The rescue services have warned ski tourers to take care over the next few days with renewed warm temperatures in the mountains. There is a lot of snow at altitude in the mountains and there have been a couple of recent incidents with reports of slabs, particuarly in the Ecrins region.

On the 13th November 2011 two skiers traversed the mid-cirque of Peruvian Gulch at Snowbird to reach the Gad Valley ridgeline, remotely triggering a 60 cm deep, 200 meter wide avalanche that covered their boot tracks below. They may not have even seen this slide in the low cloud and poor visibility.

Clipping into skis and board they skied the ridgeline then stopped. The skiers were above the south chute, a steep, rocky and tree lined couloir that drops 350 meters into Gad Valley. The first skier made three turns then – game over.

Two ski instructors from the Ecole du Ski Français are threatened with a 5 year ban and suspended prison sentences in a manslaughter trial at Albertville court this week. Readers of PisteHors will remember the avalanche on the 31st December 2009 in Orelle which cost the life of a client, buried for 15 minutes by an avalanche while skiing off piste.

photo: kees wolthoorn

Winter 2011/12 will be remembered as cold and snowy in France, at least in an arc stretching from the Vosges in the North to the Hautes-Alpes in the south. A two week freeze February saw the coldest temperatures since 1986. Strong northerly winds made the situation worse, freezing central heating pipes and diesel and leaving hundreds of motorists stranded. However the cold was bracketed by warm, but snowy, weather.

When skiing the normal route of the Vallée Blanche we tend to focus on the high mountain dangers, a fall from the ridge or a crevasse, rather then avalanches. At 12h30 on Saturday the rail line that links Chamonix to the Mer de Glace was blocked by a slide. An inconvenience for 100 passengers who had to be airlifted from Montenvers but a drama was unfolding lower down for a number of skiers descending the classic Vallée Blanche route. An account of the events by Bruno and posted on his website

Avalanche on forest trail – library photo

A videographer at an unsanctioned snowboard freeride event captured some provocative footage last weekend of an avalanche airbag in action:

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, a one-minute video is worth nearly 250,000 views on Youtube. At an unsanctioned snowboard freeride contest in Colorado, competitor Meesh Hytner, was captured in a class 3 avalanche. She deployed her Backcoutnry Access (BCA) Float 30 avalanche airbag and remained on the surface for the duration of the slide, escaping with no injuries.

Videographer Tyler Malay was filming at the grassroots event, called the Coloradikal Backyard BBQ, and captured the entire incident. The resulting Youtube video has gone viral, gathering nearly 250,000 views as of Friday (Feb. 3).

BCA’s Float airbags have been available in North America for three years, but only recently have been approved for sale in Europe. The company introduced two new models at ISPO earlier this week: the Float 22 and the Float 32. For more info, see http://www.backcountryaccess.com/airbag .

If you enjoy the peace, quiet and savage beauty of the mountains then the Val d’Aran is somewhere to cross off you list this winter. However if you like shreddin’ the gnar and don’t care too much how then Spain could be a new destination. The Catalonian government has just authorized heliskiing in the area. Two companies will be running trips Pyrenees Heliskiing and TAF Helicopters.

Photo: Pyrenees Heliskiing

The avalanche conditions may be some of the most stable we’ve known in a generation but that’s not the only danger in the mountains in winter. As we mentioned in the snow conditions thread and as our friends at Kairn.com have reminded us the other side of the coin is frequently hard or icy snow. Indeed in the Pyrenees there have been 6 deaths in a week as winter sports enthusiasts have lost their footing in the mountains.

The season may have started late in the French Northern Alps (the 7th of December to be exact) but Christmas looks like being the best since 1999 in terms of quality and quantity of snow. As we start the new year there are above average snow depths from the Vercors (1600 meters) in the south to the Bellecote (3000 meters) in the north of the Savoie. At Bourg St Maurice (900 meters) there was nearly a meter of snow on the ground on New Year’s eve. At the ski resort of Valloire (1400 meters) in the Maurienne there is 170cm at the bottom of the pistes.

Spring snow in the Chartreuse at 1600m

Here’s wishing everyone a happy and safe Christmas with a couple of films of how it used to be back in the 1970s. Long skis, spandex pants, and lots of facial hair.