 Poster: A snowHead
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The London Evening Standard todays reports that British skiers are being warned that they face stiff penalties if caught on the slopes under the influence of alcohol on european resorts.
As a result, breathalysers and speed cameras are likely to be introduced in Italy, Austria and France ( well we can all then go to Switzerland!! ). On the spot fines are being considered and the local authorites may face harsh penalties if they fail to enforce the penalty procedures.
An Italian official says that 11 skiers and boarders were fined in Trentino this season. It reports that an Italian insurance company says that the numbers of accidents last year were " like the casaulty figures from a small war " with 13,252 injuries and 17 deaths.
Regulations to make Italian ski slopes safer come into force next January and local authorities will be fined £140,000 for failing to enforce the rules.
Children under 14 must wear crash helments or face a £100 fine, and off-piste skiers must carry a " personal beacon "in case they get lost. A " priority from the right " rule will also be introduced.
In Austria ( where I am going at the end of this month ) it is reported that 30 people have been killed this year and resorts there are employing piste police. So I must keep my speed down!!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I have th efeeling that this story is doing the chinese whispers rounds with each telling it gets more elaborate 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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I heard they're putting snipers up in the mountains and picking off anyone who spends more than 30 minutes in a mountain bar! 
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The French in particular are famous for legislating masses of rules & regs into existence which everyone promptly ignores or circumvents, not least the law enforcers themselves...
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Last year the Carabinieri raided a mountain hut, with full support of helicopters,
snowmobiles, Alpini (the Army mountaoin troops) armed with heavy machine guns, bazookas, 105mm mountain howitzers...
All Birts found there were executed on the spot. 
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PG Since we are distant cousins of the French, our governements tend to do the same. Every time I leave house in the morning I break some law, unknowingly but sure as hell.
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DGO is right. The BBC initially ran this story, the Times hyped it up, and the Evening Standard didn't bother to corroborate the Times's 'facts'.
Cut 'n paste 'journalism'.
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PM (Radio 4) had Carol "journalist and keen skier" Thatcher on this one last night.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Matteo, quite agree with the Birts being executed, did they start with John?
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Back to the original topic, anyone reckon the following quote from the same article is accurate??
"French tourism workers say Britons are notorious. Serve Gau, a restaurant manager at Courchevel, said: "I would say the English put away twice the amount [of alcohol] as the French or Spaniards." 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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I'd be interested to see the comparison with the Dutch and the Germans...
(neat smiley, PG, seems to sum it the situation up exactly)
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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One thing I have noticed is that whilst individual Brit skiers or family groups may have the odd beer or wine at lunch Brits in work type groups tend to put back a lot more so possibly there is something to what is being said.
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I suggest the breathalyzers first be applied to ski instructors. God knows I love the guys at ESF, and have the repeat customer status to prove it, but an alarming number of them reek of alcohol (esp. in an afternoon class).
I always figured this was a French curmudgeon phenom but then this weekend my Austrian ski instructor (young, definitely not curmudgeon material for several decades) showed up one morning reeking of (the previous night's?) alcohol.
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You know it makes sense.
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| Joseph wrote: |
It reports that an Italian insurance company says that the numbers of accidents last year were " like the casaulty figures from a small war " with 13,252 injuries and 17 deaths.
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This report fails to mention the numbers of casualties for previous years or the total number of skiers. Niigata (Japan) had 9million skiers 2003. USA quotes 13million for same year. I can't find a figure for Italy. The number of injuries and deaths may well be rising, but are they rising faster than the number or skier-days? Scarey stories make news, but are these resorts worried about the skiers or is it fear of litigation that is prompting these breathalyszers, speed cameras and piste-police?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Cee Bee, Last few years I used to have lunch with the ESF instructors at Orcières Merlette every Wednesday in their adopted restaurant "l'Ourson". (Highly recommended... at lunch they only have two main dishes - a plat du jour or entrecôte frites salade. Simple fare, cheap, but always delicious!)
About half didn't drink any alcohol at all, most of the others would have no more than a glass or two of red. There was always a couple of ancient montagnards with beetroot faces who would knock it back though. (They were usually only let loose on the nursery slope beginners, I noticed. Reckon they were pretty harmless as a result.)
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Poster: A snowHead
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PG, c'est bien cela, beetroot faces. Still fantastic skiers however and even hammered I'm sure less of a menace on the slopes than yours truly perfectly sober.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Watching them, always had the impression that only an earthquake or a heart attack would make them fall over. By the look of them, they were in considerably more danger of the latter....
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You should see the guy doing the parapenting in Serre Ratier in Serre Che It put me off doing it - the man looked as though he already had one foot in La Grave!
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I've got one that will put you off that sport for life, a few years ago during the summer a group of those crazy people were jumping over at murren, unfortunately one had a problem with his chute and plumeted 4000+ ft to the lauterbrunnen vally floor, doubly unfortunately his radio was on all the way down, do you think his friends were a little shocked  ?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I was thinking of giving it a go too, this season. Used to be into parachute jumping in another life - static cord though, never did it enough during the season to progress to free fall. Even those first couple of seconds before the chute releases is an amazing feeling....
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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PG last summer they were jumping from the top of the Eiger and seeing how far they could glide with those wingsuit things, I know this because I was talking with a couple of them on their way back up by train, they'd got to between Alpiglen and Brandegg stations and were going to try to get all the way down to Grund, apparently there was a change in slope just beyond were they were getting to and they felt if they could get beyond that it would allow them to go all the way down.
Mind you they said they were opening their chutes at about 100M or less from the ground .. scary stuff
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I've been paragliding - great fun, but wouldn't want to risk anything that involved having to open a chute anywhere near the ground.
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You have to complete a few static line jumps first before they let you do freefall - and what's more, as a learner you are 'marked' for various things during the descent.... correct spreadeagled position, listening to the trainer on the ground, following his instructions. And you do have a spare chute, 'just in case'. So all in all, it's probably safer than skiing!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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All well and good PG but as a skier I am at least closer to the ground for most of my trip down the mountain.
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Oh and I've just remembered another one, a friend of mine used to parachute, unfortunately one of the ladies in his group came down one day at Bournemouth airport, unfortunately landing right in the rotating blades of a helicopter about to take off, my friend has never jumped since, the accident made the news and everything, very messy
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Bet the injury per jump is a fraction of the injury per skier day though!
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Could be but I wonder what the fatality rate per accident is ?
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Dreadful. Really unlucky if she was a beginner, they usually make you jump from low altitude, with barely any wind, over grass, in theory little can go wrong. The closest I came to disaster was on my first jump when I had to climb out onto the wing of this 'aircraft' (first time I'd been in anything smaller than a BAC 111), hanging on to a strut, facing the wind, and wait for the 'JUMP' instruction. I was that close to throwing up, with a 100mph+ wind in my face, could have been a real disaster 
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You know it makes sense.
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PG wasn't her first jump but apparently there was a sudden shift in wind direction, it was the person in the helicopters fist ever lesson though, can you imagine the shock of that, one minuite everything going smothly the next blood all over the windows, must have thought they were in a horror movie or something and no I don't know if they ever took another lesson
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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I am a keen skydiver having done almost 100 jumps. My first jump was from 13000 feet with 2 instructors that teach you mid air using hand signals etc. Absolutely loved it and qualified for solo freefall descents after completing the 8 jump course in 2 days. I am presently doing my formation training and qualification and am hoping to move to New Zealand in october to go to college and hopefully,eventually become a freefall photographer.
I am quite new to skiing having only been twice,with school when i was about 14!! and last year to Austria. Absolutely loved that as well. Confidently skiing reds by the 3rd day. ( i'd had a couple of lessons at Tamworth Snowdome).
Cant wait til sunday when i can find out if that confidence is still there as myself and 2 friends are off to Sauze D'oulx. AT LAST....
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Poster: A snowHead
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Danger-29, Envy you, never got past that first stage. But the sensation was great .. even if the sargeant major (retired) who was taking the bunch of hippy early 70s uni students on the course was really relishing the physical training part of the course just a little too much!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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PG, The sensory overload on exit is a bit mad but once at terminal velocity it is such good fun, Tracking (horizontal movement across sky) has got to be my favourite so far but i cant wait to progress so i can get on to freefly (sit, stand and head down flying).
I did find the excitement skiing last year was pretty much the same, just spread out over a day rather than in a short burst. I am so looking forward to next week to see if it was luck last year or hopefully to progress some more. Just hope the snow holds out and the temperature drops...
Still haven't decided what to put in my hip flask though, i think i'll just wing it and buy a bottle at the airport...
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Danger-29, re Hip flask contents I'd recomend a dose of rusty nail 50/50 Drambuie / Single Malt Whisky, the drambuie takes the edge off the whisky and the whisky takes some of the sweatness of the drambuie, but for Gods sake don't try doing thi with blended whisky, it tastes awful
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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marc gledhill, now how did that a get in there, typing without looking does it every time, and yes you can tell the difference mainly because for some unknown reason if you do use a blend rather than a single malt, it tastes foul, completely different, I don't know why but it does as I discoverd many years ago at uni.
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You must understand marc that DG is a man who can tell the difference between shaken and stiirred martinis, as is evident from his site photograph. Anyway, does anyone drink blended whisky?
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Alan Craggs, Shorry Alan, I shouldn't undereshtimate the man.
I have blended whiskey with hot water, lemon and honey when I'm poorly. Sorry 
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Nope Alan I cannot tell the difference between shaken and stired martinis mainly because I don't drink them, but I can tell the difference between a Single Malt and a blended.
Marc I go with the straight drambuie when I've a cold, it already has the honey and herbs in it 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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DG - i ve not tried either but its the best suggestion yet so i ll take your word for it and give it a go... Just hope the breath testers are all to busy sunning themselves....
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Have fun 
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FAQ
