0
0
Share with your friends










Submit
  • Home
  • About
  • Advertising
  • Privacy
  • Property
  • Contact
  • Sitemap

Logo

Navigation
  • Ski Resorts
  • Where to Ski
  • How to Ski
  • Snow
    • Snow Report
  • Gear
    • Ski Clothing
    • Ski Equipment
  • Family Skiing
  • Ski Holidays
  • Deals
  • Summer

Warning: Avalanche Danger

By Peter Hardy | on January 7, 2016 | 6 Comments
Ski Holiday
Avalanche Warning | Welove2ski

Photo: © My Good Images/Shutterstock.

AT LAST! After a piste-poor Christmas, the Alps are covered in a thick winter blanket. There’s 80cm of fresh snow underfoot – with a lot more promised in the days to come. You just can’t wait to click into those super-fat powder skis and cut first tracks.

BUT WAIT! Think avalanche. Recklessness combined with ignorance too often takes a fatal toll in the mountains and, already, this winter is no exception.

Of course, such enthusiasm for skiing or snowboarding is understandable. You’ve paid your money, here it is, and you want to get on with it. But take a cool, hard look before you leap.

At the time of writing, six days have passed since the first proper flakes of the winter made their tardy appearance in the Savoie and Haute Savoie. Already, in France alone, five people have died and two remain critically injured in hospital. Last season 45 lives were lost to avalanches in France.

With a warning of 3 or even 4 out of 5 on the recognised European Avalanche Danger Scale, no-one should be venturing off-piste at all until the pack has stabilized. Except perhaps on the very gentlest of slopes with a gradient of way below 30 degrees.

In Val d’Isere on Tuesday, two groups were buried in up to 150cm within an hour on different parts of the mountain, resulting in two deaths and two life-threatening injuries. Both parties had triggered giant slab avalanches created by the combination of deep fresh snow and high winds on a slippery frozen base.

Avalanche Warning | Welov2ski

Avalanche rescue on January 5, 2016. Photo: © Radio Val d’Isere.

Another skier died in the Maurienne Valley near St Sorlin/Les Sybelles, while two climbers were killed in Chamonix. On the same day in Courchevel, the rescue services rushed to no less than eight different avalanches triggered by skiers (fortunately with no serious consequences).

In Tignes, local freestyle star Theo Lange had a near miraculous escape – recorded on his head cam while skiing a couloir off the Col du Palet. He said afterwards: “I was scared. In a few minutes I saw all my life flash before me.” Here’s the video of his attempted descent.

The Savoie local government has called on everyone to take special care: “The recent and important snowfalls have landed on a very hard base and they are going to continue throughout the week, creating a raised risk of avalanche (level 4 out of 5) on the mountain ranges in the department.”

So what can you do to stay safe?

Learn the basics of snowcraft from a course such as those provided by Henry’s Avalanche Talk. Check the avalanche risk in your resort and get local advice.

Ski with a local qualified guide

Make sure you are fully equipped with transceiver, probe, and shovel. Check the battery level on your bleeper, turn it on, and check those of your companions. Ideally, carry an airbag.

But remember, while these bits of kit may help you and your party, the best way to survive an avalanche is not to get caught in one in the first place.

Also see our features on avoiding injury this winter, keeping safe on the mountain, and a sobering survivor’s tale.

Share this story:
  • tweet

Tags: How To Ski

Recent Posts

  • Six Reasons We Love Going to St Anton by Train

    February 1, 2023 - 0 Comment
  • 7 of the Best Wines to Sip on A Dolomites Ski Trip

    January 24, 2023 - 1 Comment
  • 5 Ways to Make Your Tirolean Ski Holiday More Sustainable

    January 23, 2023 - 0 Comment

Related Posts

  • Feeling Rusty? Then Follow These 5 Steps Back to Skiing Well

    April 5, 2022 - 1 Comment
  • The Tirolean Guide to Ski Touring: How and Where to Start

    March 5, 2020 - 0 Comment
  • Where to Learn: British Ski Schools in the Alps

    February 15, 2019 - 9 Comments

Author Description

Peter Hardy

An editor at Welove2ski, Peter is also writes about skiing for The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. He first put on skis as a child on a family holiday, and has since been to some 500 resorts around the world.

6 Responses to “Warning: Avalanche Danger”

  1. Avatar

    January 6, 2016

    Jon Reply

    It’s an avalanche transceiver, not a “bleeper”. No use checking just your batteries unless you actually check that the transceiver is emitting a signal and working in receive mode too. That goes for everyone in the party.

    • Peter Hardy

      January 6, 2016

      Peter Hardy Reply

      If you read the post you’ll see that I called it both transceiver and bleeper. I also said that you need to check that it works! Beeper, bleeper, transceiver…regardless of what you call it, what matters it that you’ve got one and know how to use it.

  2. Avatar

    January 6, 2016

    Paul Bumford Reply

    Not getting caught in one in the first place would be good but why don’t you campaign for all lift passes to have a built in transceiver system such as the Recco one

    • Peter Hardy

      January 6, 2016

      Peter Hardy Reply

      Recco is an excellent system. For those who don’t know, this is a chip, often built into skiwear, that can be ‘read’ by a detector carried by rescue teams or by a helicopter-mounted gun to locate people buried underneath the snow. Unfortunately, the success relies upon the arrival of a helicopter or the rescue team at the accident scene. In the case of the helicopter, this rarely takes place less than 15 minutes after the person has been buried and the chances of survival diminish rapidly after that period. That said, this is a positive idea, Paul, and I will certainly raise it with resorts that we work with. I have no idea what the chip costs but I imagine it would raise the cost of each lift pass by maybe €5-10….a small price to pay to save lives. Don’t forget that Recco is not a substitute for a transceiver.

  3. Avatar

    January 6, 2016

    John Yates-Smith Reply

    Are we sure that the thousands of people who don’t risk their lives off-piste would each want to spend an extra few quid on their lift pass in order to save the handful who do the small cost of a bleeper – sorry, transceiver – and give them instead the false sense of security created by a passive system which saves very few lives?

    • Avatar

      January 6, 2016

      Eliza Bradley Reply

      Agree with you John Yates-Smith, the off piste guides who can read the mountains and keep those skiers safe should be the ones who are paid— for safety from avalanche — not the ski pass chaps!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Free Updates

Join 16,000 clever people who get the latest Welove2ski content delivered to their inbox

RSSSubscribe 15199 Followers 10135 Fans

The Loveometer

Zermatt: Cool Chalets, Certain Snow and The Majestic Matterhorn
100 %
Tweenager Tips: How to Enjoy Ski Holidays with Older Kids
98 %
How to Go Green On Your Ski Holiday
98 %
St Anton, Austria: Wild Nights, Steep Pistes and Challenging Backcountry
97 %
Weird and Wonderful Ski Fads and Fashions
94 %
  • Home
  • About
  • Advertising
  • Privacy
  • Property
  • Contact
  • Sitemap
© 2020. All Rights Reserved. Created with love by WL2S