Pyrenees Steep Skiing TR (from the old Epicski forum)

[jamesdeluxe]

Here's an Epicski report from April 2017 at Barèges-La Mongie here. An American hardcore and his wife were earning turns on what he describes as Chamonix-level steeps. Even more impressive is that he was 68 years old at the time -- hiking up and skiing down some DFU terrain.

 

[tseeb]

Rod9301 is still active on SkiTalk although I did not see any recent trips reports. He had a hip replacement, was mountain biking 7 weeks later and he and others recommend not waiting to replace hip or knee if needed. He also posted "If you don't fall, skiing really steep stuff is pretty easy on your body, no reason you can't do it in your 80s."

 

[Tony Crocker]

James, are you just randomly grazing the EpicSki archives and clicking through to threads that interest you? I see no mechanism to search a topic or keyword in those archives.

"If you don't fall, skiing really steep stuff is pretty easy on your body, no reason you can't do it in your 80s."

It's not just your body, it's your cardio. Hop turns in steep confined spaces run your heart rate up fast, especially multiple linked turns. And it's not enjoyable if you have to stop and rest after every 2-3 turns. There's also the factor that if your lowered maximum heart rate results in you not executing one of those turns properly, the consequences are high. Several years ago I posted that my most extreme runs were skied at ages 46,48,55,61,62,62. With excellent conditions and based on how I was skiing those seasons, I probably could have skied those runs at age 65 and 66 as well. But I had a slow conditioning start to the age 68 season and the max heart rate issue was evident in the age 70 season. It's clearly evident now that the upper limit of terrain I should be skiing is not what it was through age 66. Reflexes and balance also decline gradually with age and both are key to not making mistakes in consequential terrain.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

James, are you just randomly grazing the EpicSki archives and clicking through to threads that interest you? I see no mechanism to search a topic or keyword in those archives.

Yes, grazing appears to be the only way to go because, as you note, you can't search via the https://web.archive.org/ interface. I also tried to locate the same Pyrenees couloirs thread through Google and no dice. Going through 70 pages of Epic trip reports one by one isn't very efficient; however, we should be grateful that you can access content from long-dead forums with virtually everything (photos, youtube links, etc.) intact.

That said; if you can find the URL of the thread (for example in old emails), you just plug it in the search box and the Wayback Machine generates the archived content. I've been using it that way for years to access deceased websites; it never occurred to me to use it for dead forums.

Separately, it's impressive how quickly AI finds things and provides an accurate summary, like my original post up top:

 

[jamesdeluxe]

not executing one of those turns properly, the consequences are high

This guy making it down 3,000 verts solo, predominantly on concrete. Just listening to the audio makes me cringe.

 

[tseeb]

Note that the quote in previous post that @Tony Crocker attributes to me was from post by Rod2301. I edited my post and put what I quoted in italics and tried to match the color of the link to make that clearer.

Sorry for getting so off-topic, but I will eventually mention Spain.
As I approach 70, I have not slowed down much but need to learn to avoid the one? hard crash each season that I've suffered in most recent years. When I hiked Highlands Peak in March this year, I took breaks when I saw heart rate on Garmin watch my son gave me for Christmas was getting over 130. (Note that American Heart Assoc. says Maximum Heart Rate is 220 minus your age. AHA also says recommended training heart rate zone is 50-85% of max - for 60 years old is 80-136, for 65 is 78-132 and for 70 is 75-128.)

My wife and I have taken advantage of mild weather during most of the 2nd half of July in our usually very warm part of the SF Bay Area. My phone says I increased my miles walking from 3.6 per day in previous 17 days to 5.8 miles in the last 11 days. We want to work up to at least two consecutive days of 10 miles as in less than two months we will be doing 75+ miles in 6 days on a supported luxury Camino de Santiago tour from Baiona, Spain to Santiago de Compostela, where our last and longest day will be 16 miles.

Last Thursday, we parked inside the gate to my family's ranch and walked 5.25 miles with two 400' climbs. I carried a pruning saw as there was a tree down on edge of road requiring vehicles to go a little off road to get around it. 3-4 cuts of 2-3" diameter oak branches and it was gone.

Then about a half-mile down the road I found fallen branches totally blocking road.

In 20 minutes, I was able to clear enough that a vehicle could get through. I had to cut one limb that was 8-10" diameter and another that may have been 12" using pruning saw. When I took a break sawing and checked, I saw my heart rate was over 140. And even though temps were in the low-mid 70s, I jumped into water where we dam up creek every Spring not too far away to cool off.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

I know so little about the Pyrenees -- had no idea that the range was such a touring mecca. Here's the page for just the ones around Grand Tourmalet. If only I had the fitness and skills to try them.