Winter Festivals 2012: Snowboard Events and Ski Parties

Lucy Grewcock    ash     chamonix, ski fetivals, Skiing, Skiing Holidays, skiing in Austria, skiing in France, Skiing in Serbia, Skiing in the US, Snowboarding, snowboarding holidays, Switzerland, whistler, winter festivals

What could be better than spending a week in the mountains, shuushing down iced-white pistes and bounding through fresh powder? How about adding world-class DJs, all-night parties, arty events and extreme freestyle competitions? Welcome to the world of winter festivals 2012…

Winter festivals are never just about the sports Photo: Will Bremridge

From Austria to North America, ski parties have snowballed in the past few years, and they’re set to get even bigger and better in 2012. Here’s a few that are full-on winter festivals, add these to your calendar: read more

The best ski holiday ever : work a ski season

Alice Cuninghame    bestskiholidays     best ski holidays, Skiing, Skiing Holidays, skiing in Austria, skiing jobs

Anyone who has ever been on a week-long ski holiday knows how hard it is to leave the slopes at the end of the week and get back to reality. Rather than flying down powdery white pistes every morning, you get grey pavements and the slow trudge to work. However, some lucky people get to enjoy the best ski holiday ever, by staying out on the snow for the entire season!

Could you do 6 months of this? Image: © Austrian National Tourist Office/ Wolfgang Zajc

All those chalets, hotels, bars and restaurants need legions of seasonal workers each year.

Being one of them means you get to ski or board every day for a whole season: a prospect that’s hard to resist!

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Ski jobs: is this the best job in the world?

Gabriel    bestskiholidays     heli skiing, ski jobs, Skiing, Skiing Holidays, skiing jobs snowboarding, Snowboarding, snowboarding holidays, snowboarding jobs

What’s the best ski job? Well, others might disagree, but I think it could be the heli-ski guide. When it boils down to doing what you love, heli-ski guides love what they do because to them it is the best job in the world. But I can’t be the judge of this – I’m just a professional tour guide and ski instructor: I know they’ve got one of the coolest jobs around!

Ski Jobs: we think we've found the best job in the world Image:Flickr/ kentgoldman

So, answer the following questions and see how your job matches up. Time for a career change? Or just a skiing holiday to see for yourself? This could be one of the best jobs in the world – if you’re not jealous now, you soon will be!

How big is your office space?

Heli-ski guides’ offices are about 2.2 million acres and have an average annual snowfall of 25 meters. Getting to the copy room might be tough, but then again, we don’t make copies. Heli-ski guides have earned a 360-degree corner office, with mountaintop views. The only time they see a “cube” is when they drop them to the bottom of their tumblers and pour a drink over them.

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Skiing in Canada and the Banff Big 3

Mark Pawlak    bestskiholidays, Top 10s     Banff, Canada, ski, Skiing, skiing holiday, Skiing Holidays, skiing in Canada, snowboard, Snowboarding, snowboarding holidays

Booking a skiing holiday you want choices – we’re not talking about aisle or window, but real, on the ground, multiple lift pass choices. And one resort stands out for people skiing in Canada, and it’s Banff.

Mt. Norquay - for Olympians and families

Three resorts within Banff National Park is a good start. But what really appeals is the tri-area lift ticket and free transport from the resort to the ski areas. Choice, it’s all about the choice.  Book a skiing holiday, take all that time off work, travel halfway around the world and the last thing you want is to be faffing about with multiple passes and expensive add-ons.

Banff has almost 8,000 acres of ski-able terrain and routes for all standards. If you’re tempted, here are a few tit-bits on what you’ll be signing up for.

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This Winter’s Top 10 Snowboarding Destinations

Ana Sandoiu    snowboardingholidays, Top 10s     austria, California, Canada, Finland Japan, Italy, Skiing, Snowboarding, Snowboarding in Canada, snowboarding in France, Snowboarding resorts, Switzerland

If these were the seventies, by this time in November you’d be putting on your astrakhan hat and getting ready for snurfing.  But it’s 2011 and bell-bottomed trousers are no longer in fashion… Snowboarding still is though, even if we call it differently! Below you have this winter’s top 10 snowboarding resorts and destinations, as picked by a proper snowboard enthusiast who knows how to do her research. So put on your gear and head to the slopes – it’s time to surf some snow!

If you want to book a snowboarding holiday to any of these destinations then check out Crystal Ski and Snowboard.

Mammoth views Image: Flickr/Perfect Zero

1. Mammoth Mountain, California

Mammoth Mountain is a large ski resort located in Eastern California, along the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. It’s known for two things: cheap accommodation and Shaun White. Its world-class parks are exceptionally well maintained, with superpipes, minipipes and one of the few Super-Duper pipes in the world! This is what makes Mammoth Number 1 among the top snowboarding resorts in the world, as well as an excellent location for freestyle riding. And it’s also why top snowboarders such as two-time Winter Olympics gold medalist Shaun White comes to practice here.

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Do you need custom foot-beds for your ski boots?

Lucy Grewcock    bestskiholidays     boots, custom footbeds, insoles, ski boots ski clothing, ski gear, Skiing, Skiing Holidays, winter equipment

Correctly fitting ski-boots are not particularly comfortable – if you’re wearing a well-cushioned, roomy pair of boots that allow you to wiggle your toes and jiggle your heels up and down, bad news: they’re at least two-sizes too big!

Good footbeds, don't ski without them Image: Flickr/owlhere

In order to protect your ankles, legs and hips from damage, ski-boots should clamp your ankles in place, hold down your heels and stop your foot from moving around in the shell, allowing your feet to effectively guide the rest of your body over the contours of the piste.

However, most of us skid around in ski-boots that are too big , or crank our clips so tightly shut that our toes are crushed and our arches flattened. The result? gnarled nails, aching limbs, numb toes and an early retreat from the piste, at the end of the day.

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Best Ski Operators in the UK

Mark Pawlak    bestskiholidays     British Travel Awards, Inghams, ski, ski and winter sports, ski holidays, Skiing, Skiing Holidays, Thomson, winter sports

Now’s the time to get booking your skiing holiday, and looking at the British Travel Awards is a great way to spot the best ski tour operators in the UK.

According to the most recent research, this year more than 900,000 people will go abroad to get their skiing or winter sports fix. And more people are using operators to secure their holidays, so it’s worth keeping an eye on who’s leading the pack and taking you to the slopes.

The awards are based on more than 700,000 votes for the nominated companies, so they are a good indication of which company is providing what skiers really want.

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