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To Henry and all the team, I do find Henry's e-zine very informative and read it straight away. It's made my think twice about venturing off piste without a guide. If anything it makes me want to spend another season out there, if not a whole year so you can explore all the mountains without snow on them first! Perhaps when the kids leave!? Nick

A lucky escape or a calculated risk?

We came across this video on You Tube. It as from an incident in Verbier in March 2006. This video has prompted a lot of reaction (71000 people have viewed it!). Some of the comments are sympathetic, some or helpful and many are just plain critical and even rude.

So we took a look and decided to see if we could learn anything from this incident.

A lot of people on You Tube have criticised the skiers for going down the slope. With hindsight it always easy to criticise decisions when they go wrong. It is much harder to assess the risk at the time.  But we noticed a few things. 

They followed some of the rules about “how to go”. This is one of the reasons no-one was hurt.  The skiers were conducting themselves in a safe manner.  They seemed to be following the rules about “how to go”.

• They skied the slope one at a time, if they had skied down it together, it is very likely one would have been killed.
• The camera man had chosen to stop on an “island of safety” so that he was safe from any avalanche risk.  He was standing on an area of rocks and grass away from the loaded slope.
• The skier who triggered to slide had an exit route when the Avalanche broke and this gave him the chance which saved his life.

So for us at HAT, this is a good illustration of the benefits of following the rules on “how to go”. (see Henry’sAvalancheTalks).

Did they make a reckless call in skiing that slope? Well it is hard to say without being there, but we can tell a few things. It looks to us as though it would have been hard to judge the slope was vulnerable at that time.  There were some previous tracks and we cannot see many signs of recent avalanche activity.

But, the slope was clearly steep enough to release and you can tell that it was well loaded, by the amount of snow that slid off.  It was the kind of day when avalanches can be triggered.  A sunny day after a lot of fresh snow with an avalanche risk of 3/5 (considerable).

So you could read that as saying that there was a risk.  It was definitely a slope for one at a time and using islands of safety. When you are out there and if you are not sure then do follow the HAT rule of thumb  When you don’t know, don’t go. But the decisions about risk are very personal. What we want you to do is to be able to take considered and informed decisions.

Watching and studying incidents like this is a great way to increase your understanding of risk. You can never be certain, the art is to make judgements but also to “know what you don’t know” As we say, “when you know what you don’t know, then you can make decisions to stay safe and have fun”.

The biggest avalanche we have ever seen on film.

This one was set off by the ski patrol as a safety precaution, so no-one was caught in it.

Off piste snow depths
Last season, we recorded the actual off piste snow depths as reported each week by Meteo France for the Haute Tarentaise.  We will do this again and update this each week through this season.  We also have displayed the historical averages  for on piste snow depths as reported by the Ski Club of Great Britain for the past 13 years.

To find out how to learn more about HAT and whether you it is for you click here.

Helping you make informed decisions Know how you can find the best snow for skiing Understand how to ski safely off piste Build your off-piste ski skills Have more fun!

Henry’s advice

We recommend that the first thing you do is sign up to get our free paper on going off piste and receive Henry’s weekly snow reports, a translation of the official safety bulletin and some detailed ski weather forecasts for free riders and off piste skiers

Finding your news bulletins and fact sheets excellent .  Cheers    Ian Findlay
Henry et al!   Great bulletin. thanks and keep up the good work.  Archie Smith