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

Courchevel - Deloitte's Private Equity Team

Will Eaton (of the HAT team) and I had the pleasure to ski with various members of the Deloitte's Private Equity Transaction Services (PETS) team over the last three days.

Perhaps it's the presence of the gangs of pro-skiers for the "Columbia Ride Week" but the Courchevel off-piste seems particularly tracked-out at the moment. Even so, with a little searching (and the occasional short walk) there's still some great, light snow to be found on the higher, north-facing slopes ... and piste conditions have been fantastic!

Here are some of the censored images and vids:

Below: Day 1, sneaking in a little off-piste run on the way to the restaurant (St Martin de Belleville). At lower altitudes, slopes that get the sun (like this south-west-facing part of our run) are not far from showing spring conditions ...

Below: Day 3, "Les Creux Noirs" - a north-facing bowl that starts at about 2700m, so a safe bet for good, dry snow at the moment. As you can see, there's still a few nice pockets of powder to be had ...

Below: Stepping it up a bit for the final run - Courchevel's infamous "Grand Couloir". It's a marked run but not as a we know it! A slightly nerve-wracking ski in along the top of a narrow ridge sets the tone for where piste skiing meets couloir skiing ...

sunny, warm bit tracked out

in three valleys (val thorens at the moment). off piste is good high and north. some fresh tracks, but mostly tracked out. great snow on piste. very warm. henry

Windy but then pretty good!

Started off windy as hell, but then not too bad with a little bit of fresh the trees were really good in Val dIsère. Next update from Courchevel this weekend

Henry

Sunny, Warm.. and a bit of snow forecast

It's been sunny and VERY warm the last few days. We've had to sniff to find good snow. The 10-20 cm forecast for tomorrow morning (starting around 5 am) will be more than welcome as we're spoiled from such a great season so far!

GREAT SNOW MORE INSTABILITY

great snow today more than 30cm light not much wind either. The snowpack is becoming even more unstable. several people have been taken in the last few days in the espace killy. new snow is adding to the instability. avalanche rating up to 4 tomorow. BE CAREFUL

Skiing with Andreas from HAT & Alpine Experience

We all had a great time out in Tignes with Andreas today here are a bunch of vids and photos. First here is Andreas leading away:

But we were being careful as there is some instability out there - someone was killed yesterday in Tignes at the bottom of one of the Tuffs couloirs under over a metre of snow. Here you can see the hole he was dug out of in the gully on the right above the Chalets. Taken from the bus between Val Claret and Tignes le Lac. See pistehors.com for more details.

You had to search a bit and choose your line well but as you can see from our tracks snaking in and around this slope (just below), there was some good long runs to be had!

HAT Business and Marketing Update for October-December 2007 & Projections for 2008

I can confidently report that HAT events and media, has reached well over 40,000 people since early October through quality visibility  ('Talks', 'Local Printed Media' and 'Web Site' unique visitors... see below). HAT events and media will reach a total of just over 160,000 people by the end of the season - not including the tens of thousands of 'passing views' gained by 'Local Marketing & Publicity', 'Broad Media Relations and Reach' at places like the HAT stand at the London Ski Show.

TALKS (see HAT Talks)

- 1839 total attendance October-December 20th including events in the UK, Norway and France (Alpe d'Huez, Chamonix, Val d'Isère,Tignes, Méribel) 1000's more 'passing views' at The London Ski and Snowboard Show: see Events, Shows, Talks and Courses in Oct & Nov. 4,500 total attendance projected for all HAT Talks for 2007- 2008 season.

- HAT 'In-depth Talks' with Fab Jolly in Val d'Isère - 750 total attendance projected for season (included in above projections).

LOCAL PRINTED MEDIA

- "Weekly Snowpack Report in the 'Mountain Echo'" editorial see The Snowpack Report in the Mountain Echo which is distributed in VVal d'Isère, Tignes and now Méribell. Reaching a weekly readership of over 2,000 people per week (15 weeks) per resort (3 Resorts) or 90,000 'readership views' in these 3 key resorts during the season 2007-08.

WEB SITE

We are now up to a visitation of an average 3,000 unique visitors per month (36,000 per year). The web site and email marketing through our weekly 'E-zine' is an area that we are focusing on. Visitors to the site will increase significantly over the next year. The web site also provides several partners the opportunity to have a prominent logo on the home page of www.henrysavalanchetalk.com (we also use the URL www.skioffpiste.co.uk). The regularly updated HAT web site is playing a key role in fulfilling the HAT mission of increasing awareness for the public and visibility for our partners

 
RADIO

- Radio Val d'Isère, Co-Advertising HAT events.  I estimate that the RECCO/HAT spot in past seasons (30 seconds 6 times per week in Val d'Isère - 2 spots 3 days per week)  reaches approximately 30,000 of the 175,000 English speakers who visit or live in Val d'Isère each season (HAT will be relaunching ads on Radio Val very soon).  For the future, we are developing more radio opportunities in Tignes, Les Arcs, La Plagne, Courchevel and Méribel with R' Radio - for a sample click here

BROAD MEDIA RELATIONS AND REACH

- Large UK newspapers are now in regular contact with us as a source of information and newsworthy content. Most of the top winter sports publications in the UK are in regular contact with us too - as well as other broadcasting medium. Increased branding for partners is a natural outgrowth. For an example see Increased Awareness Press & Radio . Tens of thousands of 'passing views'

MORE LOCAL MARKETING & PUBLICITY (see HAT Poster)

- HAT has constant local marketing efforts going on in Val d'Isère, Tignes, Chamonix, Méribel and other resorts where we do one-off events including London Tens of thousands of 'passing views' see  Ambush Promo Tignes. Other branding and visibility include informal events and talks organised for ski clubs, schools and the local community.

'Safety is Freedom'

All the best for 2008, Henry

Good skiing yesterday, some instability

Had some really good skiing yesterday in the Fornet of Val d'Isère with Michael and Fionnuala (see vids below). The snow was very nice in areas that had been protected from the southeasterly'ish' winds. There was a little bit of recent avalanche activity that indicated to me that things are sliding on a weak layer that has bee building up over the last few weeks see the recent avalanches on our recent avalanche photo gallery one of them (the one 'Col d'Iseran') was set off by a skier and released 75 metres above. It was also a slope faciing south'ish' which is not what has been expected because the winds had been coming out of the south and east over several days before the 5th (I suspect some cross loading by winds out of the east and depth hoar and faceted crystals underneath). The winds are now coming mostly out of the west and northwest (back to south and easterly winds at end of week apparently). There is a weak layer out there so be careful as it snows over the next few days - there will be more instability than usual due to the weak layer and winds winds blowing the snow in lots of different places.

Fresh Snow & New Year's Eve Party with the Metro Snow Ski Show crowd

Henry out skiing, boarding and partying with the Metro Snow Ski Show team
You can see there is a small layer of attractive fresh snow even if it is a bit tracked out. The beer flowing after made it even nicer. Happy B-day Damian!