Nutritional Info

Each bar weighs 80 grams, so they are filling enough. Seshbar recommends that you eat one an hour before skiing and one afterwards (with plenty of water). As for nutritional value it does appear to be jam packed with energy and protein to keep you sustained for extended periods of exercise. Here are the vital stats ::

The bars are fortified with vitamins (C, E, B6, B2, B1, B12 & folic acid to name a few), guarana extract, 0.8%, and L-glutamine 0.075%. L-Glutamine, an amino acid, helps to keep water in your body.

The Bar

The bar is quite sweet, but overall its really tasty. There are rice puffs in it, so it makes it a little chewy with the chocolate filler. On a cold day this bar would still be easy enough to eat in sub-zero conditions, as it’s brittle enough to bite in to. But it’s not too brittle that it would crumble into lots of pieces and you’d loose have your bar to the slopes.

The Company

Another great reason to support this company is that they are Irish, based out of Dunleer, Co. Louth. The bars themselves are made in Holland. We heard that they had some stumbling blocks along the way with the naming of the bar, but we’re happy to see that they were able to get over that hurdle and to be able to bring a great product to market.

Our overall recommendation is to give them a whirl, and bring them along on your next skiing / snowboard holiday. You can buy them online at www.seshbar.com.

The skiing and snowboarding terrain at Cortina is split into six interlinked areas, each of which has excellent, modern lift facilities:

• Faloria
• Tofana
• Cinque Torri
• Cristallo
• Mietres
• Falzarego-Lagazuoi

Cortina is mostly suited to intermediate-ability skiers and snowboarders; around two thirds of the terrain is suited to intermediates and almost another third to beginners. There is, however, still to be found some excellent terrain for advanced skiers and snowboarders. You are guaranteed to encounter long, linking, groomed trails, wide-open powder bowls and plenty of easy, Beginners’ areas.

Cortina is included in the world famous interconnected Dolomiti Superski Pass, covering over 1,200 kilometres of skiing and snowboarding terrain in the area.

Advanced skiers and snowboarders can make for the powder-filled cliffs and chutes of the Olimpia trail, which hosts a World Cup Downhill competition every year. The trail is very steep, fast, and tests fast turning ability in deep, powder snow. If it is breakneck GS turns that you are looking for, head for the Cristallo Area, on the steep Canalone Staunies trail.

Extreme skiing and snowboarding tours are available in Cortina, here professional guides will take snowriders to the best off-piste powder spots in the surrounding Dolomite mountain range. Local knowledge here is key. A word of warning: It is not wise to venture too far off-piste, by yourself; as there are some large cliff drops and crevasses in the area. Safety courses and equipment should be brought or hired if you are going to do this, and remember never to go off piste on your own where there are avalanche warnings.

Intermediate Skiing and Snowboarding at Cortina

Intermediate skiers and snowboarders really are spoilt for choice at Cortina. All six areas have long, linking groomed trails.

In the Falzarego-Lagazuoi area, the breathtaking nine kilometre groomed Armentarola trail winds its way down around the mountain, from the top of the Lagazuoi Cable Car. From the centre of Cortina Village, take the Faloria Cable Car for lots more long, wide, fast, groomed cruising trails, leading back down into the village.

Beginner Skiing and Snowboarding at Cortina

Beginner skiers and snowboarders learn on the wide gently sloping runs rising up from Cortina Village, graduating to some of the steeper, longer trails on the upper mountain areas.

Cortina has four Ski and Snowboard Schools and all of the will offer you a bilingual instructor. All these companies offer group, day-long and private lessons to all ages and at all ability levels. There is also a mountain guide company in Cortina, offering off-piste guided skiing and snowboarding tours.

Cortina Terrain Park and Halfpipe

The Cortina Terrain Park, in Faloria, has been added in recent years. Here you can jump on boxes, slide over rails, and hit some kickers. There is a good spread in the sizes of the jumps, and to cap it all off there is a competition-sized halfpipe which is in very good shape.

Other Activities at Cortina

Activities also worth checking out in and around Cortina are:

• tobogganing on the long pistes in the Mietres Area, which is always a hit for all ages
• snow rafting, using inflatables to bound down the slope
• snow shoeing, take a hike and get some spectacular views (some of which are not accessible to skiers)
• cross country skiing in the valley.

Off the slopes, you can go swimming in the public pool in the town. There is also a cinema, but the films tend to be in Italian. Or you could go explore the local museums or, get a beauty or massage treatment. Many of the local hotels have luxury spas attached to them. Our favourite was the Cristallo Hotel Spa & Golf course.

Cortina Shopping

The Corso Italia, the pedestrian-only main street in Cortina village is lined with shops stocking the latest ski and snowboard equipment and rental gear. There are also plenty of designer fashion boutiques, jewellery stores, antique stores, art and photography galleries, general, gift, and souvenir stores. Cortina has a wide range of well-stocked grocery markets, delicatessens, butchers, and wine stores.

Restaurants in Cortina

Cortina has numerous restaurants, catering for all tastes. Pizzerias and Italian trattorias tend to only serve traditional Italian cuisine. Watch your portion size as these places make enormous bowls of pasta or pizzas that will be falling off the plate. For coffee & breakfast, if you don’t get that at your hotel, you will be able to find plenty of small cafés offering everything from a espresso to a croissant. Our tip for Italian cafés is to order and drink it at the counter, sitting down will double the price ! Here are some highlights from Cortina

• Pizzeria al Passotto: Try their wood fired pizzas or their delicious homemade pasta, our favourite was the a’matriciana, which was to die for.
• Leone & Anna Restaurant: is well worth a trip. They are known for a more traditional menu. They serve Sardinian cuisine, with an emphasis on fish.
• To go up market , or to celebrate visit the Hotel Cortina. They offer four-course Italian and international menus, which can be polished off with some of their wine from their expansive cellars.
• Rio Gere Restaurant: family-owned and run. Uses local produce rustic Italian meals and interesting desserts, especially the ones with icecream.

Cortina Nightlife

The main street in Cortina village boasts many wine bars, which become very busy in the evening, around dinner time. After dinner, the trendy VIP Club in the Hotel Europa is renowned for its cocktails. The bar turns into a disco after midnight and remains open until the early hours of the morning. The Belvedere Club hosts top DJs throughout the season and, The Monkey Club in the Hotel Cristallo, has frequent theme nights, jazz nights and comedy nights.

Credits

This comes as a bit of a disappointment as Turin airport was well situated near the Italian / French Alps and was quite handy to get quickly to some of the major resorts. It’s proximinity to the France was also a bonus, resorts like Chamonix & Courchevel were about 2 hours transfer from the airport.

Skiing near Turin

The most famous area are the mountains of Piedmont, this was the location for the Winter Olymipics in 2006, so they must be doing something right. Piedmont features 53 ski resorts, the most famous resorts being Valle di Susa,Sestriere,Pragelato,Pragelato,Valsesia. In all there are 1,300 kilometres of runs available and well over 300 gondolas, chair-lifts and ski-lifts. Piedmont estimates that they can carry 400,000 people per hour. Piedmont is a top class skiing area, and it offers more than enough challenges for every level of skier. The prices on some of the smaller resorts are cheaper than skiing in France or Switzerland, so if you are looking for a cheap family ski holiday, then Piedmont might be the area you should look into.

9 resorts near Turin airport

If Turin isn’t an option, i.e. if you don’t plan on staying a whole week, from Sunday to Sunday, then Milan might be a viable alternative. Milan is marked in light blue on the map above. There are two airports in Milan, Bergamo (BGY) & Malpensa (MXP), and have significantly more flights in and out. Ryanair flies every day into Bergamo from Dublin & Aerlingus flies every other day (Monday, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday) to Malpensa but this will add about another 1.5 hours on to your transfer time. If you are considering flying to Milan, it might be worth checking our resorts like Andermatt , Flims or Laax, these resorts are about 3 hours outside Milan airport.

Over on the other side of the mountains is Grenoble, France (St Geoirs) (GNB) , which is situated very close to some great skiing. Right now Ryanair fly there on Saturday afternoons, and also might be worth checking into.

Leave your tips

If you have any recommended skiing resorts in this part of the world, i.e. in and around Turin or Milan, please let us know in the comments !

THURSDAY 4 AUGUST 2011

Inghams regret to announce that it has reluctantly decided to cease tour operations from Ireland with effect from winter 2011-12 and that its offices in Dublin will close on Friday, 19 August.

We are writing to the guests who are booked on our Ski 11/12 programme outlining the options open to them. Enquiries should be directed to 1850 92 90 21 (from ROI) or on +44 20 8780 4444.

Inghams will continue to operate its ski programme from Belfast and 20 other U.K. airports. For details go to www.inghams.co.uk

This seems to have come as a sudden decision, as some people have already booked with them for the 2012 season. They will have their UK operation so hopefully the people who have booked will be able to either go on the holidays or get their money back. They fly from Belfast International Airport to Innsbruck and Geneva and cover 44 resorts in 4 countries (France, Switzerland, Austria & Italy). I don’t know if this is a sign of the times for ski operators suffering with the down turn in the economy, of if there are other factors at work here. In the last 10 years the number of Irish people taking ski holidays had reached record proportions.

We’ve updated our list of Irish ski operators, sadly there are only 9 now. If you’ve been effected by this please let us know in the comments.

Tamsin was the first first Irish woman competitor at the Winter Olympics at Salt Lake City in 2002. While Kirsty has represented Ireland in Turin 2006 & Vancouver in 2010. Kirsty was unlucky to be disqualified in the Women’s slalom at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, when one of her skis was deamed too thick (source).

Paul in Kitzbuhel

We are a big fan of the skiing in Austria, in fact we took the train to Kitzbuhel earlier this year, so we know just how cool this resort is. Paul was there earlier this year, dressed in his cool red and blue snowboarding gear. With him for the week was his brother and his trusty GoPro Hero HD camera attached to a long pole.

GoPro & Ginger Based Jumper

Again we have one of those GoPro cameras, this time it’s attached the helmet of Neil Amonson. Neil’s known for his BASE jumping, but this time he’s only little more subdued zooming though the trees and buckets of powered snow. This cool 100 second clip has Neil eating some serious amounts of snow.

Has to be seen to be believed

This video is probably one of our all time favorites, mostly because of the sheer craziness of the whole thing. No further comments are really necessary, just click the video and watch it in fullscreen mode !

GoPro to the power X

If money is now object then you probably should consider this type of a setup for filming your skiing adventures. This video features Jamie Pierre with a ton of cameras filming himself jumping off cliffs and looks like lots and lots of fun.

You can find us on twitter under @irishskiing, and Paul Gilpin under @paulgilpin. Have a great weekend ! And if you have any videos to suggest please do let us know !

Irish Ski Operators

Here is a list of Irish ski companies (in no particular order). We recommend you compare the prices of these companies as a lot of money can be saved by shopping around.

• Highlife.ie
• Holidaysonline.ie
• Topflight.ie (twitter @Topflight_ie)
• SkiHolidays.ie
• BudgetSki.ie
• Inghams.ie : closed August 2011
• DirectSki.com (remember to change the currency from £ to €) (twitter @Directski_com)
• Activitybreaks.com
• Sunway.ie
• Crystalski.ie

If we are missing some skiing operators please let us know in the comments below.

Joining a group

No one wants to ski alone, but if none of your friends are into it then you might have a hard time finding someone to go with. In the past there have been a few threads on our forum from people looking for skiing buddies. One further option is to join in with a larger group. For example the Ski Club of Ireland organises a trip every year, granted it’s mostly skier, but everything will be organised for you. And there is the famous Today FM Breakfast show ski trip with Topflight, where everything is organised including evening & morning entertainment.

Ski holiday check list

When pricing your skiing holiday remember to find out what is and isn’t included in the price. Some operators include the cost of the ski passes, and rentals, full board (breakfast & dinner), ski lessons, airport transfers. While others take the more minimalist approach to things and just the accommodation is covered. Finding this out before you book can save you some unexpected costs when you get to the resort. And before you hit the slopes remember to read our 10 things you should pack for skiing and what to wear skiing.

Tilt Shift Video

Here is a tilt shift video from Jackson Hole resort. Watching this we feel like we are a giant, looking over the ski resort.

Because of the photo technique called tilt shift, we get the impression that the scenery is in a miniature setting. The video also has a stop motion effect going on, so it looks like the skiers are just little dolls being animated. It’s well worth a watch.

Urban Skiing in Finland

This is a video of some cool Finnish teenagers who are into Urban Skiing. We’ve linked to their 3rd video here, but the other two are available on their vimeo page. Here the perform some pretty cool skiing tricks, like running and jumping into their bindings to get their speed up. I guess it’s better than using polls ! The skiing -> skateboarding -> skiing trick is also one worth watching.

Have a nice weekend !

My first time snowboarding, I thought it would be a good idea to bring a big heavy wool jumper with me. My reasoning was that it’s bloody cold up there on the mountain. After about 15 minutes struggling on the slopes I was too warm and needed to shed the big sheep that was under my jacket. Not having a backpack, the only options were to throw away my jumper or tie it around my waist. As most snowboarders will know, your first few days are basically spent on your backside. My jumper was a frozen mess of ice and wool by the end of the day. The next time out I brought a backpack with me !

Here are are some of the backpacks we currently love. Two are full backpacks, and one is a hydration-pack, where you can put in a water bladder to get some cool water during your day skiing.

Metalhead Pack by Burton

The Metalhead Pack retails for about €55, and comes jam packed with features. We especially like the fact that there is padded pocket for your laptop. Not that you would take your laptop out on the slopes, but it’s handy to be able to store your laptop in the backpack when you are travelling to the resort. It also sports skate straps where you can strap your snowboard easily on your back when you are doing a bit of off piste trekking. The Metalhead Pack holds 28L and should have enough space for all you will need for a day on the slopes.

Women’s Borealis Backpack by The Northface

The Women’s Borealis Backpack is not just another backpack that comes in girlie colours. Rather it’s specifically designed for a women’s frame in mind. We like that it has an extra strap that goes around your waist to bring the back a little closer to your back. Further straps are available to compress the backpack in a little when the bag isn’t fully loaded. On the side it has a mesh pocket for keeping things like a water bottle easily on hand. It also features a laptop area, that can fit laptops up to 15″ and a pass through hole for your hydration packs. The Borealis Backpack retails for about €75, which is a little on the steep side. Knowing the quality of items that The Northface produce this is a backpack that will last you many years and is possibly worth that extra investment. The Borealis Backpack holds 27L.

XT Advance Skin 5 S lab set by Salomon

The XT Advance Skin 5 S lab is perfect for those that that all you know you will need with you is water & sunscreen. This product contains a “bladder” of 5 litres where you can bring water with you to keep you hydrated during the day. The backpack is insulated to keep the water from freezing while you are out carving up the slopes. We really loved the fact that this had plenty of little pockets for storing power bars or electronics. This backpack retails for about €125, and may be more a specialist item. Similar items retail for about 1/2 this price, but probably don’t have as many features. Check out the video below for a review of the XT Advance Skin 5 S lab.

So there you have a few ideas for backpacks. Do you wear a backpack for skiing ? What type to you have ? Are there any features that you particularly love or hate, let us know !

• Brixen im Thale
• Ellmau
• Going
• Hopfgarten-Kelchsau
• Itter
• Scheffau
• Soell
• Westendorf

View across Ski Welt

Recently Skiwelt – Wilderkaiser has been joined to Kitzbuhel / Kirchberg mountains via a gonadal in Westendorf.  To ski in both areas you will need to get a special lift ticket, named the “Kitzbuehler Alpen” pass. So if you are interested in skiing great distances, and every day a new area, then this is the resort for you. There are also busses (free with your ski pass) that will bring you between the different resorts.

Getting to Skiwelt by train

Skiwelt is reachable by train via Wörgl. The local train stops at Hopfgarten im Brixental Berglift, Westendorf in Tirol & Brixen im Thale. One further stop along the line, is Kirchberg, which will bring you as far as Kirchberg / Kitzbuhel. If you are looking to get to Söll (7km), Itter (5km), Ellmau (16.5km) you can get a taxi or a bus from Wörgl Süd-Bruckhäusl. So in essence you can get to Ski Welt rather cheaply from Innsbruck Airport (INN), Salzburg airport (SZG), Munich airport (MUC) & Memmingen (FMM) rather easily.
The advantage of taking the train is that the transfer cost is significantly lower, and travelling in large groups isn’t such an issue. For buying train tickets you can search on www.bahn.ie for trains starting / ending in Germany or www.oebb.at for Austrian trains. If you are travelling from Munich to Skiwelt, you can book your entire ticket on Bahn.ie. Train times should be around 2.5 hours from Salzburg & Munich, and slightly less for Innsbruck. Journey times: when taking the trains your journey time are similar enough to driving in a car, considering that traffic can cause delays during the weekend. So hiring a car could possible work, but it would certainly work out more expensive.

Travelling to Ski welt with the Bayern Ticket

If you are flying into Memmingen or Munich, you can get all the way to Kufstein on a special group ticket called the Bayernkarte (Baveria Ticket). This ticket is valid on the trains to get you to Munich city from the airports, and will bring you across the border to Austria. This ticket costs €29.00 for up to 5 people, you can purchase it here or at all train stations. To continue your travel from Kufstein to Westendorf in Tirol, it will cost you €7.20 one way (via OEBB.at). This means that you can get 5 people from either airport to Westendorf for €13 each. When you consider that a transfer would cost €80-€100 per person the savings here are considerable. Trains tend to run every hour or every 2 hours, so there are a number of connections per day that you could possibly take.

Sadly this is the information that ski companies or hotels won’t tell you, as they will often try to sell you their transfer products.

Flying from Ireland

There are direct flights from Dublin & Cork to Munich airport with Aer Lingus, and Ryanair flies into Memmingen (also called Munich West) & Salzburg from Dublin. There might be some other charter flights that fly into Innsbruck, which is an amazing airport to fly into, due to the fact that there are Alps on sides of the plane as you land.

Cheap Ski trip in Austria

So it’s possible to get to Ski welt rather easily and cheaply, and depending on the flight prices and times, you could use it as a destination for a cheap, short 2nd yearly ski trip. If you are flexible about your flight times, you could possibly spend a night or two in Munich or Salzburg and continue on to Ski Welt. For getting accommodation we recommend contacting the local tourism offices. They will provide you phone numbers and websites of local B&B’s (so called Pensions).

Do you have any tips for getting to ski resorts in Austria, Italy or France for reasonable prices ?