La Grave loses important case

A snowHead

The off piste mecca of La Grave has lost a trial in the Marseille administrative court that could have ramifications for off-piste skiing in France.

La Grave is essentially a lift served off-piste domain. The trial centered around the death of a snowboarder in 1996. The snowboarder was on one of the normal routes in La Grave when he followed tracks that lead him over a cliff. The court said that la Grave should signpost dangers on normal routes even though they are off-piste.

Serious Judgement for La Grave.

A snowHead

Sounds like La Grave presented their case ineffectually, davidof. Any fool knows that you don't simply follow tracks, and La Grave didn't lay down the tracks. Their warning signs at the top of the hill are clear to anyone entering the off-piste area.

You enter the area at your own risk, and you watch where you're going. I know this area quite well, and if you're into following tracks there are hundreds of tracks dictating the main (safe) routes down the mountain. This person clearly followed an errant track, which was their choice and risk.

It's very important for the ski community to stand up for the philosophy of La Grave, because it is very rare and very special indeed. It is a reflection of the spirit and roots of skiing before piste machines, signs, and ski patrols ruled the world.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I agree David and hope that they do appeal.

The article also refers to the Meribel incident from this season and i wonder whether any Snowheads members knew the boarder involved. Sad though that case is, I cannot agree with the guy's friends that Meribel should have signposted an off-piste hazard.

When a resort starts marking some hazards, they have to mark them all as they are assuming some level of responsibility. This would destroy the whole point of off-piste skiing and boarding. Far better to let each individual assume responsibility for their own decisions and actions whenever they venture off-piste, even if only by a few metres.

My own interest in mountain sports began with climbing and alpine mountaineering. No-one ever expects the dangers of a climb to be marked because all climbers know the potential dangers and assess the risks of each climb. If climbers fall, they blame themselves even if it is a climb that is ascended many times a day and features in all of the guidebooks. Off-piste skiing is the same IMO.

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Tony Lane, there's an important distinction between a ski area (e.g. Meribel) that publicly declares itself patrolled and signed and a ski area (La Grave) that publicly declares itself an unpatrolled unsigned off-piste all-risks mountain. Patrolled areas should, IMHO, signpost exceptional hazards (i.e. those that present catastrophic risks) or rope them off.

The Judge either didn't understand the distinction, or the defendants (La Grave) didn't present their case clearly.

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The court judgement was that La Grave had not been able to prove that "a mistake on the part of the victim was either a partial or total cause of the accident", and that as a result La Grave had to be held fully responsible. Sounds like a variant on the 'guilty until proven innocent' attitude of the French court system towards an accused. He was "led in error by the tracks towards the cliff" according to the judgement.

Well he certainly wasn't led in error over the cliff, otherwise there would be two victims.

A crazy decision. What are off-piste skiers and boarders - lemmings?!

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Tony Lane, the snowboarder you refer to was in a group that included one of my wife and I's friends. Their 2 children (17 and 15) were with the guy when the accident occurred. In counter point to your comment about the signposting, a danger sign was infact errected the following day....draw your own conclusions.

The accident happened on the first day of the holiday. The young man who died knew the area to some degree from the previous years trip to the same resort. At the time of the incident, there were 20-30 other skiers/boarders in the vicinity and the off piste tracks suggested that the area was well used.

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Patrolled areas should, IMHO, signpost exceptional hazards (i.e. those that present catastrophic risks) or rope them off

But surely only on piste. In France*, off-piste areas are not patrolled - you go there at your own risk. If you have not got the mountain skills to do this safely then get them, get a guide or stay on piste. I personally think that marking hazards off piste would lull people into a false sense of security and encourage more inexperienced people in to danger.

*in North America its a little different. unpisted areas between the trails tend to be patrolled. In large part this reflects the fact that the terrain is less serious than in the Alps.

J

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I'll pass the question on. The case was in an adminstrative court so this may make a difference.

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It's sad when any death happens.

But I think David Goldsmith summed thigs up in his first message.

Skiing, particularly off-piste, is a hazardous sport.

I used to joke that handrails would have to be across ridges like Crib Goch (ridge near Snowden's summit) because of H&S considerations.

Looking less like a joke now Sad

You know it makes sense.

It's all an issue of defined risks, defined limits, defined indemnity. In the USA the courts, lawyers, ski resorts, victims have been dealing with this stuff for decades. Although America is known as the land of litigation some individual states have instituted laws which protect ski resorts from lawsuits arising from what are defined as inherent risks of the activity.

People have a right to sue when there is clear negligence by people they've paid to provide rental ski bindings with wrong settings, unsafe ski lifts, ski lessons given by instructors who've had a liquid lunch etc....but following some skier's tracks that - allegedly - went off a cliff is stupid.

The courts are not there to compensate for idiocy. I once gave evidence in court in a case that involved a skier who had skied with no gloves. He sued the shop that supplied him with poles, claiming that the straps had tightened on his hand and lacerated the back of it. True story.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

This ruling is very sad as La Grave is particularly special. I am pretty sure it's the last place in the world that has a lift, a big mountain and not much else. It's like ski-ing used to be when I was small - hardly any people, handy "obstacles" of avoid and brilliant scenery.

Les Deux Alpes lift company have been trying to buy La Grave for ages. I'm very afraid they will succeed if La Grave have to pay out masses in legal costs etc. If they buy it they'll put in lifts, pistes, markers, pisteurs and lots of idot skiers to spoil it for the offpiste skiers. That would be a terrible shame.

There are also a large number of signs saying in both English and French that you ski at your own risk, that there is no ski patrol and that you should NOT follow tracks if you don't know where they lead. Anyone who does not spot these signs is blind, and anyone who ignores them is an idiot. I'm sorry people die in the mountains, but it happens all the time, and is often just stupidity. People do die at La Grave every year - why is this one different? Sad

A snowHead

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Kurt. His name's Denis Creissels. Fascinating ski lift engineer - almost certainly the most creative in the world. I didn't realise that he bought the La Grave lift after it went bust, and should have realised that he designed it in the first place. Who else would create such a fascinating piece of engineering? The T-bar above it is an astonishing arrangement too. I met him once in Austria, where he'd worked with Dopppelmayr (who had to licence from his patent) on their first dual-cable gondola in Solden.

Here's an interview that reveals the background of the La Grave bubbles, from LaGrave.com.

I should think he's furious about the outcome of this case. If anyone sees any comment, maybe they could relay it here.

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Going off at a slight tangent, this article from pisteHors gives those who have yet to visit La Grave an insight into its delights...

http://www.pistehors.com/resorts/northern/lagrave.htm

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I have just caught up with this post. A sad story. I have never been to La Grave, but know well from medicine the universal trend to demanding seemingly obvious risks (eg. anaesthesia and surgery are dangerous) are spelt out in detail, written down, signed in triplicate and witnessed by Uncle Tom Cobbly and all.
Mark Hunter, it was obviously a tragic event (and you make an interesting observation about a sign suddenly appearing), but I am in overall agreement with most of the posters here: off piste is untamed, so don't expect to be nannied.
I have taught (I hope) my 2 offspring: never do a jump or a drop you haven't seen from the other side. Many are so tempting, but the general white of the snow blurrs details and it is so easy to misinterpret distances.

On a diversionary note: PG, lemmings are not silly rodents prone to charging into the sea . They have been seriously libelled by Disney. I think they have a much better case for damages than the family of this unfortunate boarder.

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This is of course no laughing matter. Nonetheless, Webster's 1913 dictionary states that the "common Northern European lemming ({Myodes lemmus}) is remarkable for making occasional devastating migrations in enormous numbers from the mountains into the lowlands," and as a result today's figurative sense of the word has developed, "a person bent on a headlong rush, esp. towards disaster; a person unthinkingly joining a mass migration; an unthinking person" M20 (OED).

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Apart from the issues discussed above re the validity of this judgement, I am surprised at the level of compensation awarded - only 13K Euros for a death. Seems very low for the loss of a young man. Especially when compared with the likely level of lawyers' fees.

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Jonpim, I would also tend to agree that the onus when ski=ing off piste, should remain with the participant. I don't think I've advocated anything else. I would suggest that most of us have at some point skied over a ridge and taken to the air, but only when either having plotted a run from a lift, or map, taken a guide or taking a proposed route cautiously the first time round. Not to exercise elementary precaution is to invite disaster.

The young man's parents (very experienced skiers) had brought their sons up to be aware of the dangers of skiing, but also to be independent - not attached to the apron strings, so to speak.

The only real question here, IMHO, is that the off piste area was heavily skied/boarded and, from what I have been led to believe, an accident waiting to happen. In this case (if there is a case to be answered - no mention has been made) is there a point at which the burden of responsibility begins to transfer?

kuwait_ian, nice signature - very good Smile

By coincidence, there has been a further developement in the Meribel accident. As (understandably) part of the healing process for the parents, they have recently returned from re-visiting the area of the tragedy. They were accompanied to the spot where their son went over the (70m) cliff by the local police (amongst others) who were at pains to point out regularly spaced danger signs that had been erected to avoid what, by common consensus, was a real risk.

The (well used) off piste area was adjacent to a piste and as the area unfolded down the mountain, it became almost impossible to distinguish the terrain from the hazard - benignly appearing to be continous off piste.

Again, draw your own conclusions. But it appears that the dangers have been recognised as being beyond what one should expect from an off piste area that is so close to a pisted run.

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Mark, I had not appreciated that the cliff was so large. The reports I read did not mention that. If a cliff of that scale was so close to the piste, they should have perhaps cordoned off the edge of the piste more fully. Difficult to say without knowing the area myself.

I don't think it matters that an off-piste area is heavily used - otherwise you'll have markers creeping over the mountain as more and more people head further off-piste. In order to avoid grey areas where people might expect hazards to be marked but the piste patrol have a different view, you need a definite division. The division between piste and off-piste is the easiest one to appreciate.

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Yesterday I saw 2 snowboarders coming out of Chalance at about 4pm. It is one of our big off piste descents, full of rock bands, steep, can be dangerous and parts of it avalanche frequently, it was snowing heavily, very poor visibility, and getting quite dark. It is an unpatrolled area and not that easy to find. What did they think they were doing?

A pisteur colleague recently told me that they have to rescue people almost daily from there, some of them almost beginners, and that puts the pisteurs in danger as well. He was really having a go - and quite right too.

And then you get claims such as this one in North America. The resort concerned allegedly didn't provide sufficient warning for this chap, to whom it apparently didn't occur that by skiing the half-pipe he might fall over and hurt himself. Apparently the ability to complete years of training to become a doctor doesn't necessarily go hand-in-hand with common sense.

At this rate we'll have to introduce a slalom test before skiers are allowed on the piste to ensure that they have the ability to ski around all the warning signs the resorts will have to put up.

You know it makes sense.

If all Dr. Flook (Fluke?) [see the report in N.A.] suffered was tendon and soft tissue damage I hope he manages to break his back next time - most of us professional skiers have suffered (do suffer) from these sort of injuries and continue to work or get back to it pretty quickly - big deal!!!

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

easiski...... if Les Deux Alpes had been in the US you'd be a multimillionaire by now!!

A snowHead

Typicall compensation culture. I really hate that. To some extent it is happening in Britain as well. There are obviously an awful lot of people with absolutely no common sense whatsoever, and also a lot of compensation laywers who are getting richer and richer as the days go by !!!!! Mad

A snowHead

Having read everything above, it strikes me that there are two types of off-piste, that which is within the boundaries of the ski resort, and that which is outside. I think that if you are within the boundaries of the ski resort then hazards should be marked off piste, after all it is easy to lose the piste and end up off piste in poor light conditions. However when you are outside the boundaries of the ski area (usually marked by big yellow warning signs), no such duty of care exists.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

The Dr. Flook case in North America appears to have been judged harshly by many members here. I read PG's article again and could not get rid of the sympathy for the guy.

He didn't seem to be an expert skier like most of the viewers here. His case has been based on the existence of the 'half-pipe' was not marked, or properly marked so that as a recreational skier he entered into a dangerous zone beyond his ability. His injury wasn't due to his having a go at the half pipe but rather from his inability of coping a facility designed for adanced skiers and boarders but adequate warning has not been provided by the resort owner. This sounds logical especially to a judge who does not ski.

I believe Dr. Flook's case depends on whether he can "avoid" going into the half pipe. Most terrain and fun parks are quite visible from a distance and people don't build a half pipe next to a beginner green slope. Also skiers and boarders normally have to queue for a chance to have a go at the half pipe. Did Dr. Flook queue for the danger knowingly?

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saikee, You could be right. Hasty judgments about how reasonable or otherwise this case may be are probably based to an extent on what we read about the sillier claims such as the lack of warning on a Macdonald's coffee cup that the contents are likely to be hot, etc...

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saikee, It's quite hard to miss a half pipe if you're looking where you're going, even in bad light. They're about 3-5m high and around 10m wide! Wink

Lets keep this American "blame" culture as far away from Europe as possible.

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Thanks, Lorraine. A useful "on hand" perspective.

Davidof, I gather that the inquest is due a week Friday (or poss the following Friday). Just thought I'd mention it incase you have it in mind for a follow-up.

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Looks as if legislators are considering some changes to the law over the other side of the Pond to limit a resort's liability.....

Extreme Skiing May Cause Law Overhaul

Help!!

La Grave loses important case

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