Ski and Snowboard – Vaping

E-cigarettes, otherwise known as vapes, have become increasingly popular. Many people believe that e-cigarettes are ‘less damaging’ for you than traditional cigarette smoking. With a rise in vaping by Australians, particularly among young people, it’s important to understand the long-term health risks. Visit vaprzon.

What is vaping?

Vaping is the act of using an e-cigarette, or ‘vape,’ which are lithium battery-powered devices that use cartridges filled with liquids, or ‘juice.’ The liquids typically contain nicotine, artificial flavourings, and various chemicals, some of which have been shown to be toxic. The liquid is heated into an aerosol, or vapour, and inhaled into the user’s lungs.

Some vapes are designed to look similar to tobacco cigarettes, cigars, and pipes, while others resemble everyday items, such as pens and USBs. Even though e-cigarettes do not contain tobacco many liquids still contain nicotine, which is highly addictive, as well as other chemicals. These chemicals can be toxic when they are inhaled. Some are included to add a fruit, alcohol, or confectionary flavour to the product. In a pioneering study, funded by Lung Foundation Australia, Minderoo Foundation and the Scottish Masonic Charitable Foundation WA, researchers at Curtin University tested the chemicals and toxicity of 52 flavoured e-liquids available for sale over the counter in Australia¹. The research unveiled a cocktail of chemicals which raise serious concerns about the safety of these products and their risks to the respiratory health of young people.Download the free pack

100%

of the e-liquids were inaccurately labelled.

100%

contained chemicals with unknown effects on respiratory health.

21%

contained nicotine despite this being illegal in Australia.

62%

contained chemicals likely to be toxic if vaped repeatedly.

Vaping in Australia

It is illegal to use, sell or buy nicotine for use in e-cigarettes to anyone in Australia without a prescription. With the exception of Western Australia, each state and territory permit the sale of vapes and e-cigarettes, but not the sale or purchase of liquid cartridges that contain nicotine. For this reason, many users purchase their products and liquid cartridges online. These products are often imported from overseas, meaning there is little control over how they are manufactured and what they contain.

Smoking cessation

In some cases, doctors can prescribe nicotine e-cigarettes as a means of weaning off tobacco use. There is little evidence that using this method is successful in achieving this outcome. From 1 October 2021, the Australian government introduced further restrictions to limit access to the use of nicotine e-cigarettes among adolescents and young adults. This included requiring a valid prescription to import nicotine e-cigarettes and liquids containing nicotine.

Vaping and young people

E-cigarettes can serve as a “gateway” to nicotine addiction and tobacco cigarette smoking. There have been many studies which found experimentation with e-cigarettes encouraged the use of tobacco cigarettes, particularly among young people. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, more than 1 in 5 (21.7%) young Australians aged 18-24 and 7.6% of 15-17 year olds have used an e-cigarette or vaping device at least. It’s likely that these figures are under-reported because responses were provided by an adult living in the same household.

Research of e-liquids available to purchase over the counter in Australia found 1 in 5 contain nicotine, among a concoction of other toxic chemicals – all had inaccurate labelling. With the inclusion of fruit, alcohol and confectionary flavours, e-cigarettes are designed to appeal to young people. Experts are concerned these products will create another generation of nicotine addiction and a rise in serious health issues including lung disease and cancer.

Lung Foundation Australia has developed a suite of resources to fill the knowledge gap around vaping and e-cigarettes. These resources are designed by and for young Australians, educators and parents and carers, to arm you with accurate and evidenced-based information.

21/12/202030/08/2022

Best Ski Resorts in Switzerland

Benefits of Skiing

For some, the first sign of snow means it is time to dig out the wool socks and blankets and go into hibernation. For others, though, it means time to wax those skis and hit the slopes! Skiing is an incredible sport that involves physical, mental, social and emotional aspects of wellness. Often times winter can bring people into a depression called Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.). Skiing combines the great outdoor air with physical activity and some sunshine exposure that many people forget about. Read more about exipure.

The physical aspect is obvious, however many individuals, especially those that have never skied before, may not realize how much brain power goes into the sport. Skiing is a proprioceptive activity. Proprioception is an aspect of fitness that is defined as one’s ability to feel the position of different body parts and the effort that goes into moving them. This is almost defines skiing because skiing involves quite a bit of balance and coordination. There are so many slight movements and positions of your body that you must be conscious of to ski well. The more you ski the more you strengthen your ability to be aware of the movement of your body parts. This is important because proprioception weakens with age so the more you are involved in proprioceptive activities the less it will diminish. Check these ikaria lean belly juice reviews.

Skiing prevents aging in more ways than that though. When you ski you carry the weight of your entire body on your feet. Your knees are the joints that endure that weight and must be able to move quickly despite it, so they are being strengthened when you ski. Great news for those that have been skiing for many years; you’ve been strengthening those joints and making an injury later in life less likely the whole time. In addition to strengthening your knees your bones become stronger as well because skiing is a weight bearing activity. So not only are you having a fantastic time gliding down the slopes, but you are preventing knee damage, osteoporosis and increasing your proprioceptive strength. Skiing is also a great way to get some moderate aerobic activity into your day. For most people, skiing is an all day event, so you can imagine the workout your heart is getting without you even becoming winded. This is how phenq works.

It is hardly necessary to mention the social aspect of skiing, but I will for that sake of those that have never been. Waking up at the crack of down to drive an hour or two to spend a day in the freezing cold may not seem appealing to a “winter hibernator.” Add a whole group of close friends that all share the same love for skiing, and you’ve got one heck of a good day. What is unique about skiing is that it brings together people of all different ages and cultures. All over the world if there are mountains and snow, there will be people skiing. So not only do you have a great group of people having a fantastic time; you’ve got a motivational team that encourages you to get off the couch in the winter and get your heart pumping all day! Try something new this winter instead of being miserable when the first snow falls. If you are already an avid skier, bring someone that isn’t and show them how much fun they are missing!

05/12/202006/12/2020

Best Swiss Winter Sports Hotels

Switzerland has some of the best winter sports hotels in the world. With Covid, however, many cantons have closed restaurants and bars except those associated with hotels, and these are only open for residents. Now is perhaps a good time to figure out where are some of the best places to stay with full restaurant and bar service and things to do off the slopes, given that there could be various restrictions yet to come.

Much as I haven’t eaten in many of the restaurants listed in my previous post, I haven’t stayed in enough hotels in Switzerland to tell you which are the best for winter sports from first hand experience.

However, as is the case with Gault & Millau when it comes to the rating restaurants with the best food in Switzerland, the influential Zurich newspaper, Tages-Anzeiger, annually surveys which are the best 3, 4 and 5 star hotels in Switzerland for winter sports visitors.

The resulting lists are behind a paywall, but I shared the lists from 10 years ago on my “Where to Stay” page at the Swiss Winter Sports web site. Last week the newspaper published their latest annual survey (now up from the top 15 in each category to the top 25) and here are some of the best value choices, based on two people sharing:

For 3 star hotels, the Revier Mountain Lodge (Swiss Lodge) in both Adelboden and Lenzerheide are an impressively affordable at SFr 99 per person per night, although breakfast is an extra SFr 18 and dinner is not included. 3 star hotels offering full board at less than SFr 200 per person per night include the #1 pick Spitzhorn in Saanen (Gstaad), Sporthotel in Pontresina, Kernen in Schönried (Gstaad), Spescha in Lenzerheide and Des Alpes in Flims.

Amongst highly ranked 4 star hotels, there are some that come in cheaper than many 3 star establishments, notably the Ameron Swiss Mountain Hotel in Davos, at SFr 170, followed by the Radisson Blu Hotel Reussen in Andermatt at SFr 190, both full board.

The Gstaad Palace dominates the village of Gstaad.

Prices ratchet up quite a bit for the 5 star hotels. However the Lenkerhof Gourmet Spa Resort in Lenk, the Chalet Royalp Hotel & Spa in Villars, the Capra Saas-Fee and the Cervo Zermatt, appear to offer full board mid-season for less than SFr 400 per person per night. The famous Badrutt’s Palace seemed to offer the lowest prices in St Moritz at SFr 495 per night. Gstaad‘s top hotels were even more expensive, but there are options on a lesser budget in both St Moritz and Gstaad.

Schönried gives good access to the best slopes of Gstaad Mountain Rides.

The prices I quoted are taken from Tages-Anzeiger. I did a spot check and they seemed to be broadly correct, but do check at the hotel itself, the Swiss Tourist Board, Bookings.com, TripAdvisor or some other aggregator. Given the Covid situation, you might find some bargains are to be had – I certainly have so far this season.

You may well ask what the different star ratings represent and how durable the Tages-Anzeiger ranking system is by comparing the list of ten years ago with the latest.

Not surprisingly, it was Switzerland who first introduced an independent hotel classification in 1979. In 2010 this became the European Hotelstars .Union, and its classification has been adopted by most Alpine hotels (but not those in France). The full list of criteria is here. However you might want to know what the minimum criteria would be for a hotel selected by Tages-Anzeiger (i.e. three stars):

Reception opened 14 hours, accessible by phone 24 hours from inside and outside, bilingual staff
Lounge suite at the reception, luggage service on demand
Beverage offer in the room
Telephone in the room
hair-dryer, cleansing tissue
Dressing mirror, adequate place or rack to put the luggage/suitcase
Sewing kit, shoe polish utensils, laundry and ironing service
Additional pillow and additional blanket on demand
Systematic complaint management system

For many people a one star hotel will offer everything they want, such as half-board, TV, ensuite bathroom, daily room cleaning and towels. Indeed, I would happily recommend most hostels and many no star hotels in Switzerland to skiers and snowboarders based on my own experience. On the whole Switzerland is an orderly, clean and safe country and I have found even the most basic hostel in the country better than the best hostel I have stayed in elsewhere. Hostels usually offer full board, provide a bar service and have a range of accommodation, – from dormitories to en-suite. Indeed, normally you might prefer a ski-in, ski-out hostel to luxury accommodation where you would need a hotel transfer to get to the slopes. However many of the budget hotels do not offer a dinner or bar service at this time, and many hostels will not be offering shared accommodation any time soon.

It is difficult maintaining a web site dedicated to Swiss winter sports when it is impossible to visit every resort, hotel and restaurant every year and anecdotal information can be inconsistent, so it is useful to have independent input. One question, however, is whether the information is largely consistent from one year to the next and not faddish like many sources. I also wondered whether it is true that the most highly rated establishments tend to maintain more consistent standards over time. If I am right, the best Swiss winter sports hotels in Tages-Anzeiger will have changed less amongst 5 star than 4 and 3 star hotels, comparing 2010 to 2020 and 2020 to last year. Let’s see how it goes.

Well, all but two of the 15 top 5 star hotels in 2010 are in in the top 25 for 2020. The two that have dropped out have been rebranded and appear to be under new ownership, and the two that snuck in to replace them were ranked 23rd and 24th. The ones that dropped out still get good reviews online, but clearly are rebuilding their reputations. The top 10 are the same as last year, with some small differences in ranking. Interestingly, the W in Verbier, which the Telegraph rated 9/10, does not make the top 25 – which may be because the Tages-Anzeiger list addresses Swiss rather than UK tastes.

When it comes to 4 star hotels, only 7 that were in the top 15 are still in the top 15, 10 years later. All the others had dropped out of top 25 altogether. There have been some changes of ownership, but the list for 2020 has a different feel. However only 2 have dropped out from the top 10 of last year, to 14 and 15th places. There are 4 new entrants from last year, 2 of which made it straight into the top 15.

For the 3 star hotels, 6 have retained a place in the top 15, and 9 in the top 25. Only 1 has dropped out of the top 10, down to 16th. There were 5 new entrants, none higher than 17th place.

So it is not very scientific, but it does look like 5 star hotels have more durability than 4 or 3 star hotels but no real difference between 3 and 4 star hotels in terms of durability of reputation.

22/11/202022/11/2020

Early Season Skiing at Verbier and Crans-Montana

November skiing in the Alps is inevitably limited to some of the highest slopes. Few resorts open before the end of November but I’ve been lucky enough to check out four so far: Zermatt, Verbier, Saas-Fee and, most recently, Crans-Montana.

One shouldn’t expect too much of early season skiing, but I was impressed with the amount of terrain open at Saas-Fee and Zermatt, certainly enough for a day trip. They are also open throughout the week whereas Verbier and Crans-Montana are only open at the weekend. The bigger disappointment was that the most recent Covid-19 lockdown has resulted in the closure of the mountain restaurants (fair enough) and the removal of all the terrace seating (which seems a bit extreme). This is tolerable for a day trip, but would put me off a longer stay ahead of the planned re-opening of the mountain restaurants in Valais in December.

In November Verbier and Crans-Montana offer much more limited skiing opportunities than either Zermatt or Saas-Fee – in effect just two short runs. Crans-Montana was more limited than Verbier, but not by much. In this photograph you can see both the beginning and the end of the runs – really two legs of a single red run – at the start of the notorious black Kandahar (which had a fatality last year when an avalanche swept across the piste):

The only area open for off-piste skiing in Crans-Montana in November.

On a positive note, however, the lift system operated convincing Covid-19 safety provisions. This is largely a feature of the fact that you need only two gondolas to get to Plaine Morte from Barzettes via les Violettes, the first of which you can realistically use as your personal carriage, the second of which allowed for a degree of social distancing because of the relatively small number of skiers using it.

Whereas Verbier offers a longer run and a chairlift to use it, there were no queues for the t-bar on Plaine Morte and the piste was sunnier and less crowded. Unfortunately the lift stops operating at 1pm, so you need to get to the resort early if you want to get in a couple of dozen runs. The shorter day is reflected in the lower price of the lift pass, SFr 22 – Verbier, Zermatt and Saas-Fee were charging significantly more. Incidentally both Saas-Fee and Crans-Montana are part of the amazing Magic Pass system.

View of the Pennine Alps from near the summit of pointe de la Plaine Morte.

Although I refer to the Crans-Montana ski area as Plaine Morte (literally ‘dead plain’, read it how you like), the glacier de la Plaine Morte is actually below the pistes, which run down from the top station at pointe de la Plaine Morte. The glacier area itself is very popular with cross-country skiers and a fair number of people coming up to ski were cross-country skiers.

Many lower pistes were being prepared ahead of the full opening of the resort. Sadly the resort has opted to use snow cannon to build up a base, not the best environmental choice. More snow is needed for the runs without cannons, but it is forecast to snow in the first week of December.

With it south facing views across the Pennine Alps, excellent mountain restaurants (when they re-open) and its lovely cruisy runs, French-speaking Crans-Montana is a really great snowsports resort. It has a good range of amenities and distractions throughout the year and the Sierre locality of Valais has the reputation of being the sunniest part of Switzerland, with 300 days of sunshine annually. The main complaint, as is even more true of the beautiful, remote Val d’Anniviers the other side of Sierre across the Rhône valley, is that the public transport is limited and the roads can get busy. There is a direct bus, the 421, from Sierre/Siders railway station which snakes around the resorts about once per hour, taking about 40 minutes to get to the “Crans-sur-Sierre, téléphérique” stop and just under an hour to get to the higher base station at “Montana, Barzettes”. There is also a more frequent and faster funicular from elegant Sierre, but sadly the terminus is not convenient for any base stations so you need to take the 421 or the seasonal, free Navette to get to the slopes.