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

161 Powder Turns

Wayne Watson of Alpine Experience (skier front right of photo) embarking on a decent off the Grande Motte which led to 161 turns on this slope this morning in Tignes.

Ginny showing nice style in some nice snow this morning too!

Spring Skiing.. more snow again!

Finally had some nice spring skiing while touring the last few days in the massif de la vanoise (photo update of that coming soon), but now it looks like snow along with cooler temps (in the northern french alps and bordering areas) over the next couple days. just when i thought that spring had finally arrived!

Another 30 cm for tomorrow

Just finished skiing in knee deep snow again in val d'isere and we're forecast to get another 30 cm tonight! bit humid so best to stay high (above 2500 m).. snowing hard tho right now at 1850.

Another 30 cm for tomorrow

Just finished skiing in knee deep snow again in val d'isere and we're forecast to get another 30 cm tonight! bit humid so best to stay high (above 2500 m).. snowing hard tho right now at 1850.

High North French Italian Border

That's where we found light knee deep powder all morning long in the Fornet (Espace Killy) today. Photos and vids coming soon to this blog! For some images go to Skiing with HAT

Ride Hard ! Ride Safe, Henry

Here's Dom Collins, HAT CFO, getting some nice turns in the 'Combe de 3300 in Fornet, Val d'Isère

HATadventures Saisonaire Col des Four Tour 13&14 April

Here's a great vid put together by Ben! For more images go to Skiing with HAT 'an Alpine Experience' (scroll down to the correct date)

and some more unedited vid complete with off-piste technique commentary from Andreas and random comments all around!

Snow report April 18

Snow report April 18, 2008

Last week I said that our experience off-piste has been, “great despite totally unpredictable weather and days that you would think aren’t going to be good.. but then they turn out to be great!” This trend of passing storms then sun, then passing storms then sun…. has continued over the last week and will continue this coming week too – but with warmer temperatures forecasted at least over the weekend. The weather pattern that has brought us ‘winter in spring’ since the first week of March has provided us with some of the most phenomenal skiing I’ve ever experienced here in the French Alps. For me, reporting from the higher Alpine resorts where the skiing is mostly above 2000 metres, the best skiing has been almost exclusively ‘winter snow skiing’ (on snow that has not been through melting & freezing cycles). Last week was again characterized mainly by winter conditions - although when the sun comes out, you feel it’s spring (well it is mid-April after all!). As a result of the strong solar radiation that is often been present even when cloudy, we have been going ‘high and north’ to take advantage of the cooler, shaded areas where the snow gets the least amount of incoming solar radiation/heat. See photos of touring and skiing this past week on www.henrysavalanchetalk.com > Free Stuff > Photo Albums > Skiing with HAT (www.hat.skioffpiste.co.uk/photos/hatskiing/index.html ). The trick still seems to be getting out early (despite wind, bad visibility etc.), going as high as possible (above 2500 metres) and looking for slopes that are sheltered from the wind [winds seem to have been coming out of the Southwest to East in much of the Northern French Alps and this is supposed to continue well into the week of April 21]. Below 2500 metres there has been quite q bit of melting and freezing (spring snow) which is pretty nice if it is smooth but awful where there are old frozen tracks, frozen avalanche debris or if the melt-freeze crust is not thick enough to hold your weight (breakable curst is not nice)!

Snowpack Quality & Stability

It looks like the successive storms and clearing will continue with a significant increases in temperatures, especially from 18-20 April, which means we have to watch out for big wet snow avalanches on slopes that are going to get the sun, are at lower altitudes and therefore are going to subject to rapid warming (I’ve already heard of a number of avalanches coming down onto pistes that were closed due to avalanche danger). For Sunday to Wednesday, the rain snow limit is forecast to stay around 2000 metres which is not all that high for this time of year, and that means more great skiing!

Otherwise, the light/moderate snowfalls and wind have continued to form surface slabs, mostly above 2500/2700 m. The wind, the sun, warming and precipitation will encourage some instability and avalanche activity on sufficiently steep slopes, a little at all altitudes. Below 2500/2700 a relatively small surface slab may turn into a larger wet snow avalanches; above that, they could lead to bigger slab avalanches too in the form of dry/cold snow slabs. The risk of these types of slabs is most prevalent on Northeast to Northwest facing slopes (the ones that we are skiing on most). So I will be especially careful if we get 20 cm or more in one storm - or in a short amount of time like 48 hours, especially if there is a good amount of wind, which can lead to twice the amount of snow that came out of the sky on these sheltered slopes (again these are the slopes that will have the best skiing). I’ll be limiting the risk mainly be avoiding steep slopes that have cliffs and/or narrow valley bottoms below them. A person was killed on the 15th due to a relatively small avalanche that took him over some cliffs: see www.pistehors.com

Tip of the week:
I’ve been long-winded enough this week; so I’ll leave it to you to…. ‘Ride Hard ! Ride Safe’

Henry & Andreas (HAT & Alpine Experience)

SPECIAL THIS WEEK:
Andreas’s special skiing summary from the Espace Killy (Val d’Isère & Tignes): “We keep getting some fresh snow to work with every other day and just the right amount to cover old tracks and give a new nice base but not so much so that it gets dramatically unstable so that we can’t move around safely. So this has meant great skiing lately with of course respect for new snow and also a lot of attention to timings and following temperatures etc! Our worst days now are when we get days with a few clouds and bad visibility but not any new snow, which means that we can neither ski powder comfortably, nor do we get a good spring snow transformation. So, we are touring a bit at the moment and we had a great mini tour with a night in the Col des Fourshut last weekend, 13-14 April, and despite Henry’s snoring which kept us all awake, we had a great time!!! So let’s hope the conditions stays good until the end and personally with the great base we have now, we should have lots more good skiing until the end of the season.”

PS We’re STILL doing lots of transceiver training at the moment in Val d’Isère: 35 euros for saisonaires for a full afternoon of coaching, timed searches, basic rescue procedures & a waterproof reference card (wow!). Call Jamie on 06 23 05 75 09

Snow report April 11

The skiing off-piste has been great lately despite totally unpredictable weather and days that you would think aren’t going to be good.. but then turn out to be great! Getting out early (despite wind, bad visibility etc.), going as high as possible and looking for slopes that are sheltered from the wind seems to be the trick [winds have been coming out of the Southwest to South most of the time up until the 11th – that will change on Saturday 12th as the winds turn to the North and Northwest for most of the time until Wednesday 16 April]. The little snowfalls of 5-10 cm that have been falling with each passing storm has helped to provide fresh tracks and lots of fun on a lot of days recently. Adding to the these little snowfalls is the wind, which has helped to make accumulations in sheltered areas build up to quite a bit more than what fell out of the sky - but not so much as to make it very unstable (so far anyway). It looks like this weather trend will continue for at least a week. So get out there and find the good snow!

Snowpack Quality & Stability

The light snowfalls and wind have been forming some surface slabs, mostly above 2500/2700 m. The wind, the sun, warming and precipitation will encourage some instability and avalanche activity on sufficiently steep slopes, a little at all altitudes. Below 2500/2700 a relatively small surface slab may turn into a larger wet snow avalanches; above, they could lead to bigger slab avalanche too as dry/cold snow slabs. The risk of these types of slabs will increase with each snowfall and I will be especially careful if we get 20 cm or more in one storm (or in a short amount of time like 48 hours) with wind, which can lead to twice the amount of snow that came out of the sky on sheltered slopes - the slopes that will have the best skiing..

Each day the Météo France avalanche forecast says that one skier is enough to trigger one of these surface slabs and that could even lead to a second slab releasing deeper into the snowpack below the first one. This scenario is what happened to my friend and colleague TJ last year – the conditions were not much different than now. TJ was lucky to get away with only severe knee injuries and is just getting back on skis now after several knee operations. So, even though things seem safe/stable in most places, there are areas of real instability out there. if you keep that in mind, you’re doing well.

Tip of the week:
I’m sticking to the higher and north’ish’ slopes for the best snow until we get some hot sunny days with good cold nights that will transform the snow on other slopes to nice smooth spring snow. I keep saying that I’ll do our annual spring snow write-up soon, but I’m going to have to put that off again until next week.. or until we actually start getting some good spring out there, but it looks like cold temperatures and more ‘mini snow storms’ through Wednesday 16 April. So I’m happy to stick with winter for now!

‘Ride Hard Ride Safe’!

Henry

PS We’re still doing lots of transceiver training at the moment in Val d’Isère: 35 euros for saisonaires for a full afternoon of coaching, timed searches, basic rescue procedures & a waterproof reference card (wow!). Call Jamie on 06 23 05 75 09

Spring?

Last time I felt a hint of spring in the air it was February! This photo was taken today in Val d'Isère (1850 metres). It's still snowing now and the forecast is for snow on and off for... who knows how long

Snow report April 3, 2008

We should have spring snow (melting & freezing) conditions by now but the temperatures remain cool & it just keeps snowing! The forecast is for continued snow off and on through Thursday. The temps look like they will remain fairly low too, at least until Wednesday. This is not typical April weather, but then again March was more like a typical February!

Snowpack Quality & Stability

In general the snowpack is stabilising - with the snow from March settling and becoming denser. However, within the newer top layers of new snow there is some instability and that instability will increase with more snow. True that lots of little snowfalls spread out in time allow the new snow to settle and stabilise much better than one big snowfall that comes down all at once, but once the sum total of new little snowfalls add up to a lot of snow, there can be some danger: especially due to wind loading and layers from the successive snowfalls that don’t bond well to each other. We’ve seen a medium sized avalanche triggered with a fracture estimated at 30/50 cm on a North slope on Wednesday 2 April. We believe this slab avalanche was due to the instability caused by snow transported by the Southerly winds (Foehn / Lombarde winds) on Sunday 30 March. Since then, the winds have been coming out of the North to West and are forecast to continue until Sunday/Monday 6&7 April when winds are forecast to start coming out of the Southwest (accompanied by continued snow showers). So there are currently a few surface slabs out there, usually at altitude (above 2200/2400 meters), which are not bonding all that well to new snow layers below them. These surface slabs will continue to grow with new snowfalls and wind (and the quality of skiing in those areas will probably increase too!). This situation will probably lead to some larger unstable slabs developing over the next week or so especially on leeward slopes (and any area protected from the wind).

Tip of the week:

While keeping in mind the risk of coming across unstable slabs on leeward slopes, for the best snow stick to northerly slopes (Northwest to Northeast). The difference between South’ish’ facing slopes and North’ish’ facing slopes is enormous at this time of year especially once the sun comes out. The South facing slopes get the sun’s heat even before the sun comes out which makes the snow heavier and more unstable. Plus the snow is not nice to ski in, ‘slushy powder’. AND you spoil the potential for good spring snow skiing (more on melt-freeze spring snow transformation next week!).

‘Ride Hard Ride Safe’!

Henry

PS We’re still doing lots of transceiver training at the moment in Val d’Isère: 35 euros for saisonaires for a full afternoon of coaching, timed searches, basic rescue procedures & a waterproof reference card. Call Jamie on 06 23 05 75 09