Henry's ski diary - off piste ski guide, snow report Val d'Isere, avalanche awareness

Big Snow Forecast

Just called into the Météo France 7 day forecast for the Northern Alps. They are very confident that a big storm is moving in for this weekend (Saturday through Tuesday). It sounds like a classic big storm with winds predicted to come in from the west then north-west. The rain/snow limit is predicted to be from 1300m to 2300m which is a bit wet, but at least it will be snowing up high!

Over the last week the HAT Team has been on the road promoting and presenting our new production 'Ride Hard ! Ride Safe' in Val d'Isère, Tignes Méribel and Chamonix. Further big events include our HAT Kick-off staff meeting in Val d'Isère this weekend where the whole HAT Team will be present and a party in Dicks Tea Bar with a FREE viewing of 'Ride Hard ! Ride Safe' for seasonal staff (please call Dicks to reserve 04 79 06 14 87 leave your name with Becca). See you soon! Henry

Events, Shows, Talks and Courses in Oct & Nov

The HAT Team and I have been involved in a number of events, courses and talks in the UK and Germany over the last month. Some of the most noteworthy were: beeper training on the beaches of Suffolk and presenting to German corporates in Munich (where I was introduced to ‘real Bavarian knoodles’). But from the perspective of fulfilling our mission of providing insight on adventure skiing, riding off-piste and awareness in the backcountry, the London METRO SKI & SNOWBOARD SHOW (24 to the 28 October) had the most impact . Andreas, Jamie and I did 16 talks and hosted 4 viewings of our DVD - all in 5 days.

We put the presentations on in the 'Offpiste Adventure Zone' where we also had a stand to base ourselves from. 1000’s of the 40-50k visitors to the show passed by the HAT stand each day. In sum, we started on the first day with a very well attended press viewing of our DVD, Avalanche and Off-piste Awareness (for the DVD see avalancheawareness.co.uk), which was organised in conjuction with Ski Club of Great Britain and Snow and Rock. From there the HAT Team (which also included Chris, Stacey and Ruth) achieved:

• 16 HAT “Ride Hard, Ride Safe” presentations over 4 days
• attracted a total audience of just over 950 people to these 30-55minute talks
• 100's more peaked through the crowd to get a view of 'what was going on'
• people from 40+ other stands visited us and viewed the presentations
• several hundred more people signed up for the ezine www.hat.skioffpiste.co.uk/abouthat/freestuff.html

And our new, 'Skiing with HAT' or 'HATadventures' programmes were introduced to lots of interested people.  So, 'thank you' to the HAT Team, our partners and Piers from Greeneye for making this happen with the organisers of the Metro Ski & Board Show! 

Back to the Snow!

After a month traveling in the UK and Germany doing talks, courses and events, I was blessed with snow upon my arrival back in the Alps on Wednesday November 15th. Here shoveling snow (30-40 cm) at 900 metres at the HAT HQ in Longefoy France in Savoie (snow removal procedures directed by my two year old Goddaughter Ness Bjorklund who is waving at the camera).