 Poster: A snowHead
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As a spate of avalanches hit with tragic consequences, I started to mull over my own skills in this department, and more importantly how long it has taken to accumulate experience in this area. The 19 year old son of friends is off to Tignes tomorrow , and I went on my first ski trip abroad at this age with a lunatic approach to life , and relatively little mountain knowledge.
I started hill walking in scotland in the late 70's and skiing at glenshee on a regular basis in 79. General hill sense evolved as the school parties were were with were not "led" and we free skied all day ( happy days !) . Getting about the hill in white outs, staying warm and safe, and off piste skiing in the Glas Moal corrie years before it was lift accessed just "happened" without any serious consequences for the group of a dozen or so teenage friends who all started skiing with me this way. College years meant I started climbing ( as opposed to walking) and my brother went on a winter skills course at Glenmore. His experience was passed on to me and I devoured the original edition of "chance in a million?" by Barton & Wright - a thoroughly recommended read on avalanches ( especially in britain, but much of the info also pertains to the alps). Winter climbing and friends who are training officers in mountain rescue teams have taught me more, and I now know a lot about mountain saftey , and avalanche awareness now. I have however been avalanched twice! A small sluff of snow on Glas Moal in the late 80's knocked me of my feet as I skied over and triggered it - but with no other harm - this was a small slide 2 or 3 metres long that slid slowly . I was also avalanched on the Weissmies above Saas Fee climbing one summer - again a very slow wet slide - but this was a lot bigger and more dangerous - we triggered the slide and were near the shear point so we were able to somehow "run" out of it and watched in shock as a football pitch sized piece of the hill rolled down.
So what is the point of all this rambling? Its really about time - it took me the better part of 15 years skiing and climbing , with friends who passed on knowledge and coming more from a climbing background than a skiing one to get me to any level of avalanche / mountain awareness. For the proffessionals on the board I would be surprised if the point at which they started skiing and the point at where ( say as an instructor) they attended formal avalanche courses was not of a long duration also - 5- 10 years? So knowing what you are doing offpiste and the time when your start going offpiste are separated by a long ( and worrying ) timespan - how do you get youngsters/learners today to take on any info? The kit has made it much easier to to skii powder, but that has only made the situation worse - the evidence on varous sources linked from here indicates people involved often had no idea they were at risk . Should this issue be addressed in basic lessons now across europe - does the ISIA have a policy on this???
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Sat 21-01-06 12:36; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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A really excellent post, Stephen.
As someone who is just starting to ski off-piste (not young though!), I have been thinking about this quite a lot. In another thread, Plake wrote "you should never surrender all decision making to another individual, no matter how qualified he appears to be. Ultimately you have to take responsibility for yourself" - but I fear a lot of us do not even know enough to assess whether someone who is offering to take us off piste (an instructor, guide, SCGB rep, supposedly experienced friend) is competent to do so.
Plus, when we are off-piste, we are so busy struggling with unfamiliar techniques, it is hard to see beyond immediate problems such as "how do I make the next turn?" etc.
And remarks like this from the Tignes piste director certainly give one pause for thought: "just a bit off-piste is like being just a bit pregnant." I was in Tignes recently and I'd say that more or less every red run skier in the resort was at least "a bit off-piste" at some time during the day...
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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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stevepick, Hi Steve, I concur. An excellent post!
DavidS, I love the pregnant analogy.
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