effortless because they are so good, and also very very strong athletes. While you don’t need to be an Olympian to ski offpiste, recognising its much more strenuous and conditioning your body accordingly will do wonders. Also throw away your race carvers and try a pair of skis that are 100 m or more under foot.

1. Get stronger and more flexible

Skiing off-piste uses much more energy than general piste skiing, perhaps 10 times as much. The stronger you are the easier it is to control your skis from the start of a run until the end. Initially quick gains can be made at the gym to maximise strength and power endurance. Do your pistol squats, leg presses, lunges, box jumps. Improve your core’s torsional strength to prevent over rotation in turns and improve balance on a wobble board. Increased flexibility will help you absorb the bumps and compressions without injury, too.

A favourite training aid is this ski fit app from professional trainer and physiotherapist Neil Maclean Martin in Chamonix. Being mobile its portable so you can do it whereever you are including your Travel Lodge hotel room with no special equipment – so there are no excuses. Try out the free version and if you like it see if you get to level 4 – it works me so hard! Ski Fit App

2. Don’t drive from the backseat

It can be a constant battle to get your weight forward after every turn, but if you’re driving from the backseat, your turns will be late and energy-sapping. Modern front rockered skis can be driven hard off-piste with a lot of forward pressure without the tip dive. Try lifting your toes off the footbed while skiing and you will feel your weight going forward and pressure increasing on the front of your boot, where it should be.

3. Continually scan the terrain ahead

That way, you can anticipate what’s coming and make turns and weight adjustments accordingly. Too often our focus, especially under stress, is reduced to the patch of snow in front of our tips. When skiing fast, my eyes are continually flicking to as much as 100m ahead. If I’m doing 160 kph on a pair of race skis, I’ll be looking 500m ahead.

4. Mileage

Lots of it. Buy a lift pass and get as much skiing done as you possibly can. Don’t be that British mountaineer that thinks touring will get you better at skiing, it might just make you better at going uphill. If you only ski perfect powder on sunny days, you won’t be able to deal with anything else. Go out in all kinds of snow, and in all kinds of weather. You wouldn’t expect to develop the muscle memory to balance on a surf board straight away and skiing is the same, developing muscle memory to cope with different snow over time.

While lessons are expensive getting tips from the pros will help avoid bad habits developing and since people learn in different ways, the pros have a variety of methods to get to the same goal. Ski instructors Simon Christy, Alison Thacker and Mark Gear all have years of experience and coaching worth taping into while a day out with a guide like myself can focus on off piste techniques over a variety of snow conditions drawing on my experience from ski racer to professional big mountain skier with Black Crows.

5. Use slightly shorter poles

In soft snow you sit lower relative to the surface. Shorter poles will help keep your weight forward, as you stretch the pole out in front to initiate the turn. On steeps it’s common to use poles that are 10cm shorter than normal.

Black Crows Atris Review

23rd Oct 2018by rosshewittguiding2 Comments

Black Crows launched the Atris back in 2015 and with all the associated hype I had to give them a try. The cool graphics and colours were easy to fall in love and with double rockered, full under foot camber design, I expected these to be a high performance all mountain ski that would speed scrubs and be equally happy floating over pillows as landing fakey. Now with a lower spine that barely rotates, landing faley isn’t in my list requirements for a ski unless I start planning on skiing backwards while looking through my legs. But the soft tail that allowed this ski to ride fakey also ate into my confidence that it would lose its edge on the steeps and high side me down the slope. Try as I might, this ski just didn’t do it for me and I reverted to Navis FB for big mountain touring and steeps.

Fast forwarding to the 2018 season and the new redesigned Atris arrived with everyone saying I had to try it. To be honest I was pretty skeptical but I did have an ulterior motive. I needed a ski to guide clients on, one with smaller radius and very quick pivot, even at lower client speed. So I decided to give the Atris another go.

The new Atris has the same turning characteristics as the old one but it was immediately evident that the ski had a more homogeneous stiffness from tip to tail tailoring it for the big mountain environment. Very quickly I was using this ski up the Argentiere basin on Col des Courtes, Couturier or Col de la Verte. Whether powder or chalk, charging hard or going slow, this ski worked and it felt lush. For me its easily the best and most polyvalent ski in Black Crows line up and this season I’ll have one pair with PLUMs and one with a harder charging free ride binding in my quiver.

At 108 under foot its fast edge to edge and while it weighs more that the dedicated freebird touring skis, the extra dampening material in the ski is what makes it perform so well without being prohibitive for tours up to 1000 m. For sure if you are touring every day then you’ll want something lighter but if you want to maintain the performance for the downs this is a great choice.