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Is ski touring now allowed in France and a way forward for resorts?

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
@davidof, kiters are only allowed in certain areas and not the Combeynot sector, that's a park, they tend to stick to the area North of the main road below the Galibier road. I know one of the top dudes really well. A few of them when conditions are right will travel right up to the Trois Evaches sector and that is a PITA.

And if I was back I'd be up and down Cucumelle and Monetier though another friend had good conditions below the Granon yesterday.

Look at his FB and photos from yesterday https://www.facebook.com/laurentguyot.BSD

A lot of people who think they'll get into touring will not have the mental aptitude for it and after their first couple of sorties will not bother, few vids I saw were people only going as far as the mid stations as 400m was about enough for them, and I suppose sticking to the rules maybe ?
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
One of my mates is a pisteur here and working. He's publishing unofficial avalanche warnings on his FB page knowing that a lot of people are going up atm. Aujourd'hui pida nous avons eu quelques jolis départs dans les pentes nord nord ouest. Alors soyez prudents....
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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?
He's posted several photos of some big slides up there near or where there would normally be pistes. Just shows what happens without controls in place.
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Quote:

He's posted several photos of some big slides up there near or where there would normally be pistes. Just shows what happens without controls in place.


I'm expecting this year to be an absolute s**show. Lots of inexperienced people touring as lifts are closed. Plus there is going to be lots of complacency of people touring in closed ski resorts - "we usually ski this run so it must be fine", "there's usually a piste here so it must be fine".

Quote:

A lot of people who think they'll get into touring will not have the mental aptitude for it and after their first couple of sorties will not bother


That happens normally. The question is will there be a higher drop out rate than usual? If the lifts remain closed and it's tour or no skiing it's a pretty big incentive to stick with it.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
boarder2020 wrote:
......I'm expecting this year to be an absolute s**show. Lots of inexperienced people touring as lifts are closed. Plus there is going to be lots of complacency of people touring in closed ski resorts - "we usually ski this run so it must be fine", "there's usually a piste here so it must be fine"......


That's why I wouldn't be surprised if it gets banned after December 15th or at least the start of the holidays.

And like I've said could be averted to some degree if the resorts did some piste management to enable safe ski touring in resort and mitigate the avy risk, which they'll be doing anyway I suspect as they'll still be preparing the pistes to some extent
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At the moment it's mostly locals here who know what they're doing. Once wider travel is allowed that will probably be the case. Problems today were above 2500m so a fair bit of uphill required to get there.
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@Weathercam, are they obliged to do the control work specified on the PIDA or can they sack it off if no one is supposed to be there?
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
gorilla wrote:
@Weathercam, are they obliged to do the control work specified on the PIDA or can they sack it off if no one is supposed to be there?


Yes, did that in class 2 weeks ago (I am studying to be a Pisteur)
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Last pre-season was bonkers with the heavy snow falls and the security teams somewhat over enthusiastic with their PIDA implementation. I'll post some photos tomorrow.

It was a good two weeks before the resort opened and they were dealing with their pre-defined areas.
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PIDA Piste In Danger of Avalanche?
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Quote:

And like I've said could be averted to some degree if the resorts did some piste management to enable safe ski touring in resort and mitigate the avy risk


It seems unfair the resort should be out of pocket and i don't see how you can realistically enforce tourers paying to use prepared routes.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
If the pistes are open they seem to be able to successfully forbid people from skinning up them in some places, so I wonder if they could use the same mechanism to charge people to skin up them?

It would be an amazing silver lining if this ban revealed a viable market for avalanche-protected touring areas.
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Idris wrote:
gorilla wrote:
@Weathercam, are they obliged to do the control work specified on the PIDA or can they sack it off if no one is supposed to be there?


Yes, did that in class 2 weeks ago (I am studying to be a Pisteur)


The “Yes” refers to the first (obliged) rather than the latter (sack it off)?
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
I'm assuming they still have to do their work. The lives of tourists is one thing, but avalanches in bounds can also destroy infrastructure like lifts or nivoculture. I'm sure management will find that the wages of the secouristes versus the liability of a destroyed lift is a no brainer.

@stevew, pida is plan d'intervention de déclenchement d'avalanches. Who would have thought that even something as exciting as blowing stuff up to deliberately cause avalanches could be dulled down to administrative procedures. rolling eyes
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Quote:

I'm assuming they still have to do their work


Assuming they are doing avy control would they not be doing it in the day though? Seems a bit unnecessary to make staff work overnight when the resort isn't even open. In which case could we see areas closed to ski tourers anyway.
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
hold_my_biere wrote:
If the pistes are open they seem to be able to successfully forbid people from skinning up them in some places, so I wonder if they could use the same mechanism to charge people to skin up them?

It would be an amazing silver lining if this ban revealed a viable market for avalanche-protected touring areas.


To a certain extent, it's been done, though I'm not too sure how successful the take-up is/was but now we're in different times.

And re charging etc - it could be like Cross Country where you don't have lift gates to go go through and a lot is done on trust that you've bought a ticket or have a season pass, and they do have the odd patroller/control point, but they're never around at lunch-time Laughing

Read this https://www.stylealtitude.com/on-piste-ski-touring.html

And there are designated routes.



Above is taken from a very detailed page
https://skitouring.decathlon.fr/itineraire/itineraire-de-villeneuve-la-salle-les-alpes/

https://fatmap.com/routeid/71/itineraire-de-villeneuve-la-salle-les-alpes?utm_medium=embed&utm_source=product&utm_campaign=boundary

As we've not heard back from the Press department of the Serre Chevalier Tourist Office I've pinged this email off the Directeur du service des pistes et de la sécurité

Cedric

J'espère que vous allez bien en ces temps difficilesmais au moins les récentes chutes de neige vous ont donné un peu d'optimisme?

Je me demandais, et d'autres, si Serre Chevalier avait prévu d'ouvrir l'Itinéraire de ski de randonnée à proximité des pistes comme dans ce lien

https://skitouring.decathlon.fr/itineraire/itineraire-de-villeneuve-la-salle-les-alpes/

et les autres de la station pour les prochaines vacances de Noël car nous avons écrit un article sur ce sujet.

Ne serait-ce pas une grande publcicité pour le domaine skiable de Serre Chevalier s'ils devaient ouvrir, ou y a-t-il trop de problèmes de sécurité?

C'est l'article que nous avons récemment publié
https://www.stylealtitude.com/how-to-make-the-most-of-a-closed-french-ski-resort.html
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
A lot of the charging discussion depends on the model upon which the resort is managed. This varies from resort to resort. I n Tignes the security and grooming is done by the Regie de Pistes who are independent of STGM, the lift operating company (note operating not lift owning, the lifts belong to the commune and STGM have a lease to operate them) Although STGM do pay a hefty chunk to the Regie des Pistes.

In normal years in Tignes you are not allowed to skin up open pushes by municipal decree. There is a dedicated track up Palafour which doubles as the life track by night. That said no one as ever been stopped skiing up the edge of the piste to my knowledge. Even ESF tend to wave at you!
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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?
Oldandbrittle wrote:
...@stevew, pida is plan d'intervention de déclenchement d'avalanches.


déclenchement sounds like something I should do when standing at the top of a slope I don't like the look of Toofy Grin
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@adithorp, I think we have a new name for a black slope: declenchement vos fesses!
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
@Idris, I hope you don't feck up like this Laughing

They installed a new gasex system above this chair and somewhat reminiscent of the Italian Job "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!" on their initial control.



And a similar scenario on the other side, normally they'll set off about 400m wide slide from 3 gasex, this time they managed nigh on 1.5km!







Last edited by Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do. on Tue 8-12-20 17:26; edited 1 time in total
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@Weathercam, WOW Shocked
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adithorp wrote:
Oldandbrittle wrote:
...@stevew, pida is plan d'intervention de déclenchement d'avalanches.


déclenchement sounds like something I should do when standing at the top of a slope I don't like the look of Toofy Grin


Must admit I thought the same thing Very Happy
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
@Weathercam, whoops. Pisteurs did that to the Thuit chairlift in LDA in 2006. Formed an interesting "and here's how it can go wrong" section of the short course they ran there.
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