Safe off-piste without avi kit

A snowHead

Avalanches are not the only danger off piste. Terrain traps, cliffs, gullies, streams, getting lost, getting injured. Always ski with a buddy off piste. Generally when discovering new routes I want to be 100% confident I know the way back out and can assess the whole line. Normally that means good visual of the route but sometimes local maps, google earth, locals I trust.

A snowHead

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Some runs are best skied when closed, and you stand more chance of first tracks but I doubt that is the issue here.
You have to make the decision about where and why.
If you don't have the confidence in your own decisions then pick a slope where you can understand what the slope will do.
Gradient and amount of exposure to any slide, should you be on anything that steep.
Run out points, falline, choke points are all things that can be read. History of recent weather is also very useful and you can see how this affects layers which new snow has to fall onto.

For the OP, I would pick a slight slope of around 20 degrees and avoid loaded slopes after a storm typically. The rest is how long is a piece of string.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

get yourself a beacon, shovel, probe, avalung, airbag thingy, recco jacket boots and pants, mobile phone, helmet(natch) and have at it (all said equipment only works if first tested on piglets running about in Cat 5 conditions). Once you do all this you will be 100% safe - guaranteed - you know it makes sense

or check out these dudes for info
http://www.sais.gov.uk/ (forecasts for Scotland but avvy theory is same difference for anywhere, though extra hazards like crevasse etc in alps)

or the book "Chance in a million" by the late Blythe Wright, one of the founders of SAIS

Glenmore Lodge also do a pretty cool (if bandwidth demanding) avvy quiz:
http://www.glenmorelodge.org.uk/avalanche.asp

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Hurtle,
We had a week in Austria just recently, having thought about things along the same line as you but not yet having all the requisite equipment. We were keen not to just go blundering into something that we didn't have the knowledge to deal with. So we booked an instructor to help us out with just this sort of thing. I think he's a snowhead but can be found here www.skizauchansee.com as recommended by flangesax as we were staying with him (who was fantastic, of course!).

The instructor is called Nigel and we had a great time with him, learning loads. And he has the patience of a saint wink

However I think our next step will need to be some sort of formal course, don't know what yet. And quite a lot of gadget shopping.

BTW, we had great conditions - Zauchansee and the surrounding area was great and, as I understand it (although please bear in mind my naivety on this subject...and also my rubbish skiing), not difficult to find relatively low risk areas to learn in. The tree-lined areas that Nige took us to were truly beautiful and so peaceful, even though we were never very far from a piste.

We have been well and truly bitten by this particular bug though. Or as yoda put it, found the path to enlightenment you have Very Happy

brian

If you're going to Switzerland, keep an eye on the excellent SLF website. The national avvy bulletin is available in English here:

http://www.slf.ch/lawineninfo/lawinenbulletin/nationale_lawinenbulletins/index_EN

and the regional bulletins (only in French or German) have nice maps and piccies, all nice and easy to follow,

http://www.slf.ch/lawineninfo/lawinenbulletin/regionale_lawinenbulletins/rbuvs/rbuvs_c_EN

They're updated daily about 6pm.

Slope angle, there's an app for that: http://www.mammut.ch/en/safetyapp.html wink

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On the subject of itinieries....

http://youtube.com/v/6qVwIuznFW0p

well worth a watch.

Close to a marked "skiroute"

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Gazzza, Your link doesn't work. Says it is a malformed video ID.

Well worth getting a shovel and spending two minutes trying to dig snow fast without stopping. It is quite an eye openner. Also dig some pits and take a look at the different layers, see which ones slide. Little things that start to give you a feel for what you are skiing on.

Obviously no such thing as completely safe off piste, no such thing as completely safe on piste especially when you factor in other people. Off piste, whether there is powder or not introduces uncertainty, which increases risk. Possible avalanches, cliffs, trees, rocks and changeable snow conditions.

Like a lot of people have said pay particular attention to the current weather conditions, stay off anything steep, and remember that people get killed or injured every season just off the side of the piste. Be careful, but remember that off piste equals increased risk whatever kit you have with you, and it is your responsibility to manage that risk. But taking responsibility and managing the risk is part of what makes it fun. wink

You know it makes sense.

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

frank4short, Yup... usually 50 degree slopes are pretty av safe Laughing

A snowHead

waynos,
I think you're point was well-made, and possibly lost in the noise. Certainly, if you're into the 'itinerary' runs in places like Switzerland and Austria, you are unlikely to find them 'patrolled' as such - they may be 'managed', in as much as they are deemed 'open' or 'closed', and they may or may not be ava protected (itineraries in St Anton are, but not the 'high mountain routes' - can't remember about Verbier now)
There are plenty of obstacles on an itinerary that you are unlikely to encounter in a 'shortcut' between two pistes, which would almost certainly be considered 'off piste' to an lawyer (or an insurance company), but could well be as safe (or safer) than the piste _overall_ (less chance of collision with other skiers?).

To the OP - there are no easy answers - and nothing is ever safe. In a week at St Anton, saw several people being airlifted off the piste, but none from the off-piste.... but a local guide died the week before last, off piste (I think off the Rendl side)... Having loads of kit won't make you safe, neither will following someone elses tracks, or conversely, doing a virgin slope.
An as for the 'is it 35 degrees or not' - how many slopes are a uniform gradient, or, for that matter, of a uniform orientation to the sun?

Better, imho, to ski in a group, learn group & self-rescue techniques, have an 'emergency' plan, and start off with shorter itineraries.

a final thought - is the claimed high incidence of accidents in the 'near' offpiste simply a matter of numbers - most people will start by venturing 'slightly' offpiste - by the time they graduate to 'real' offpiste, involving, lets say, more than 10 minutes of hiking, they probably know what they are doing / are with a guide.... and are thus in a statistically smaller group than the sort who'll traverse off a high run, following someone elses tracks, onto a slope that's been in the sun all day, and that is above a run that is shown as closed, due to ava risk.

regards,
h.

A snowHead

Masses of useful information here. Thanks. Very Happy

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

Hurtle, consider a holiday in North America where its generally in or out of bounds as opposed to a rigid on or off piste situation. Or as a cheaper short notice alternative, take your planks up North!

For the very reason some piste bashing types bash Scottish Snowsports it can be an ideal place for those wanting to explore a less tamed side of snowsports and test out their skills on ungroomed snow conditions. Some marked runs are never pisted and there is no hard and fast on or off piste - more akin to the North American set up, either within the patrolled area or outwith it. If you take notice of any posted closures you can safely explore unpisted snow of various gradients within the officially open terrain.

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Winterhighland, sound advice. I have skied a little bit in the States, but never in Scotland. Am put off the States by distance, immigration hassle and cost. I've skied a number of unpisted runs in the Alps - intineraries in Verbier, Les Grand Montets, various mogully runs and so on - and enjoyed them, so the sort of experimenting which you describe as being possible in Scotland might be an appropriate next step. Thanks for the suggestion. I like SamM's idea of learning all this with an instructor. Equally, it would be so nice just to play around a bit (not alone, with one or more ski buddies) if that's possible. As you say, just to test out my skills a little, but without constantly having to shell out for instruction or guiding - that's the context of my original question.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Come over the pond and ski some in bound bowls.

These are avalanche controlled and mostly shut if dangerous. That said I believe someone died at Big White on piste in an avalanche last year, set off by skier above him I think.

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Ok...lots of information here...not skiing with avi risk above 2.....not skiing 30º slope with avi risk above 3.........So, you can't ski never!! Sad

But please, I don't believe that you never skied in this conditions!!! I don't believe that you could ski waist deep with your parameters!!! I don't believe it!!!

In the pyrenees, for example, more than 90% of avy accidents involving people are slab avalanches triggered by himselfs, so maybe, in my opinion, is a better way to be "safe" to try to know how it "works", direction of winds, orientation of possible wind slabs, know how to choose the better way up, and also better way down, "read" the mountain constantly, be informed of recent avy activity, read the snow-profiles that local meteo services do to know about possible weak layers, and also the most important is already on the mountain constantly analize all "factors" and learn to say NO.

AlTom, Good post

Getting way OT for the OP who only wants a gentle slope off the side but the most important thing for me is to take note of how the recent conditions have developed with a few different weather conditions. That windblown side that now has 30-40 cms on it, that is a layer that may come into play, for example. You can't get all this information at once.
That said, a starter should pick a slope that they can expect to try and ski top to bottom and if that is 10 turns or less then so be it.
15-20 degrees should be the starter but you'll need to get there early.
After a while, chasing inbounds doesn't work as everyone is on it. After that, you try and get in front of the game and that is where the risk gets a bit bigger.

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A small story I told before on snowHead

I was going up the Cugnai lift above Solais (Val d'Isere) and the guide told me about going up it once before. The main valley to the left of the first part of it is gentle and people assume the off-piste between the runs is safe. However there are steep slopes at the head of the valley above it.
On this occasion there were people on this gentle area, some only a few yards off-piste, and he saw an avalanche start on the steep slopes above. He tried to shout warnings to people to get back on the piste, which they had plenty of time to do. Some of the people saw the avalanche and pointed it out to others but they must have assumed they were safe where they were and didn't move, just watching it approach. Several of them were killed as the avalanche rolled over them, including one lady who had been peeing and was found with her pants down. They were only yards from the pistes where they would have been safe. The pistes had been sited specifically to avoid this area of known avalanche danger from high above.

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AlTom,

You know it makes sense.

Hurtle, not bothered to enter this debate till now, for me there is know simple answer. I love to ski off piste but hardly ever will do so without my basic gear (really should always take it, but I am not a saint either). As others have said, you can get caught out very near to the piste or miles away. It is not an exact science and even the best make mistakes as sadly happened in Les Arcs in Jan. My advice. Go buy the gear first (you should only need to buy it once and it will last for years if looked after), learn how to use it (most resorts have Avalanche parks and the pisteurs are normally willing to help teach you, at least in Les Arcs for free) and take introductory lessons skiing off piste with experts, then you will develop the confidence to do more with a safe grounding in the basics of skiing technique and snowcraft. After that I think like most of us you will get the bug and do more and more. Just as an aside, I try to do a snowcraft course every year to keep up-to-date on latest techniques and keep my skills sharp. But even with that training and doing maybe 80 plus days a season off piste over the last few years, I am still not an expert. I am not sure anyone really is. Hope that helps.

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

snowcrazy, thank you. On the basis of what I've read, I really value your advice. Smile

At the other end of the scale of experience, you are really echoing what SamM said. I can see that it's very probably safer and better to learn with experts on the hill, rather than just read around the subject and set off, ill-equipped, with others who might be as clueless as me, even if it is not too far from the piste. Your/SamM's approach certainly accords with my more cautious nature.

Huge food for thought all through this thread. Thanks everyone.

A snowHead

Hurtle, do you ski in any particular areas or countries or do you change resort from year to year?

A snowHead

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frank4short, surely if he is on a slab, he can trigger it with pressure almost anywhere on that slab, and doesn't have to be on/above/near the crown line (fracture point), he just has to exert traction on the slab relative to the weak layer and leading to separation at the crown line and hey presto. I thought that was the whole reason so many people got buried in slides people set off themselves.

not an expert btw.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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stoatsbrother, If you watch a normal video of skier triggered avalanche the way it normally starts is that as the skier skies over a convexity in the slope the avalanche starts around the skier. It will then propagate possibly up & across the slope which leads to a fracture or crown to use the correct term which is possibly above where the avalanche started. In the video gazza linked to the avalanche appears to start from above as opposed to at the skier. There's no obvious starting point the avalanche appears to come from above. I'm not saying it wasn't caused by him just that the footage makes it appear as if it could have been caused by someone or something else further up the slope.

If you watch this one

Slide on avalanche crest - Jan 9 2009 from Tyler Wilkes

http://www.vimeo.com/8681416 you can see around about 5 secs in as the skier hits the convexity the slope starts to go. He immediately puts in a hard turn to try & stop himself. Luckily he manages to stop on some vegetation.

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frank4short, I did get what you were saying, but I am sure I have also seen very similar vids of people suddenly finding that they were halfway down a sliding slab without that propagation mecahnism. By the same token - a lot of the slab downhill of him appears to me moving quite quickly right from the start.

anyway - scary.

After all it is free

Henry's Avalanche Talks show several videos of avalanches. In many cases the top of the avalanche is far above the skier/snowboarder, just like in the video.

I think that what happens is that a "slab" of snow has little adhesion to the snow beneath but the slab acts like a big cohesive lump. The extra weight and movement of the skier on the slab make the whole slab move. (Think of an omelette sliding around in a frying pan. Tip the pan a little and the omelette stays still, tip it a bit more or add some weight and the omelette slides.) As the avalanche moves you can see the slab breaks into big pieces showing that the slab wanted to stick together. If the slab had little cohesion it would have broken into very small pieces or even into powder.

The point about convexities is that they are weak points, maybe lines of weakness is a better term. Skiing below such a weakness may, because of the extra weight and movement, cause the snow to fracture at the weakness.

Adrian, yes, this seems like a good description. In fact in the avalanche I was in, the guy who set it off onto the rest of us found himself briefly riding a sort of raft of snow he was able to balance on for a few moments, like a rider on a surfboard, till the raft broke up into pieces and he was pitched into the middle of it.
The initial crust material continued down the slope collecting more snow (and us).

brian

You don't need to be near the actual fracture point to have been the cause of the fracture (although I think that's more common):

http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/encyclopedia/remote_trigger.htm

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Safe off-piste without avi kit

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