 Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Oh dear, how very sad.  Poor lad. The accident which Steve Angus reported on in another thread. I wonder whether he was travelling v fast or whether it was just an unlucky encounter? If the former, just as well it wasn't another skier he collided with. They're generally pretty good about padding snow cannons and similar obstacles.
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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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That's really terrible. I feel for his gf/friends who were there.
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Very sad, sounds like a freak accident from the description, lost control at edge of piste and was just really unlucky there was a snow cannon in the way
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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D G Orf, from Steve Angus's picture in his snow reports it looks like the snow cannon was in the middle of the piste, not at the edge.
Also loving the Daily Mail's generic skiing picture (off piste as well) with caption unrelated to the picture. Useless people.
Anyway, terrible news, condolences. That will be absolutely terrible for the rest of the Crystal staff out there.
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Yea all very sad but I can confirm that no-one else was involved and I have it on very good authority from someone who witnessed it and works in resort as a pisteur (they were on the lift above at the time and saw it happen) that the person was travelling very fast (for their apparent ability), lost control in trying to overtake someone at the fast speed and fell. They slide at high speed into the cannon which was heavily padded at the bottom and came to a stop. The cannon was a) in the middle of the piste and has been there for years and b) the accident happened on piste (Sky News are / were reporting it took place off piste!). It was a group of Crystal staff from La Plagne that had come over for the day and the friends and girlfriend allegedly witnessed it. The pisteurs were there for about an hour with doctor and helicopter help too but the man died on the scene. They did close the Solaise Express for a while so limit the number of people coming down the run for a while as well as to protect some dignity at the scene as it was pretty much under the lift.
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Awful news, and really sorry that he's passed away, but WHY do people ski like that when they are so obviously out of control and cant stop? Surely something needs to be done to police the slopes better. Just lucky nobody else was involved I guess.
I know off piste has other hazards but thats why I prefer to get away from the crowds.
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| Quote: |
WHY do people ski like that
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Answered your own question
I suspect most of us have had a moment when for whatever reason we found ourselves skiing too fast for our ability for some reason. 99.99% of the time it ends safely as control is regained but on occassions it results in a crash. I caught an edge and slid gracefully across a piste and over the edge of a cliff into the safety netting last year.
A terrible accident it seems
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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I was very sorry to hear about this. Sounds like the person he overtook had a very lucky escape too.
On a separate (but semi-related) note, I also think something needs to be done to police the slopes better. I have lost count of the times someone has shouted 'whoa' or similar, being unable to control themselves and has zipped past me at some crazy speed which was too fast for their ability and it makes you wonder if they are going to actually knock someone down one day soon.
I'm not sure why speed is so important to some people (unless they are actually in a race), I think in the most part people that ski fast (and out of control) ski that way because they like it.
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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.
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Markymark29, likewise I prefer to get off the pistes these days because they are so dangerous the speeds some people choose to travel at.
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You know it makes sense.
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This is all speculation is it not, the young man has died and none of the facts have been confirmed so out of respect would it not be better to wait until we know what happened before we start with the 'why do people ski too fast' comments.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Tragic. Thoughts with his family and friends.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| Quote: |
I have it on very good authority from someone who witnessed it and works in resort as a pisteur (they were on the lift above at the time and saw it happen) that the person was travelling very fast (for their apparent ability), lost control in trying to overtake someone at the fast speed and fell
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davidhammy, Not entirely speculation in this case
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I'm out in Val d'Isere at the moment and this story hasn't really broken here - very strange...Terrible news - no matter whether he was going too fast etc. it doesn't detract from the fact that he died and at such a young age too. His poor family and friends.
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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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Absolutely terrible. Awful tragedy. Thoughts are with his family and friends, I can only imagine what they're going through.
At least he died doing something he loved.
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| Piccadilly wrote: |
| At least he died doing something he loved. |
Does that make it better?
I'm sure we've all skied too quickly, by accident, out of control.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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James the Last, tricky one, but to my mind yes. Terrible when anyone dies in accidents, but if it happened to friend/family I'd feel a slight comfort that they were doing something they loved and hadn't just stepped into the path of a bus
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| James the Last wrote: |
| Piccadilly wrote: |
| At least he died doing something he loved. |
Does that make it better?
I'm sure we've all skied too quickly, by accident, out of control. |
Personally I would prefer to die quickly doing something that I enjoyed rather than endure a lingering bed-ridden death, although preferably not for a long time yet!
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Seen the BBC article this morning but didn't have much info other than it was a Brit and a Rep.
Tragic, waste IMO.
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Nothing wrong with the padding there but if the chap hit at speed there's not much that can be done.
As far as weather or not the young man was out of control or skiing beyond his ability, we all know it's possible, the number of accidents and near misses that occur due to just this sort of thing is amazing really, in fact I'm often surprised that more don't occur, I'm sure that in part this occurs to modern skiing, when I learn't to ski 30+ years ago it was common for everyone to go to ski school, skiing both mornings and afternoons with an instructor, you'd learn an awful lot of useful skills and have a really good time doing so, now once people have learnt how to turn and stop (and some not even that) they think they are experts capable of any piste in any condition and no longer need instruction, As far as Wengen goes, what this means is that many runs have been widened and smoothed out over the years, runs that were once narrow steep blacks with decent sized moguls are now motorway width slopes, Even Oh God can be pisted (even if the piste machine does need a winch to do so), in effect the locals decided that skiers were no longer as good as they used to be so they made the runs easier, sadly they are also less fun I'm not sure they are any safer though, people still go down them far to fast for their own skills and without concern about anyone else on the same piste. I'd like to see more resorts enforcing the skiers code and banning people who can't keep control going down the slopes
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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This is truly very sad and thoughts go out to his friends and family.
Now for goodness sake stop using it as an opportunity to get on your soap boxes. People have every right to ski fast, if that is what they enjoy. No one is trying to ban beginners because they regularly ski out of control and into other people. There is no way if glimpsing at someone during/just before a crash and determining they were skiing beyond their ability, all it takes is to catch an edge and be struggling to regain balance and you will lose control, and look like you are skiing too fast for your ability. For all we know that was what happened and actually it may have been a big effort to avoid the other skier which led to the actual fall (to be clear by that I make no suggestion that the other skier was at fault tho)
After all this was not on a beginner slope, and from what I can see was nice and wide and quite an appropriate place to go for a bit of speed.
Some people seem to forget skiing is a sport. Absolutely introduce a few policed runs on a couple of blue runs for people who wish this, but that should be it.
Bottom line as I said though, all thoughts go to his friends and family
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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.
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| SkiG wrote: |
| ...People have every right to ski fast, if that is what they enjoy. No one is trying to ban beginners because they regularly ski out of control and into other people... |
Beginners who ski out of control and into other people, but they rarely do so at high speed - so the kinetic energy is lowish, and injuries rarely occur. I love skiing on a wide open piste with a bit of a lick on - but skiing fast on a crowded slope is another matter - and all should be able to keep clear of clearly marked obstacles. Of course it can be your really unlucky day - and that could have been the case in this accident.
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| achilles wrote: |
| SkiG wrote: |
| ...People have every right to ski fast, if that is what they enjoy. No one is trying to ban beginners because they regularly ski out of control and into other people... |
Beginners who ski out of control and into other people, but they rarely do so at high speed - so the kinetic energy is lowish, and injuries rarely occur. I love skiing on a wide open piste with a bit of a lick on - but skiing fast on a crowded slope is another matter - and all should be able to keep clear of clearly marked obstacles. Of course it can be your really unlucky day - and that could have been the case in this accident. |
Agree with all of that
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You know it makes sense.
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This is very sad news, and I can't begin to imagine how awful it must have been for his colleagues and friends to have been there. My thoughts are with them and his family.
I promised myself that I would try to avoid joining in the side debate here (though I think it is perfectly understandable that such news raises the issues that it has). However...
| SkiG wrote: |
| People have every right to ski fast, if that is what they enjoy. |
I'm afraid that I have to completely disagree with this. People do not have a right to ski fast if by doing so they endanger others. (Then again, I am one of those people who despise the incessant chatter about 'this right' or 'that right').
Generally, though, I agree with a lot of what everyone's written about the questions that such an incident raises. Especially D G Orf's post.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| SkiG wrote: |
| After all this was not on a beginner slope, and from what I can see was nice and wide and quite an appropriate place to go for a bit of speed. |
I have skied that slope many times as I am sure have many others here.
It is a bit steeper in reality than the videos on this thread make it appear. In addition from my experience the snow often seems to be hard and smooth in that area, with the result that if you do crash at speed then it might be a problem and you could slide some way. Depending on the snow conditions on the day and the number of people on the slope you might be able to go for it in reasonable safety, but I often go down that stretch with a little bit of caution.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| James the Last wrote: |
| Piccadilly wrote: |
| At least he died doing something he loved. |
Does that make it better?
I'm sure we've all skied too quickly, by accident, out of control. |
Absolutely not, it's terrible however you look at it. But if your time's up, I'd rather it happen that way.
The woman on the French news report said something along the lines of the slope being too difficult for his ability..
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Read this on the SkyNews app earlier today. Very sorry to hear and thoughts go out to family.
Really made me think as I always slalom through snow cannons, the missis is always telling me to stay clear of them.
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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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Would really like if someone changed the thread title to 'sad news from val d'isere' or something like that, its all a bit objectified
Also the guy is hardly dead and people who know him will come on here, so speculation and judgment of him isn't nice either
Just on the policing the slopes thing was in St anton at the weekend and I heard a story of a girl who was in a collision with an older woman. Someone, ski patrol or police I presume,then came and interviewed her, asked her loads of questions about the incident,what speed she was going at, whether she was drinking over lunch or last night etc. Though it was interesting.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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8611, Actually I was specifically not trying to judge him, I have no idea as to the exact circumstances of his tragic accident, for all I know he could simply have caught an edge and been unable to recover before landing, then been really unlucky about hitting the snow cannon, I can recall an incident several years ago where something similar occurred in that case the person hit a lift pylon where someone had removed the padding to use, I believe, as an improvised sled
However others raised the point about skiers being out of control and being involved in or causing accidents, I have few problems with beginners being out of control you expect that, however traditionally beginners would ski on easy runs where the slope is generally gentle and therefore it is difficult to achieve speeds that can be dangerous, these days many people seem to think they are far better skiers (or boarders) than the evidence might suggest, an experienced skier going up the slope on a chairlift and looking down has no problems spotting such people, often they are going down the fall line at speeds far to great for their skill, it's most often young men by the way, rather like those who pass a driving test and then go out and buy a sports car the next day only to crash it shortly afterwards, people today do not I believe stay in ski school for long enough, they stay usually just long enough to learn how to parallel and no longer, snowboarders often only have 3 days instruction before they consider themselves safe to go anywhere on the mountain, I doubt that most people realise what sort of speeds it is possible to achieve on skis, in fact it is possible for a skier to go faster than a skydiver  And yet a skier has to do far less studying and practice before they are allowed on the slopes, there are no requirements for you to receive any instruction before launching yourself down a slope and potentially not just injuring yourself but also anyone you may contact, I'd also say that far too few people are aware of the skiers code
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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god i hate moguls 
very sad story though... thoughts are with his family and friends
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| 8611 wrote: |
| Would really like if someone changed the thread title to 'sad news from val d'isere' or something like that, its all a bit objectified |
The thread title is as good as it gets in snowheads. It's informative and clear, and makes no judgement.
| Quote: |
| Also the guy is hardly dead and people who know him will come on here, so speculation and judgment of him isn't nice either |
Such speculation frequently occurs in forums where there is a fatality or serious injury related to the main purpose of the forum. The subject of the thread is clear. Those who know the deceased do not have to open the topic if they do not want to see the almost inevitable speculation.
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I think this is very sad and my sympathies go to the friends, family, passers by and rescue services.
Personally, I think that the poor guy was unlucky, I think there isn't a person out there (Boarder or skiier) who hasn't caught an edge at some point or fallen over for some other reason.
Obviously, speed was a factor as if he weren't going as fast he wouldn't have slid so far, might not have hit the cannon and if he did might not be so badly injured.................... but to take from this that he was skiing beyond his ability is a massive leap of logic and imvho unfounded.
The other side is he was a ski rep so even if this were his 1st season and he'd never skied before that means he's been skiing for 14weeks, for normal tourists this would equate to 10/14 years in which time most would consider themselves to be at an advanced level.
So, a tragic accident...... not that it seems we're allowed accidents in these days of "someone is always liable" culture.
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marcellus, As I said I wasn't judging, as for the poor mans experience, I don't think it fair to estimate, yes he'd been there for the season but we have no idea how good a skier he was, one rep I met one year got just one day a week off when she had time to go skiing so in an entire season she only had the equivalent of a couple of weeks on the piste another resort worker only worked evenings except one day a week so went boarding nearly every day, interestingly in terms of their ability they were surprisingly close, the lady who only got one day a week off took an all day lesson for each of those days so towards the end of the season had got pretty good.
The point I was really trying to make is that snow sports are dangerous and many people have an inflated opinion of their own skills, I've been skiing for almost 40 years, I have over 100 weeks experience, but I would not regard myself as an expert skier, mainly because 1. I'm not as fit as I should be and 2. I'm painfully aware that falling is likely to hurt. That said in the last 10 years I think I've only had a fall at speed twice, so maybe I'm better than I think
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