Top 50 Ski & Snowboard Resorts in Europe 2006: Amazon.co.uk: Pat Sharples, Vanessa Webb: Books

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Book Description

This brand new guide is guaranteed to help you find your perfect resort. It contains the most up-to-date information on each resort including the pistes, off-piste/backcountry, parks, nightlife, hotels and restaurants. The authors travelled round each of the best resorts in Europe last season to make sure that all the information is accurate and so that they could objectively compare the resorts.

Pat Sharples is a professional skier, head of the British Freeski Camps and Oakley Ski Team Manager. Vanessa Webb is a travel writer and photographer.

No passionate skier or snowboarder should be without a copy of this book.

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4 Reviews

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4.2 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)

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21 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Well-Produced but Lacking Content, Quality Photos &Insights, 7 Dec 2005

By	C. Carberry (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Essentially, this book feels like it was written by some guys who had 2 months and a digital camera to tour the Alps -- but ran out of cash and drank to much booze to finish the project. It's more of a travel diary than a knowledgeable guide book. I thought it was a waste of my money. Big time!

However, I need to give solid reasons why I dislike this book so much.

1. Resort Descriptions. Too short. Too stereotypical.
Only 1-2 paragraphs are used to describe a resort (lifts, pistes, mountains, snowfall, weather). This provides no information. There are very few insights and lots of stereotypes. You already know what they are going to say about some resorts: Courchevel 1850 - rich. Chamonix - good off-piste. Cortina - well-dressed Italians. La Grave - rugged. Zermatt - the Matterhorn is pretty.

2. Questionable Expert Knowledge.
It was obvious the authors were visiting many of the resorts for the first time and for very short periods.

For example, they spent ONE day at La Grave and did maybe 2 runs. They want to return. Glad you had a good time guys, but can you tell me something about La Grave? Please?

Val Thorens review seemed to be cut short because there was no snow when they went there. Sucks for us readers. No snow = no report. Well, just a short report. The pictures look really rocky at Val Thorens. Glad they did not ruin their skis/boards trying to do research.

3. Repeated Resorts.
The title is Top 50 Ski Resorts. However, what if you only had time and money to visit 47 places? You simply stretch them into 50 resorts. For example: How many would count Courchevel 1850, Courchevel 1650 and La Tania as 3 very different places? No one. They are all part of Courchevel. Why do they do this? Because one of the author's family owns a place in Courchevel 1650.
Some very popular places like Megeve, Murren, St. Moritz and Alp d'Huez are left out of the book - instead to focus on 3 different bases for the larger resort of Courchevel. Ridiculous.

4. Repeated Photos.
The same picture of Tignes resort is used over and over again -- almost 3-to-4 times in the Tignes review in the space of 4-5 pages. Same photo on every page. What is going on here? The photo is not just repeated...it is triplicated? Bizarre - who edited this book? I was in disbelief.

5. Poor Quality Photos.
Some very poor quality, grainy photos. Bad camera resolution. Also, they took a lot of photos on cloudy/stormy days with a lot of flat light. They also took the camera out drunk at bars and included random pics in dark clubs. Weird.

6. Sometimes a Map/Sometimes Not.
Sometimes they included a map of the resort -- most often they did not. What happened? Maybe they lost some piste maps on the way home? I'm paying good money for you to include the maps.

7. Advertising.
There are ads in the book. Kind of like infomercials masked as product reviews. I think ad execs from Salomon, Atomic, etc wrote these parts.

What did I like about the book?
1. Glossy Production.
It looks nice. Like a coffee table book. But the photos inside are not as good as the front/back covers.

2. Author's voice.
I liked that this was not some snotty old fart writing about his holidays in the Alps. However, there was not enough substance there. I can get to Snowheads.com and get better and free advice.

Maybe "Top 50 Ski & Snowboard Resorts" will get better...but I just do not know how it improves without some major work. New photos are needed. Better information included.

I was legitimately upset that I wasted my money on this book. Instead, I really liked "Where to Ski and Snowboard 2006". This book includes maps, real insights about the resorts and lengthy descriptions. There are some other ski books that are good/OK - like Ski/Snowboard Europe or The Good Book of Skiing.

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2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A chalet in the mountains !, 28 April 2006

By	Ira Bowyer "JJ @ alpine-xtreme.com" (France) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have had this book in my chalet since the beginning of the season on the coffee table and everyone who has read it has loved it..

given that it is the first time Pat and Vanessa have published it,I think it will get better and better..

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1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The top 50 ski and snowboard resorts in europe, 30 Dec 2005

By	"crashanddance" - See all my reviews

My friends and myself thought this was a great buy! It has really helped us decided on our resort for this winter. I have used other ski and snowdoard guides in the past and this is by far the best!
Why? This book has some amazing picture's and lets you know all about the latest hot equipment and top resort with loads of info you will not find anywhere eles.

The authors seem to know there stuff and also give information for the younger generation that alot of other guides do not.

This is the first travel guide ive read that lets you know about all the major competions in Europe.

If you are in your 20, 30 or 40,s and you love your snowboarding and skiing and need help finding your best resort, this book is for you!

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5.0 out of 5 stars The top 50 ski and snowboard resorts in europe
My friends and myself thought this book was a great buy! It really helped us decide on our resort for this winter.

Why? Read more

Published on 30 Dec 2005 by crashanddance

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