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avalanche vid - sobering thoughts pre season

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Link below is for an avalanche video highlighted to me by a member of the eagle ski club.

Apologies if it's already been on here, but I didn't see it in a quick search through.

http://revver.com/video/310519/a-dozen-more-turns/

Plenty of food for thought.

d
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
wish i had the time to watch it all, long vid
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
It is long, but very well put together.

Definitely something to think about the next time you venture off piste.
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Long but very interesting.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Very interesting and informative.

Shows that even though you know what you should and should not do the human spirit will still try to push for the extra thrill.
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The difference between knowledge and wisdom demonstrated in sobering clarity.
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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
admin, yes. One for the video night at the MSB?
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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!
That's one harrowing story...

Makes you think how much surface Hoar is there developing in the Alps at the moment with the conditions we are having currently?
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It's a sobering watch isn't it. It still reinforces my current view that off piste looks dangerous - I'm glad it will be many years, if ever, before I'll be good enough to be tempted.

Technically from an IT perspective it did buffer and stream well - its not often I get something - download video wise - of that length that doesn't judder at some point.


Last edited by You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net. on Sat 22-12-07 22:36; edited 1 time in total
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Megamum wrote:
its not often I get something of that length that doesn't judder at some point.


Embarassed Embarassed Shocked Shocked
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gwaelod, I think this is intended to be a sobering serious thread wink
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
A thoughtful film. The difference between knowing something from outside, only intellectually, and actually making that knowledge part of the substance of the world as it is experienced as reality. (Which is just a more longwinded way of saying what admin said)
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Wow, a serious wakeup call to me. I really know little about avalanche danger and recently have been venturing more and more off-piste and this just kind of tells me to re-think things. I think I'm going to watch this everytime before I go on a ski trip. Great video.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Ditto to all to of the above, very informative.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
A nice film.

Really should be shown to people who sign up for off-piste companies to make them aware of the risks.

Bottom line in this film is they went out after High Risk Warning had been issued. Even with all the expertise & equipment an Avalanche expert perished & another person is lucky to tell the story. You take your choices and they made the wrong one.

Dont forget

Level 3 = Considerable Risk .
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
I think you need to remember, though, that this was, at best, a theoretical "expert": very different from the instinctive feel for snow that a proper qualified mountain guide developes over the many years of his training. Is there any US equivalent?
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snowball, not sure what makes you think he was a theoretical expert. I have skied with many mountain guides who are all 'experts'. More than one of them has personally been involved in, and a couple of them buried in, avalanches. The truth is that there are guidelines, but no rules which will tell you whether a slope will slide or not. The rules that do exist just let you increase the percentages in your favour. No more than that.

Having said that, I don't think I would be going backcountry when the warning level is at 4! If I did I would make damn sure that I stayed on slopes that are less than 30° steep!
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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?
god, that was sad. I'll never be in that position but the film should be shown to people who could be.
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snowball wrote:
I think you need to remember, though, that this was, at best, a theoretical "expert": very different from the instinctive feel for snow that a proper qualified mountain guide developes over the many years of his training. Is there any US equivalent?
Yes but even the long in the tooth can be influenced by an over-enthusiastic group and everyone has an ego. Even the greatest experts make mistakes.

I was out with a guide in La Plagne; not a UIGM but a life-long-local instructor, fully qualified to be taking us on non-glacial terrain. We aproached a steep convex slope which had about 50cm of new snow on it. He stopped, explained the risk and told us to wait until he signalled us, before proceeding one at a time.

Just as I was about to set off, an ESF instructor sailed into view with his trail of (adult) ducklings behind him and lead them straight onto the slope below us. Our guy called out a warning and there was a slightly agravated exchange between them.
When I asked him what had gone on he said, "Ah zis guy he sink because he is more high zan me in ze ski school, my snow cannot kill him".
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pendodave, that was a very interesting video.

Following on from what admin said earlier is a slightly longer series of statements that I have picked up from somewhere:

Data may give you information.
Information may give you knowledge.
Knowledge may give you wisdom.

Blake (the guy who died for those that haven't watched the vid) in his graduate student role had obviously collected loads of data about causes of unstable layers, had used this information to create new knowledge about the hoar-layer but they then failed on the day to translate the knowledge into wisdom.

Having seen the powder in the video, I think it is also easy to see how one could get "carried away" by the joy of the moment.
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Mike Lawrie wrote:

The truth is that there are guidelines, but no rules which will tell you whether a slope will slide or not. The rules that do exist just let you increase the percentages in your favour. No more than that.


This is one of the most important take home messages of any avalanche training.
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And what amazing understatement. He said his foot was twisted around 180º to face backwards and the bone was sticking out about 4 inches and he just says he pulled it round to the front and tried to reduce the fracture (or something like that)!!! No mention at all of what this must have cost him. And then he goes with the others to search for his friend's body down through the rock bands. Again no mention of what agony this must have involved with his leg in that state.
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Anyone who has been in the Arlberg over the last 30yrs wil know about the number of very experienced local guides,etc who have perished.
Enough said Sad
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Megamum wrote:
Technically from an IT perspective it did buffer and stream well - its not often I get something - download video wise - of that length that doesn't judder at some point.


Not for me - I've stalled a couple of minutes in to the video and it doesn't want to continue. Sad
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pendodave, excellent post/link.
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COL CORNU GROUND  AVALANCHE

Ground Avalanche in Chamonix. Yesterday.
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jbob wrote:
COL CORNU GROUND  AVALANCHE

Ground Avalanche in Chamonix. Yesterday.



There was some of that visible in Tignes this week too, noticeable under a couple of lifts & also what appeared to be occuring in the Patrolled off piste zone above Val Claret, after spotting it I spoke to the pisteurs who later closed the area off. It was quite obvious how the whole snow sheet was moving down the slope with sections of grass visible below. It was almost as if the snow had melted from beneath.
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jbob wrote:
Ground Avalanche in Chamonix. Yesterday.

How steep is the terrain there?
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Not very judging by the photo.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Wow... that looks bizarre.
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pendodave, Great vid. I've bookmarked it for the future! It really does show how easy it is to fall foul of the avalanche risk. they were not out of the trees completely either.
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Cptsideways, yes, we were in Tignes last week. We noted a small crevasse developing under one of the lifts and the snow was crinkling. The crevasse got larger. Then on one lift ascent we noted there had been an avalanche. There were two snowboard tracks across the crevasse where the avalanche started. The avalanche happened on a day when the risk rating was reduced from 3 to 2.

We didn't see anything in the patrolled off piste zone, but the lifts to some parts were closed during last week - I think they opened on Saturday, but we went mainly over to Val d'Isere instead.

When we arrived an avalanche was being cleared from the road - it had fallen to the side of one of the paravalanche tunnels between Les Boisses and Le Lac. Would not have been nice had a car been passing at the time.
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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?
jbob wrote:
COL CORNU GROUND  AVALANCHE

Ground Avalanche in Chamonix. Yesterday.


Some of those on the Mannlichen too (Wengen/Grindelwald)....
Never seen anythign slide down from Mannlichen in all the time i have visited this place....

Is that actually on piste there?
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The piste comes in from the right, the avalanche did clip the piste but not as bad as it looks, no one hurt.
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I had assumed that on-piste was reasonably safe from avalanche risk - does it pay even if you ski on piste to take notice of surrounding terrain and the avalanche risk rating, if so what should you be looking out for?
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I wouldn't worry about it too much personally. I think the risk is far smaller than that of driving a car or similar sort of everyday events.

You don't want to ruin your holiday with unnecessary worries. Very Happy
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Megamum, As above - that's why it makes the news - it's a very very rare occurrence. If we worried that much about real risk we would never drive on A roads.
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jbob, Please excuse my ignorance here, in your origonal post you said that it was a ground avalanche, does that mean that some of the terain was unstable and slid creating the avalanche or is it just a description for what looks like to me an avalanche on a relativley low gradient slope.

Great thread by the way well done pendodave, for posting the vid.

As some one who is about to book some lessons with the specific intention of starting off piste its scares the bejeesus out of me although I think that its not a bad thing to happen from time to time.

In my industry we have to do a 3 day human factors training every 2 years, a lot of people just give it lip service but I like the way makes you sit back and think, its backed up with continuous training notices all of which is mandatory. Do guides and instructors have to do any thing similar regarding assesment of clients, conditions, weather etc or is all done on initial training.
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Gilberts Fridge,

These have been a common occurance this winter as alot of the early heavy snowfall fell on warm ground, which would normall be frozen. This gives an unstable base for the snow to lay on, hence the slides down to the ground. Normally you dont see these until spring when its warming up.
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norris wrote:
Gilberts Fridge,

These have been a common occurance this winter as alot of the early heavy snowfall fell on warm ground, which would normall be frozen. This gives an unstable base for the snow to lay on, hence the slides down to the ground. Normally you dont see these until spring when its warming up.


The full depth, or glide avalanches, in this area were actually caused by solar radiation heating the surface of the snow which then caused water to permeate through a fairly thin snowpack to the ground and act as a lubricant. Mostly the snow pack creeps slowly down as a result but can also release these full depth slides. The ground itself was fairly cold in fact.
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