Freeride

Do you guys know of anywhere in Europe we are unrestricted, meaning we can ride anywhere and not just on the rodelbahn/schlittelweg? I mean both on and off piste. There are times, of course, that we share the piste but I’m thinking a little more adventurous than that. Coming from the US it can be hard to tell sometimes what the rules are or, more accurately, which ones somebody with authority actually cares about and would stop me. Sometimes it feels like we can do something it just nobody has thought of it yet. Generally speaking, you’re allowed to do crazy stuff in Europe but I saw some slopes I wanted to ride and could not.

A few days ago, we talked one of our local mountains into letting us on one lift for an afternoon (still negotiating our future); a HUGE leap forward for us and super fun. It’s kind of hard to explain, because you guys have legal sledding, but I’ve only ever sledded any resort here by going at midnight, wearing all black, hiding in the woods from the groomers, and flying down in the darkness, so I was super nervous. I didn’t film (should have) because I had so much else to deal with and didn’t want anything to go bad. Anyway, I was able to ride some medium-steep piste at length, which I’ve never really done before. It was pretty awesome to not be locked into a narrow track, hit sweeping turns down steeper faces and feathering the drift at high speed. There’s definitely a different technique to perfect.

In case we have American lurkers, now or in the future, here is the deal:
Most resorts that allow snowbikes (or snow-gos) use the same four rules: Must have at least two skis; Must have metal edges; Must have only one seat; Must have retention device. We have Lindauer sleds with ski runners so simply took the angle that it’s a “recumbent ski bike”. We got lucky in a few aspects, are not in for good yet, but this is your best chance.

Hi Singer, in Italy is quite common to have dinner in a hutte on the ski slopes,going up with gondola or with snow cat and then coming down with own sled from ski slopes, in the night. of course blue, maximum easy red slopes.
I was talking about this with a friend of mine that is working on the slopes on snow cat in the resort close to my home. With this habit the problem is that they can setup slopes not immediatley after the closing of the day, but they had to wait 1 or 2 am after midnight. In t his way slopes dont' have enough time to become hard in the night and the day after are early destroied by skiers. 
Additional possibility is going up to hutte in the mountain, walking as suggeste you Luchs some weeks ago, and go down sledding. There are no specific restrictions except normal human reponsability taking care about pedestrain and other users. Sometimes, but not frequenlty you can meet snowbikes or ski alpine riders. but they go up early in the morning and when they are skiing down are not a problem for sleld riders.
I don't know if I understood correctly your question. I don't know what happen if you walkfup in the night in a ski resort and you come down in the ski slopes, of of course after snowcats finished their job. probably nobody will tell you anything but of course is little bit dangerous.
 

Or, if you mean a track, 60/70 meter wide, like a ski track, but allowed to sleds, in all Dolomiti super ski area this is not existing.

Ich glaube dass was Uta meint ist  " es wäre schön wenn man in den USA und anderswo die Ski Pisten mit Rodel befahren werden dürften. 
  Das darf man aber nicht weil man in den USA den steuerbaren Rodel nicht kennt und  für normale Schlitten die Pisten nicht zugelassen sind .

Die einzigen Streckenteile wo die ich kenne , wo man  breite ! Pisten mit Rodeln befahren darf ist 200m Rotenflueh Schwyz
1000m FisLadis
1500m Serfaus
1000m Nauders

Aber ausgenommen  auf leerer Piste das Carven, fand ich selbst das teilen der Piste als eher unangenehm. Skifahrer und Snowboarder neigen immer dazu genau vor mir einen Schwung einzulegen . Oft völllig unvorhersehbar in meine Richtung. Rodler sind da einfach zu schwerfällig  als dass ich jetz dauerhaft blaue /rote pisten runter möchte .
Es sei den..man würde das Ski fahren endlich verbieten


 

Es sei den..man würde das Ski fahren endlich verbieten

hahaha If we still want to go up using gondola or lisfts we need ski still surviving.

I think that, if there is enough request from sled riders to have a dedicated ski slope for sledding, this is not a big problem.
In the same way, along the last 15 years, more and more space has been reserved to snowboarders park.
Inside the skiresort where I can find my favorite rodelbahn, there is a ski slope tthat can be easily reserved to sledgers:

 

It is a blue slope that starts exactly from the begining of the rodelbahn and goes down parallel to rodelbahn.
it would be perfetc. But, how many will use it? Nobody for sure. How many good sled riders do you meet along rodelbahnen except beginners with rental redeln?
Also, if rental users are going down from there without any capability on driving the sled, and without breaks on feet, they will reach for sure a high speed and they will kill themselves against a tree.
probably we can try to a ask to reserve  this slope to director of the ski area. I know him, and hi is a Fan about sledding. He trusted a lot on the sled track. He built the track using a GPS connecting peaces of mountain roads togheter obtaining a super demandiing track full of curves for any kind of ray.
I'm almost sure that, if we move there  20 sled riders, probably I can convince him to reserve us this slope for half day, but then? it will be just a one time experiment. After, nobody else will be interested on it.
For us woulld be for sure a funny day. Also because this slope has a permanent parallel giant slalom section, and would be interesting try to do with the sled.
If all of  you are interested, net season we can try. And who knows, it is possible that from there will stat a new age. But I don't think so. 
 

FedeC_ITA schrieb:

Also, if rental users are going down from there without any capability on driving the sled, and without breaks on feet, they will reach for sure a high speed and they will kill themselves against a tree.




 

They will also kill a lot of skiers.

It is interesting that in Germany there are two ski-areas, that closed the ski-slopes and kept the rodelbahn:
www.wallbergbahn.de/winter/
www.hornbahn-hindelang.de/winter/rodelbahn-allgaeu.html

As natural snow was often not enough on these areas, it became too expansive to prepare the slopes. 
But to keep the cable cars running in winter, they concentrated on the sled-runs, Hindelang has 3 of them.
And it seems to work.

If someone really needs to sled on ski-slopes, there is in the Montafon Valley, that turns into a rodelbahn at night:
touren.montafon.at/de/tour/rodeln/nachtr...-geoeffnet-/8422984/

I think, the "nachtrodelbahn Ischgl" also uses some daytime-ski slopes. 
www.ischgl.com/de/Active/Active-Winter/S...DEAAYASAAEgJx5fD_BwE

But probably this is more about drinking at the hut and having fun.


Speikboden and Wildkogel are rodelbahn and skislope all of the time.
But of course they are not very steep, as even a modern rodel is not well suited to steep ski slopes.

I think, it has also to do with environmental protection rules here in Europe. For example: It is not allowed / not welcome (I think, it is in the middle of that) to leave the paths at hiking in the alpine area, because by doing so, you would destroy the sensitive flora and disturb the animals in this area.

In Österreich ist das schon gesetzlich eindeutig geregelt, da gibt es keine Graubereiche in the middle.

Im unverbauten Bergland kann man sich völlig frei bewegen, auch abseits von Wegen.
In jagdlichen Sperrgebieten und Wildruhezonen muss man auf den Strassen und Wegen bleiben, die der allgemeinen Benützung dienen. Das sind zB. Forststrassen, markierte oder ausgewiesene Wanderwege, Langlaufloipen, Skiabfahrten und Skitourenrouten.

Some good information, thanks so much. I’m with Udo: skiers and snowboarders move a bit slow and wobbly, we do currently need their money though. Interesting info, Luchs, just what I needed.

We did it! We got our local resort (Brighton) to cut us loose for the rest of the year. It’s been crazy fun. Moguls, jumps, 90kmh, carving the whole mountain, etc. I’m aiming to hit the the terrain park and GS course today. I feel a little shy around all the young cool kids who are still standing on skis but we are getting a hilarious range of positive reactions from people.

I’ll post some more video soon, but here’s a teaser:

youtube.com/watch?v=8wam8h7robU&feature=share

Excellent video Schneiz! Still carved really well and looks to handle bumps better. Have you ridden powder with it? Are those snowboards? Are you able to ride free like this in other places?

We are still getting snow here in Utah and have another week at the resort. It has been so cool having free reign. Praying we keep this extraordinary privilege.

That looks too good to be true.

I could imagine that on some of our slopes, but i´m pretty sure it will never happen.

 

"FREE-Ride & Carving" - THANKS  
Excellent stuff - just what I like as well
(But  - regretfully  -  is rather rare here in Europe ...!!) 1)

Regards
Urs


1) Sorry - it's only in German...
Rodeln im „Süd-Osten“  ? - Rodel Forum (rodelfuehrer.de)

Interesting comments, thank you, urs. Being denied the CARVE is criminal. We are really trying to steer the introduction of rodeling here toward sport, and total slope freedom, and away from the schlitten/weekend renter types. Trying to be on our best behavior but still cut it up…

 

UtahRodel,

that looks really good. So you have your track in America too.
I hope, they don't ban you from the track in the future.

Regards
Robert

Thank you
UthaRodel

Yes those are Snowboards
I can't tell much about it because this was my second ride
 
​​​​​​Our Season is over now
I hope i can tell you more next Year