Henry's Avalanche Talk, Avalanche awareness, Off piste skiing, snow reports, snow conditions, Val d'Isere, Tignes

The Helmet debate - please contribute

But, what about helmets for skiers on piste or off piste.  You are more likely to get a head injury than to be caught in an avalanche.  We tell you to take a beeper shovel and probe.  Should this become a recommended piece of eqipment for adults as well as children?  Opinions really divide on this, many helment wearers swear by them, non wearers frequently swear at them others gently poke fun.  Where do you stand

 

Some of the HAT team are persuaded of the case and Chris started wearing one in February after more than 20 years of skiing without it.  Others are still thinking about it?

 

Comments here please?  A free ticket to the talks for the best one.

Great day above the clouds..

When I got up this morning it was grey, cloudy and overcast. When I set out this morning with my group it was grey, cloudy and overcast, but when we got above 2400 metres it was bright blue and fresh snow was everywhere. We skied off piste in several cm's of compact fresh snow all day starting in Tignes then back over to Val d'Isère, the clouds cleared later in the day too - it was awesome!

Sounds like nice weather again tomorrow then Weds will be covered and snowing around the Italian boarder then clearing gradually with temps getting unseasonably high at the end of the week

Wayne from Alpine Experience skiing here below today in the Chardonay bowl in Tignes photo by J;Ribart

Summary of the Past Week & Glance Ahead

I skied quite a bit with Dan Egan and his Ski Clinics groups last week here in Val d'Isère. So this week I asked him to do the snow report (I add in a couple hunches I have for the next few days at the bottom):

The Skiing in Espace Killy has been a season worth of snow types in the past seven days!  The week opened with chalky snow on the north faces and hard firm frozen ribbed snow elsewhere.  Wins and cool temperatures key the snow from transforming and on Wednesday the storm finally arrived and the high pressure that had plagued the French Alps finally buggered off. The storm dropped a much needed carpet of fresh snow at all elevations. It appears that more snow is on the way for the weekend so prepare to call in sick for work and plan on great skiing well into next week.
 
PLEASE remember that the snow is sitting on very firm and slick old snow that was frozen.  So small pockets of activity are being reported from Chamonix to Val D Isere (several accidents have been reported).  Watch out before you jump into a line of fresh snow - if you're good enough, cut the slope and, no matter what, pick an Island of Safety for an escape route.  Just because there are tracks and your friends have skied doesn’t mean the slope won’t slide.  Take responsibility for yourself and use precaution.  As an old Val D Isere local once told me, Slowly, Slowly, don’t rush the mountain!
 
Be safe and have fun,
 
Dan Egan
Skiclinics.com 

The next week looks like it will continue like the end of this past week with lots of overcast days, some snow... BUT less wind and much warmer temps mid-week. Today the skiing was great up high on the glaciers where there was another 10cm or so of fresh snow. The snow stability is generally good, but there are pockets of instability that can take you down a good 50-100 metres - several accidental avalanches have been reported to confirm this danger (fractures of 20-40 cm in places due to the high winds that occurred at times over the last 6 days!)

See Thursday's post on Dan's presentation: the world premier of his 4 DVD set entitled, Egan Entertainment Network's CULT CLASSICS at dicks tea bar in Val d'Isère. 

More snow, Nice snow... but windy and visibility in and out!

Great skiing today. I took an Alpine Experience group today (27 March)  and headed up to the Fornet with Wayne Watson. We had some great snow up at the top, but had some issues with visibility as we both fell off a steep roller/ cornice in the Pays Desert! See photos below from under the roller as we get our groups through it.

Wayne had some difficulty when he fell off the roller/cornice above. Here is an extract from his update on the 'News' section of the Alpine Experience web site

"Henry and I skied up at the Fornet and opened over the far shoulder in the Combe du Signal followed by the Combe du 3300 on the Pissaillas and then the Pays Desert. The snow was excellent but we were shut-down because of high winds, which was unfortunate as the skies were starting to clear and our visibility was about to improve drastically. I had a sticky moment when feeling my way around a cornice in flat-light. I found the edge and started side-slipping down when my bottom ski dropped into a hole and wedged itself in. My upper body almost went head-first, which would have broken my leg or torn my knee. Thankfully I didn’t go over the top and managed to balance myself until John Ellis could get above me and pull me up with my pole. It was a very uncomfortable moment and just shows how quickly things can go wrong. Thanks John! Henry was below and took some photos so they may be on his blog."

Snowing in the Alps - sunny window off-piste with skiclinics.com!

Snowing, windy.. it has been mostly cloudy and very, very windy (out of NW) so far since Tuesday morning, but yesterday (26 March) we had a nice window of sunny weather that allowed us to enjoy some epic turns on strips of fresh snow 20-30 cm deep off piste inbetween windblown crusty stuff. In some places it was really deep though 50 cm plus! See photos below take by Jamie from Peak Photographics  of our day out with Dan Egan's Ski Clinics. (Scott, Jay, Mike & Claire: I slipped in one of each of you that I took at the bottom of this post!). A little bit of instability on the steep loaded slopes, a couple slabs with fractures 20-30 cm on varied slope aspects- enough to take you for a ride; so we avoided anything that looked like a terrain trap and played the game safe, e.g. one a time, islands of safety and all the other good stuff that you can learn from Henry's Avalanche Talk!

..and here's some nice ones i took while guiding the group: of Scott, Jay, Mike and Claire (in that order below)

Dan Egan's Cult Classic Premier is a big hit in Val d'Isère

HAT hosted Dan Egan's world premier of his 4 DVD set entitled, Egan Entertainment CULT CLASSICS at dicks tea bar in Val d'Isère. 

Dan (below) brought us off-piste from Turkey to Russia and from western Canada to Sugarbush, Vermont. The chronology of these skiing exploits were defined by thin skis and day-glow one piece suits at first.. and by the end, we were back in this century in wide skis and cool all-mountain equipment - feels good!

Attended by young and old, guests of the resort as well as many saisonaires (some more 'seasoned' than others). All had a great time thanks in large part to Dan's live commentary combined with action and adventure footage most of which featured him and his brother, the 'EGAN BROTHERS', riding off piste slopes through the decades

Egan Brother's Cult Classics @ dicks 6pm this Weds

On Weds 6pm at Dick’s T Bar, Dan Egan will present a film festival of Extreme Skiing films shot over the last 20 years featuring John and Dan Egan and the Wild World of Winter Gang.  Entry is Free.

The films featured are all produced by Egan Entertainment Network and were released from 1989 to 2009. 

Titles include such classics as Return of the Shred-I, Extreme Dream, Where the Steeps have No Name and the Best of Ski Bumology.
 
Don’t miss this fun evening with commentary by Dan Egan 

This is event is a HATadventures production!

More of the same for tomorrow, but then snow!

More of the same (see my last post) for tomorrow, BUT then snow forecast for Tuesday and snowy for the rest of the week until Saturday, at least!

Snow starting wee hours of the morning on Tuesday morning (snow rain limit 1200 m then down to as low as 700 during the day - this means cold weather for the Northern French Alps; 5-25 cm predicted with 'sustained winds out of the NW). 

Clearing in places on Tuesday afternoon then cloudy then another snow storm coming in on Weds afternoon with 5-20 cm predicted (the forecast is a bit vague on exactly what is going to happen for most of the days on Weds before the snow comes in the afternoon...).

THEN another few storms coming through from late Weds through Friday then winds turning to the South on Saturday with more snow coming in, but mainly confined to the Piedmont area (along the Italian border).

In the mean time, I've become a bit of a nature gazer.  Here today I spotted a big old Ibex (Bouquetin in French) in the mountains above the Fornet, Val d'Isère - see photo below)

Last few days, Next few days...

The last few days have been very warm on sunny slopes and down in the valley, but there has been a pretty cold north wind, 'bise' blowing down the Northern French Alps. The new snow from last week has been pretty tracked out thought the wind has filled in quite a few of those tracks (which was our experience on the North Face of the Foglietta on Wednesday). The snow has been wintery and good on those north faces (above 1800 metres) over the last few days - bit wind crusted and changeable in places. So 'good' for good skiers and intermediate skiers with wide ski, but tough for people with narrow skis. On anything other than north it has been hit by the sun: ranging from a good solid melt-freeze layer (see my last post on Spring Skiing) on steep'ish' south east to south west facing slopes up to around 3000 metres to a thin layer of breakable melt-freeze on everything else including the flats (except of course the North facing slopes that I just described - again see my Spring Skiing post for a summary. Here are some photos and descriptions of the past few days - I'll attempt a prediction for the next few days below the photos (more descriptions and next few days coming in a little while!)

These last few days you had to be wiling to walk to get to some good snow (here below top of Fornet in Val d'Isère)

 There was some good spring snow (see my post on Tues on Spring Skiing), but the slopes had to be fairly steep and oriented close to South and they had to be slopes that were 'clean' i.e. slopes that weren't skied last week when we got the snow! Anything that isn't facing close to South and pretty steep has a thin melt-freeze crust that is totally breakable (doesn't hold yr weight!). See my 

Excellent spring skiing here on this South facing slope around 2800 metres-2200 in the Valley above 'Eccot' just around the corner from Bonneval-sur-Arc (Haute Maurienne, Savoie). 

North Facing couloir above Bonneval. North faces are the only really sure place to get consistent skiable winter snow snow off-piste at the moment. Everything else is pretty much a crap shoot (with the exception of some of the spring skiing!

 

Yea well we've been a bit lazy and needed a break from all the walking this past week (below)!

 South faces have been coming down big time as the first very warm temps (starting Tuesday) since the snow last week have had south facing slopes releasing huge quantities of snow in some places like here above Bonneval (road up to Col d'Iseran at bottom of photo). It's supposed to get a lot colder over the next few days so that might hold these south faces together. But it's forecast to stay sunny (don't picnic under south facing slopes you may end up under several tens of thousands of tons of snow!)

SPRING SKIING

Understand the ‘melt-freeze cycles’ and have fun with spring skiing!

Off-piste spring skiing is one of the best things that the Northern French Alps has to offer. With lift access to all slope orientations: north, east, south and west, you can get on it with little effort.

Melt-freeze Cycles

Once the new snow melts during the day and then freezes at night (1 melt-freeze cycle) a few times in succession after a snowfall, the top snow layer begins to form a crust that gets deeper and stronger after each melt allows free water to drip down and re-freeze during the night. Any given ‘melt-freeze’ layer becomes stronger with each cycle of melting and freezing due to the deeper penetration of each melt during the day, which then adds more depth to the potential frozen layer at night. If untouched, the top of this frozen layer is smooth and solid first thing in the morning, then it becomes progressively softer as the warm sun and increased temperatures melt it as the day goes by. This process starts on east faces because they get the sun first thing in the morning, then south, then west (north faces at 2500 metres don’t normally get a melt freeze layer on them until late April due to lack of sun).

For good skiing!

The trick is, after a couple of good melt-freeze cycles have created a solid layer on a slope, you need to get on that slope when the snow surface is smooth and solid with only 2 or 3 cm’s of soft melted snow on top (these are generally slopes that have been in the direct sunlight only for an hour or so e.g. an East facing slope at 9 or 10). Then you need to get off those slopes when the snow surface begins to get too soft and mushy or you’ll start breaking through, which is dangerous for your knees. AND the slope may be unstable due to all the melting - then avalanches can be a problem.

In sum:

After a solid melt-freeze layer has formed and there has been a good melt during the day, it needs to freeze well the night before; the ideal is a cool clear night with minimums of –2 degrees (or lower) at 2000 m. This will allow the melted parts of the layer to freeze solid again from that altitude up. Then, in the morning, you look to get on the east facing slopes first thing, 9 AM, because the sun rises in the east and therefore those slopes get the sun first. Then you move to south facing slopes, then west. Do this right and get some of the best skiing of the season.

Aside from a night that is not cool enough, the only thing that gets in the way of great spring skiing is the nasty ruts in the snow that people leave behind because they either ski spring snow slopes (slopes that get lots of sun in spring: E,S and W) before the melt-freeze layer has formed or they ski the slopes too late when they are too soft and mushy.

Tip of the week:

If you have any questions about the timing of good spring skiing, just ask any off-piste guide or instructor around town. They will be happy to explain because their quality of skiing depends on people skiing it right!

Have Fun, Be Safe!

Henry and the HAT Team

See http://www.henrysavalanchetalk.com for the events this week!