Pistes are getting more dangerous, more people out of control

A snowHead

As usual, the experiences here are mostly in France. Which interestingly has a higher proportion of UK skiers than other skiing nations. I wonder if there is a corelation?

My experience is there are idiots everywhere. There always have been. What has changed is the willingness to confront and intervene when others don't follow social norms. I have even seen this at Glenshee with people sneaking into the queue to join friends. Something that simple would not even have been allowed to happen in the past. When challenged these people are either incredulous or aggressive, when the later there is not the immediate herd response that there used to be. I think in the past idiots were challenged, shouted at, chased, and occasionally feel foul of someone bigger/tougher than they expected which kept a lid on it to an extent.

My experience is also that the major French resorts popular with the UK market are the worst places when it comes to dangerous skiing. And I am sorry to say but our fellow countrymen are part of the problem, especially over-weight, unfit, intermediate (but think they are expert), entitled and boorish ones. Of which there are a large number. Switzerland and Austria are in general more civilised, especially those areas that do not attract a big international clientele. Italy even more so.

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

It’s been bonkers in Madonna Di Campiglio so far this week.
Somebody skied over the back of my husbands skies on the huge wide blue on Pradalago area on Sunday.
Today on the same area I was taken out from behind by a snowboarder
We moved up to Groste area, huge wide quiet pistes and a lady skied over the front of my skiis and another lady took our our friend from behind.
Other collisions and blood wagons everywhere and it’s lovely spring snow and clear conditions.
Anecdotal but I’ve not seen it like this before and it’s not half term yet

Nobody parked in my party but I’ve had to buy a new helmet, not wanting to start that debate but glad I had one on today

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For many years I mainly skied in a French area with very few of the Brits so memorably described above (overweight, unfit, underskilled) and vanishingly few groups of French teenagers. Overwhelmingly a family area with very little aggro, and very little nastiness in queues - generally people looking out for kids, and friendly and smiley. I'm sure there are similar areas in all the Alpine countries. In many, many, months of skiing I saw very few nasty incidents.

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The number one cause of skiing accidents worldwide is defective vision.

One German study attributed 70% of all skiing falls to poor eyesight.

Inability to see clear terrain at near, mid, or far distance.

Fuzzy bumps + fuzzy dips + fuzzy people = lots of falls and collisions.

You could halve ski and board accidents overnight by making people pass an eyesight test before purchasing a lift ticket and before getting on a base lift.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

I think it's just that there are more old people skiing. Old people are scared of young people, and they whine all the time about the good old days.

Or that the good young people of the old days who’d have fun blasting down the blues are now whiny old people?

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Bring back National Service.

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Husband had a convo on the lift at Vallandry today..
2 young (f)bucks asked where were the fastest pistes as they were having a speed contest.
The conditions today were super icy, rain hardened slopes...he explained that most of the reds where they were are crisscrossed with blue junctions frequented by skischools and baby skischools - he emphasised that it isn't about how fast you can go - it's how fast you can stop!!!
I wonder if they even cared....

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Convo = conversation
Bucks = lads (The B presumably can be replaced with the (F) in order to better describe said lads))

It’s dat new Inglish bruv innit like

You know it makes sense.

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

A snowHead

Bring on the public liability insurance and consequential action.

In all seriousness, the person above who suggested proper ski patrol is bang on the money.

A snowHead

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

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Decided to delete

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@Layne, re ski patrol. In Champoluc teh ski patrol are usually paired with a Carabinieri ... no question of legal provision there! (I've seen them intervene on out of control skiers).

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Lessons are too expensive / seen as uncool
Pistes are too smooth
Helmets isolate the surroundings
Whilst I totally reject the claim that risk compensation does not occur, in regard to helmets and other protective equipment, the biggest culprits/victims being young men, I expect that they will be just as reckless. Though, having said this, as a young male, I used to ride a motorbike around the family farm without a helmet on occasions, but I always rode far more carefully if I didn't have my helmet on.

After all it is free

I think there is an optimum skiing speed that will generally keep you clear of accidents. Too fast and you’re going to cause an accident, too slow and you’re likely to become the victim of an accident.

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@Layne, Piste patrol exists in a very real way in the US. And also to some extent in Italy. It works the same way as the police patrolling the roads, i.e. mostly as a visible deterrent. They do indeed roam the pistes looking for trouble makers, as well as being visible at high risk areas, e.g. slow zones. In the case of Italy it seems they do quite a bit of posing in sunny spots, but that does make them visible and everyone know it is a bad idea to mess with the Carbinieri, so the deterrent effect is there for sure.

I don't see why it would be difficult to implement piste patrol with powers of enforcement more widely. Most lift tickets already have a requirement to follow directions and instructions of lift company employees on pain of the lift ticket being withdrawn, that seems a sensible mechanism to build on.

Although I like the Italian model where if you have a problem you can call the police. And they will likely turn up, on skis, quite quickly. And I can assure you they will be more than willing to take action where warranted, I have seen them arrest a skier who was clearly not sober and had crashed into the back of a kid. They took witness statements, including from me, were deadly serious (actually somewhat angry) and carted the miscreant off. The same as would have happened at a road traffic accident, which makes a great deal of sense to me.

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@Layne,

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Does anyone have a photo of Carabinieri in their slopeside gear? I bet it's pretty fancy.

@Origen, not so much, but they do have funky skis with 112 clearly marked

You know it makes sense.

Last week in Wildkogel a skier jumped out from skis at the side of a piste and landed on the front of my mates skis, had he been a millisecond later the outcome would probably have been very bad. There is nothing my mate could have done to protect himself. Another in our party noted the same guy having a pee in the trees beforehand, so quite possibly intoxicated. A passing pisteur (or the Austrian equivalent) read him the riot act, but having established that my mate was ok, let him go.

On Friday in Zell-am-See, we came across a late teen/early twenties lady in tears, as she could not make progress down a piste, she had hired skis, headed to the top of the hill on her own, never having been on skis or had a lesson. We guided her to the next lift down the hill and suggested that she might be best to get some lessons.

These were just a couple of moments, throughout the week we noticed a number of near misses, and TBH we don't hang around.

So I agree with the OP.

I think the key thing for self preservation is to follow the FIS rules, don't assume that everyone else is.

And to get some Oakley Prism pink or high pink goggles!

By the way it was Dutch week Very Happy

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

@under a new name, very chic!

A snowHead

A snowHead

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

Carabinieri were certainly out and about last week in the Dolomites.
It was busy Sunday and Monday
There were a few injurie's in our hotel but I'm only aware of one that was due to a collision with another person.

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Sitting out the afternoon having been hit quite hard by someone literally following the fall line despite me being the sole other skier on the stretch of wide piste obviously and very visibly making a traverse towards the entry point to the Aollets drag lift at Plagne Villages. And no, I hadn't just made a turn.

I saw the uphill skier in peripheral vision at point of contact, or a fraction of a second before - no clear recollection of the next few moments but now nursing a right shoulder rotator cuff injury.

I'm pretty sure he didn't stop - I think one of his group did stop to check that I was ok... I say this in that there was a group of young men at the top of the slope, all wearing mustard colour bib tops bearing numbers of the style of US football teams - the guy who hit me was wearing one, as was one of the people who stopped to assist, check that I was still breathing, etc., retrieved my right ski...

Now slightly disoriented by co-codamol and ibuprofen but the recollection is pretty clear.

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@Mick_Br, have you considered reporting it to the police/authorities?

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Its worrying how dangerous its become, even in the quite months , possibly linked to alcohol and drug intake

After all it is free

Data?

Anyone???

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Help!!

Pistes are getting more dangerous, more people out of control

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