Snow for the Euros.

[greg]

Glad to hear you are ok. Everyone else too.
Did you contact ski patrol?

no we didn't.

to be honest, we were really close to absolutely sure there was nobody underneath us. the person would have had to have skied (grammar?) a completely illogical line in a very brief instant and hid behind that rollover that we could just not overlook from the very point where we were when we set off the slide.

the other group that we asked on the contrary had a very good view on not only the very slope behind the rollover but the whole path. so we were absolutely positive we there was nobody caught as soon as we spoke to them.

i think if we weren't the party that had triggered the slide but just bystanders we wouldn't have worried. but if there is just the slightest chance somebody got caught you just have to make absolutely sure it is not the case. at least i had to for a very egoistic reason: to be able to keep on living with a clear conscience like i had lived before.

edit: oh and after we made sure nobody was caught I was actually worried somebody who had seen the incident from the cabin would call in for mountain rescue. and what would it help to report to the patrol. they wouldn't know more than we did. on whose knowledge would they decide to take actions or not if not on ours. so to us it did not make a whole lot of sense. furthermore i think they must actually have taken notice of the slide since you have a pretty prominent view on the laub from some station. if not the decision would still have been up to ourselves anyways.

[greg]

but to quote "someone" loosely concerning those "freeskiers.net" meetings: "If this avalanche triggering becomes a regular thing, i won't be attending those anymore because you guys seem to take far too many risks"

glad you are not ballsy enough to name "someone" by it's name. since i'd be really ashamed of my statement. and i'm also glad you are quoting someone with something someone never said although you admit quoting loosely (whereas it should actually be spelled "lousy"). what someone said was that someone might as last means need to refrain from attending certain meetings in future since the attendants including himself seem to take too high risks in those constellations.

but i totally see that someone was completely proved wrong by this incident. and i'm very glad he was, since it means there is no reason to reevaluate decisiontaking and just keep on going as if nothing had happened.

sometimes it's not a big mistake when something happens, it just happens. Even if you dno't take many risks and/or make poor decisions. I'd still ski with you guys.

well I think someone did make a big mistake and it did not just happen. I'm glad it happened to someone since he has learned a lot to make sure it does not happen again. if you reduce munter to his reduction method the risk was not too high, but it was still a poor decision and very poor riskmanagement.

I really don't get your conclusions but I for my part see a lot of space for improvements and a lot to learn from this. but i'm glad we are talking about someone and not myself since this makes the discussion much less confusing and way more productive. and I also think, that in the end this is a public weather thread and we should take this discussion to another place especially since might not make a lot of sense to others. the reason why i posted in this thread was because our experience showed certain parallels to the incident in leysin previously posted.

but i agree with comish that this might not be the best place. but i don't know if it makes sense to open up a new thread since I'll probably have very poor internet access for the next 2 weeks and might not be able to answer. but I don't mind if somebody thinks this would be important enough to be posted in its own thread int either the slide zone or main forum.

and yes it was a pleasure to meet you too, knut. I doubt it was the last time.

PS: I want to add, that I had to think of h-man and his report from the arlberg as i started to find the situation too confusing and complex. I'm taking the risk of sounding pathetic here, but I really think reading his detailed report helped me to refocus in this situation. All I know now is that stress is a very decisive factor. and it helps a lot to previously have thought about different scenarios. it helps coping with the confusion that is going on in your head.

[Knut]

For visualization:

[subtle plague]

greg you did not quite get the point i was trying to make. (as i had foreseen).
it was just aimed at your argument from looong ago that you never had any incident and assumed the incidents which happened MUST have happened because everybody behaved reckless.
I can't, won't, and should comment about any of those other incidents back then, but i know it was partly aimed at me and killswitch as well. I know what we did. i know why. And i learned my lesson. no need to pull out the fabulous rolleyes in order to give your response more weight. I didn't mean to have "a late triumph" by seeing your "downfall" as you may have assumed.

i just wanted to point out that one thing may lead to another and it is not necessaryly recklessness or risk taking in a group that ultimately leads to an incident. Of course it is important to know why and how the decisions worked.

assuming that you didn't take any horrendously stupid risks i wanted to point out that maybe others didn't as well and would not be so harsh on judging them afterwards. You're always smarter afterwards.

[comish]

For visualization:

Knut,

Just seeing the lovely red X...

[p@wder]

Skiied Nendaz today, damn its like summer. Super wet heavy danger snow on south facing slopes. Id plenty of hiking to find turns. North facing slopes above 2000m had some wind ripped, crusty-slabbay snow which was soft enough and smooth enough to be fun, but definitely can't be described as fresh snow.

South facing slopes were crazy, heavy slop which would roll down the slope in big cart-wheels. Pretty obvious danger signs. We minimised our exposure, skiied one ata time, and were all carry full gear.

[Roo]

Wow. That's got me stoked for the weekend.

[geo039]

Roo, You around? PM me if you this side of the channel and we will try to make some turns....it is better than you think

Wow. That's got me stoked for the weekend.

[davidof]

Wow. That's got me stoked for the weekend.

You should find some reasonable conditions, this video is from today and was taken just behind l'alpe d'Huez. There are some pockets of powder and the spring snow is not too shabby although we were maybe 30 minutes too late.

[stantonbum1]

Was in Nendaz today, conditions were not bad considering the warm weather - it was actually some of the better skiing I have done this winter. Pretty much everything was tracked but the general quality of the snow was not bad as long as it hadnt had too much sun exposure.

Its the first time I´ve skied in the four valleys and the amount of easily accessible terrain is amazing. Definitely somewhere I would consider doing a season.

[p@wder]

Did my first ever Ski randonee near Arolla, 1850-2850m, mixture of slope aspect. wore T-shirt sraight to the top. About 2pm it suddenly cooled down a lot more and the Sun disapeared, the results was some of the most disgusting crusty heavy mank imaginable. After a while we were enjoing the "consistent smooth crust" we found on some south facing slopes.

Oh and BCA Tracker suck. Need to get some freerides...

[TeleAl]

Did you report this slide to patrol?

no we didn't.

It is good to inform patrol of avalanche activity.
Let them decide how to respond to it.
It is not about everyone being safe as much as it is about keeping the pros informed.

Information they would want to know is the
size (length, width, crown height), aspect, altitude, steepness, time, etc.
Other places of similar traits might have become dangerous and worth inspecting.

[bbirtle]

Just back from a great two days in Switzerland. Friday with TeleAl, LITT, and Ripzalot at G3000. Great fresh tracks in heavish but very fun pow all day long.

Saturday at Zermatt was the jackpot. Put in the track down the Hohtalli face under the cablecar line in knee-deep light fluffy pow that went on and on, fresh and beautiful for 1050m! Liked my line on the way up so much I "braided" it, then went for a third, then a forth... all before anybody else tried to ski it.

Did the same on the Gornergrot facing slope from Hohtalli - laid in the first track, then braided it. A little more rocks over there so moved onto Gornergrot itself. Hiked to the viewing platform and did the third track down two 400m faces with a quick five minute hike in between. Second face wind loaded so nearly waist deep and light.

Total of 10000m+ skiied, of which about 8000m of it was fresh tracks. Hit a few rocks but totally worth it.

Now having a rest day. Freaking amazing storm and some of the best skiing of the year. Hope everybody else managed to find some fun things too!!

[klar]

Hope everybody else managed to find some fun things too!!

oh yeah. pitztal backside baby.

[sharcsplean]

I was at Grindewald for the weekend - they did not have the same snow as G3000. Most of the slopes were icy and softend up in the afternoon. We did a little off piste and the snow was thick and heavy. The weather was great, and the ski school did a great job teaching my 3 year old how to stop! (I am a proud papa) I hope it snows there soon, there was a lot of great terrain that will be available after a big DUMP!

I may be going to Adelboden on Thursday or Friday - if anyone has off during the week - PM me.

[Semnoz]

Les Grands Montets was great on Saturday as well.

[Hayduke]

Alpe D'huez was refrozen mank. Nice to be back on skis again though.

[rungsp]

Verbier for the last week:
Last weekend hard and polished on piste, forgetabboutit off piste.
Briefly met Verbier61 who told us to expect some good times skiing with Guilia from Powder Extreme.
Monday...dumping but bad visibility. true to his prediction she took us (me, wife, son 15, daughter 13) to some off the beaten track spots. We skied some stuff we would never normally ski.
Tuesday...still dumping...Bruscon was almost a private mountain for us in the morning. Loads of fresh lines in boot-knee deep pow. My goodness...she can ski!! Sadly my wife twisted her knee quite badly so I took her home and then returned. The kids told me she had really turned it up several levels once we old farts were gone. Some hard to find tree-lines and gullys at a fast pace.
She took us back to them at my somewhat slower pace (I'm 46 and fit...but not as fit as they are).
We met a film crew shooting some riders, the film crew all stopped to say "Hi" to Guilia..."who is she?" asked the Pro-Rider...."Oh, that's Guilia, she is the best skier in Verbier" said the film guy.
Well she might be/might not be the Best...but she is flippin good!:

http://www.xtremeverbier.com/en/video/index.php

then select her video from winning last year's O'Neill Extreme.

Wedesday(still snowing)-Thursday good conditions but somewhat hampered by wife's bad knee and my cousins joining us with their incredibly timid teenage daughter....Thank God my daughter is nothing like that!

Friday a day trip to Flaine to ski with some friends...very very crowded and ultra hard-packed. It had rained there a lot on wednesday.

Weekend in Verbier getting warm....Tortin etc still in great shape though. Pistes 100% coverage. More needed off piste but if you time it right there are some excellent spring-snow spots to be found.

[squaremountain_local]

Was in Arabba last week february 10-17. Pistes are ok, no rocks but hard. Received 20 cm of fresh on tuesdaynight but it blew away the next day. We managed to get some tracks in close to the piste. Up high snow coverage is dictated by the wind. Later in the week we skied some lines on either hard windpacked snow or horrible breakable crust. Will post a TR later this week.

[subtle plague]

forecast:

[Incompetent Boob]

???
The quick look I had it looks good this weekend/early next week.

[subtle plague]

yes and no.

it will snow above 1000m (we'll see.... in THIS kind of winter). quite a lot in cham to be exact.
but the fun will stay fo about 48h before the freezing level skyrockets again.

If you hit the ONE day after the storm before it gets warm then it'll be good. otherwise.....and im not going for one day of storm skiing and one possible good day on a less than ideal base..

[klar]

and im not going for one day of storm skiing and one possible good day on a less than ideal base..

and that mr. plague, with all due respect, is your problem.

[Roo]

good piste skiing again on sunday at leysin. good fast top to bottom laps all day with no crowds. we even had some fun soft offpiste turns on the berneuse.

i had two fun days this weekend. learn to be happy with what you have.

Very true, klar.

Ever ubersnowsnob Ripazalot is seeing the light these days.

[Ripzalot]

Very true, klar.

Ever ubersnowsnob Ripazalot is seeing the light these days.

now when have i ever been a snowsnob? and and uber one at that?

when it comes down to either skiing or not skiing, i'm happy to be skiing.

and i'm very happy to have a 3000m resort on my pass. i couldn't care less what happens below 2000m.