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Avalanche risks

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
With all the snow that has been falling a timely reminder of the increase in avalanche riskes across the Alps would not go amiss for anyone going out there in the next few days.

Keep safe!.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Piste Hors reports two killed in Espace Killy, two killed in Saint-François Longchamp and one killed in Jarsy Sad
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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?
Police rescue PGHM guy I've just had a lift from back down from Les Arcs mentioned one of the two who died in EK was an American. Going to do an article soon based on his experiences of digging people out of avalanche debris. Suffocation is NOT the main cause of injuries in many cases.

I had a weird experience today. You could feel the sun warming the slopes, even at 3200m. I'd skied through various forests a few times this morning, and the odd powder field that had little gradient this afternoon. Still, there was no way I was going to push my luck, given the conditions. Then this Belgian guy skis up to me in a 'safe' off-piste area - had seen me taking photos, asked for info about the domain. I could see he was a very good skier in the powder.

But - he had no idea of the current avalanche risk level. He actually asked me which routes were risky - and even worse, why. No knowledge whatsoever of the extent of recent falls, and especially surprising for an obviously accomplished skier, no inkling at all of how aspect/rising temperatures/gradient might increase the risk.

Confused


Last edited by Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see? on Tue 7-03-06 22:54; edited 1 time in total
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PG wrote:
I'd skied through various forests a few times this morning

Obviously acquired a taste for it then Wink

Where's the "envious" smiley...?
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Sadly there have been fatal avalanches in Arinsal ( 4 deaths ) and Serre Chevalier today as this report from the Ski Club of Great Britain reports -



Depth hoar is something that I had not heretofore heard of.


Last edited by Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do. on Thu 9-03-06 19:52; edited 1 time in total
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hibernia, The link you have kindly provided, leads to a members only area of SCGB.
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
snowbunny wrote:
hibernia, The link you have kindly provided, leads to a members only area of SCGB.



No, it was on the homepage - not a members area AFAIK. Puzzled

Well here is the home page - just click through to the report


Last edited by Then you can post your own questions or snow reports... on Thu 9-03-06 19:52; edited 1 time in total
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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!
Two amercians created an avalanche which sadly killed one of them this Monday when they went off piste in Murren Switzerland even with ALL the warning in the resort not to venture off piste.

http://www.beo-news.ch/ABNS2006/MRZ2006/skiunf06.htm (in german)


Last edited by After all it is free Go on u know u want to! on Thu 9-03-06 3:14; edited 1 time in total
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The SCGB refers to this site avalanche reports in its report and to Arinsel, but I cannot find any reference to that nor Serre Chevalier in pisthors.
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hibernia wrote:
The SCGB refers to this site avalanche reports in its report and to Arinsel, but I cannot find any reference to that nor Serre Chevalier in pisthors.


Here
Arinsal Avalanche

and here

Serre Chevalier Avalanche
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 snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
To be contencious for a moment; I am quite aware of avalanche risk but only because I spend all day on here. I think warnings are generaly woeful in resorts. A little flag flying and sometimes a message on a whiteboard at the main uplift. Surely something better can be devised. I just think that for Joe Public the warning systems are wholly inadequate.
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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.
Frosty the Snowman,

I agree. Had I not read about the flag system on these forums (fora??), I would still be ignorant Shocked of such things. As it happens, I probably don't need to know as I'm not likely to venture far from the bashed areas but there does seem to be a lack of education - in 4 weeks of ESF lessons, I don't rememebr anyone even pointing out the flags, let alone mentioning what they mean. I spotted the chequered flags last week in Val Cenis but only because I made a point of looking out for them.
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
The efficiency of the flag system is debatable, but there are numerous other warnings posted around the resorts. In the interview with Serge Gilliot, the Piste Security director at Les Arcs last week, he commented on this... here's a rapid translation of that section....

PG: How can we 'educate' the skier? British visitors, for example, often have not the slightest notion of the meaning of the avalanche flags…

SG: It's the same for me, if I go to the seaside, I'm not used to it, so I have to find things out. We do try to make information available, but our visitors also have to make an effort to educate themselves.

People have to be reminded that as soon as the pistes get crowded, even good skiers must take care. If it's not possible to leave a substantial margin for error when overtaking, even when you're an accomplished skier, you must slow your speed. No one is immune from making mistakes, and speed frightens everyone.

Even a good skier doesn't necessarily 'know' the mountain. Everyone can be caught out. It's just not enough to know how to ski well, you have to know the mountain like the back of your hand. Not something you can pick up on your own, you have to learn from people who both know it well, and can explain it well.

Awareness of danger is often lost in the pleasure rush. Around the resorts in recent years it has been very dangerous, particularly when there's a shallow snowpack. Lots of snow compacts into a solid base, which can't happen when there's been little snowfall. Air circulates resulting in depth hoar, leading to weak layers and problems throughout the winter.


PG: Any new security measures planned for the future?

SG: The situation is complicated in France, with ski domain regulations influenced by basic civil liberties. For the situation to improve, we have to influence people's behaviour. Perhaps we could do more, I just don't know... All the same, it's clear that on the roads people started to sit up and take notice when more were being fined. Yet the most difficult thing of all is to change people's behaviour long term...
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
PG, But a 4/5 avalanche risk (chequered yellow and black flag), what does it mean to your once a year punter. How many realise that it is actually saying: "Go off the pisted run and you could well die, or cause the death of others".

Do TOs, or letting companies have a bigger role to play?, or are things fine as they are and we keep letting lots of folks die each year.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Frosty the Snowman, Red Leon, two words:

"personal responsibility"

i would have thought that hanging out a flag showing the level of risk is about as in your face as you can get in the context of a ski resort
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Frosty the Snowman wrote:
Do TOs, or letting companies have a bigger role to play?, or are things fine as they are and we keep letting lots of folks die each year.

I think they let themselves die to an extent. But yes, perhaps the TO's and the resorts could do more to educate people. But do diving holiday brochures go into great detail about the dangers from sharks and other natural 'hazards'?

Being cynical, they probably won't do any more, because any talk of avalanche danger, any suggestion that safety isn't being packaged up in a nice controlled environment and handed to tourists on a plate, and a significant percentage of tourist visitors could well disappear overnight!
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Brochures give no sense of the risks of off piste. They promote off piste as though it's another fun part of your wonderful holiday. Because I ski black runs I'm laughably classed as "expert/advanced" in the brochures, and the whole mountain is supposedly mine to explore.

Despite this, it's about personal responsibility.
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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?
PG, I note from the Tignes website today that the risk of avalanche is "heavy". Presumably, this is equivalent to 4 or 5? Also, is there a level of risk where there would be significant dangers from skiing on piste, or might we reasonably expect in these conditions for the pistes, or the lifts supplying these, to be closed?
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guys,

Every piste map I recall seeing shows each avalanche flag and explains what each means in various languages.

regards,

greg
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
xyzpaul wrote:
Brochures give no sense of the risks of off piste. They promote off piste as though it's another fun part of your wonderful holiday.


This may be the case (haven't looked at a brochure in a while) but isn't this countered by the "sage" advice in the press and other sources of "NEVER ski off-piste without a guide"?

I mean, really, if someone can't work out on their own that a mountain is a potentially dangerous place, heaven help them!
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If someone hasn't been brought up with "outward bounds" type experience then I don't see how they would be expected to know how dangerous a mountain can be.
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Arno wrote:
Frosty the Snowman, Red Leon, two words:

"personal responsibility"

i would have thought that hanging out a flag showing the level of risk is about as in your face as you can get in the context of a ski resort


I agree about personal responsibility - I'm very aware of my responsibilities on the hill and do my best to avoid endangering anyone - including myself. And I have no problem with the flag system as a way of disseminating the necessary information, either.

My point was that you can only be aware if you know what to be aware of, eg I look out for avalanche flags but I learned about them on a web forum ( snowHead s of course). I also learned here of the basic rule of the slopes that the downhill skiier (boarder?) has priority in all cases. Last week in Val Cenis, there were posters on many stanchions (in French only Puzzled ) reminding everyone to give priority to 'the skiier in front' but that's the first time I've seen any such notices and several people I overheard seemed a bit nonplussed by the advice.

I do think the first lesson at ski school (which I think most people attend when they first start sliding) should begin with 5 minutes of etiquette and advice regarding behaviour and responsibilities on the hill. As I pointed out above, in 4 weeks of ESF lessons, no mention was ever made of the 'downhill' skiier rule or of avalanche flags.

Mind you, there has been precious little mention of edging or of carving turns either Shocked
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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!
We all love the star ratings that brochures give each resort, for beginners/intermediates/experts... How about a safety rating too? It could be based on the number of deaths in a resort over the last five years. E.g.

****** 0 deaths
***** 1-2 deaths
*** 3-5 deaths
** 6-9 deaths
* 10+ deaths

Trouble with that is large popular resorts such as Meribel are bound to do worse. Maybe it should be an average, e.g how many deaths per million ski days. This post is not meant to offend anyone, rather is an attempt to quantify danger to the average brochure reader.
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xyzpaul wrote:
We all love the star ratings that brochures give each resort, for beginners/intermediates/experts... How about a safety rating too? It could be based on the number of deaths in a resort over the last five years.

But it's not the resorts themselves that are inherently dangerous, but the behaviour of skiers/boarders who get their risk assessments wrong.
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rob@rar.org.uk, indeed. So a death toll rather than a geographical analysis would be the best measure of risk to skiers.
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Instructor in Les Menuires told me that they play down avalanche risk and deqaths in the 3v as it is bad for business.
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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.
xyzpaul, so what use is that information in helping people to decide which resort to visit?
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
rob@rar.org.uk,

At best, it would perhaps help people avoid the resorts frequented by those "who get their risk assessments wrong."
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
If you know the death toll for a resort, you can infer the likelyhood of making a fatal mistake there. It is simply a statistical measure, so of course most people would ignore it and say "It would never happen to me, I don't make risky mistakes."
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
xyzpaul wrote:
If you know the death toll for a resort, you can infer the likelyhood of making a fatal mistake there. It is simply a statistical measure, so of course most people would ignore it and say "It would never happen to me, I don't make risky mistakes."

But in what way is the skiing on offer in a particular resort likely to change the way I assess the risk of an avalanche? Are the judgements that I might take about the liklihood of an avalanche dependent on the resort I'm in? Surely a slope is a slope is a slope?
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
xyzpaul, can't think that it would be much use. Avalanche deaths happen off piste. The incidents happen according to the size of the resort and easily accessible off piste terrain along with its reputation for good off piste skiing, the number and skill levels of people who go there intending to ski off piste, the weather and snow conditions that happen to prevail that particular season. You would need to distinguish between the different types of off piste terrain (some resorts appeal to the more extreme snowlovers and are inherently more dangerous, but this is completely irrelevant to the average dabbler in evaluating risk). Loads of other factors as well.

The figures are very low anyway, so it wouldn't take much to completely distort them - one single major incident where a group of kids get caught in a slide together, and a resort could leap from bottom to top of the 'risk table'.

On piste, you could do with details of the actual acreage of pistes across the domain, and the split between different skill levels across different parts of the domain (blues/reds/blacks etc). Is the clientele the same between resorts, in terms of skill/age etc? Some have a large proportion of local weekend visitors, few TO's. They'll mainly be more knowledgeable, skillful skiers.

Deaths on piste are extremely rare too.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
rob@rar.org.uk, someone with good avalanche awareness skills such as yourself would clearly not need such statistics. But the average "Brochure says it's a good off piste resort, so I'll give it a go" skiier might think twice if a resort had a high death toll.
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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?
xyzpaul wrote:
rob@rar.org.uk, someone with good avalanche awareness skills such as yourself would clearly not need such statistics. But the average "Brochure says it's a good off piste resort, so I'll give it a go" skiier might think twice if a resort had a high death toll.

I have virtually no avalanche awareness skills. I believe that the "sweet spot" for avalanches is on slopes with a gardient somewhere around a steep red or a moderate black (although I may be wrong on this). Just about all ski resorts have terrain that steep, so given the right (wrong?) snow conditions such as wind direction, fresh snow, weak layers, etc, avalanches can happen in any resort. Any statistical variation in avalanche deaths is therefore a function of how many skiers go off-piste in those resorts, not how "risky" the resort itself is.

The converse of your example is that I choose a resort which has had no avalanche deaths and think it is safe to go off-piste with little knowledge and no saftey equipment. That's a very dangerous way to assess the risk of avalanches in my opinion.

What is needed is education about avalanche risk, not information about how wise or foolish other skiers have been.
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Maybe the assumption that all resorts are inherently as safe as each other needs a rethink. Do all resorts have the same number of accessable avalanche-prone slopes? Am I as likely to die in an avalanche at Borovets as Chamonix?
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xyzpaul wrote:
Maybe the assumption that all resorts are inherently as safe as each other needs a rethink. Do all resorts have the same number of accessable avalanche-prone slopes? Am I as likely to die in an avalanche at Borovets as Chamonix?


Well some, more than others, have a reputation e.g. Le Grave - where the combinations of steep terrain, unpisted runs, prevailing snow conditions. Yet I have heard of people boasting of going off-piste there without a guide, avalanche equipment,... I did try to explain the hazards to the chap but to no avail - he was out to enjoy the excellent conditions and although quite young ( a boarder ) he seemed to have liitle knowledge of the conditions that give rise to avalanches.

Education in this area is not taught in ski schools and this area is glossed over as unimportant. It is irrevalent that not all in the ski class go on to ski off-piste. There should be a section dealing with the theory and causes of avalanches in all ski schools. If I owned a ski school tn the Alps that is the way I would operate it.

rolling eyes
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IMO, the problem isn't any of the things mentioned and certainly isn't the fault or responsiblity of the TO's.

IMO, the problem is that people can see so many others going off piste, all the time. When you see a mountain tracked out 10 minutes after the lifts have opened on a sunny day, would you really believe the avalanche forecast? We have already discussed the chances of being caught in an avalanche are very small and I personally feel it is close to a miracle that there aren't significantly more killed. I have seen what i would consider "certain death" slopes regularly skied out but I also know of the deaths on those very slopes. For instance, the site of what I believe to be the second worst skiing avalanche in the Espace Killy is under what used to be the old Tommeuse (sp) lift and that is always totally blitzed.

I think the number of deaths would go down dramatically if there was more "in resort" publicity of accidents. When in Val D'Isere recently, it was easier to find out about avalanches by logging into Pistehors.com or calling somebody in the UK than it was to find out in the resort. I bet a big board at each of the main lifts stating the number of deaths in France from avalanches each year with a comment of "they died in conditions like today" would have an effect, but it will never happen.
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SimonN, Of course, that would never happen - bad for business, and the only means of enforcement would be the heavy hand of government regulation across the Alps, a european directive?. But education is the way forward - and again it is commercially in no one's interest ( ski schools, tour opertors, resorts ) to put this forward. a simple thing like a video on the transfer bus from the airport would be a positive measure.
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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!
I've had this discussion about 'education' with a tourist office director before. My angle is that the resort wins every which way. It is seen to be proactive in underlining the importance of safety, and is perceived to be showing concern for its clients. Given a choice between a resort that is seen to be doing something and one that avoids the issue, which one will the punters choose? Which one will people imagine will be the safest (rightly or wrongly)?

In doing so the resort benefits from publicity, increased media exposure, where the positive side of the approach is imo going to offset any increased apprehension among potential visitors.

That's leaving the moral responsibility to properly inform its visitors aside, of course.

People take some convincing though!
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The problem with listing numbers of deaths is that big resorts would be at an immediate disadvantage compared to smaller ones unless it was expressed as a percentage.

The only off piste deaths I know of here in my 15 years in LDA have all involved the person who tirggered the avalanche and/or the people skiing/boarding with them. OTOH we have fairly regular deaths on the Combe Valentin - but inevitably because idiots ski it when it's closed, slide on the ice and hit something near the bottom when they're doing about 60-80kph. Why should we, as a resort, be punished for these morons? Ditto the English idiot who got drunk and tried to luge down the Diable last year in the middle of the night - hitting a tree en route. No, sorry, it shouldn't be the resort's responisbility.

Here we have huge banners up at the bottom of most of the lifts with the rules of skiing on them - do people look? do they heck - what more can the lift company do?

hibernia, I do agree that ski schools and ski teachers in general are not active enough in explaining all the peripheral stuff about skiing (including avalanches). I'm always pleased to be able to show my peeps one, so they see what they look like up close and personal!!

My suggestion? Stop the videos in pubs!!! They give a completely false impression to the skiing public - there's one where the guy snowboards in front of an avalanche he sets off - all the disclaimers in the world at the end of the film won't undo the impression it gives.
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hibernia,

Quote:

Depth hoar is something that I had not heretofore heard of.


The nightmare phenomenon of hoar frost-style crystals that provide no cohesion at all and therefore a natural slip layer - caused by very low temperatures or perma-frost freezing from below...

Sorry not to have been on this thread before, been avoiding avalanched in Verbier!
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