Avalanche in Tignes 6th March 2013

I'm sorry if someone else has already reported this elsewhere.

When I was ski-ing in Tignes last week, there was an avalanche on Wednesday, 6th March, which killed a ski guide and his client, who were both ski-ing off-piste.

It was extremely windy on Wednesday, and it had been very windy for the previous few days, and I think this caused the avalanche in some way.

I find it very scary that an experienced guide could be killed like this. I remember when we were having our off-piste initiation lesson when we were there in the middle of January, we all had our own beacons, but when I asked about shovels they said the instructor would carry our shovels. And I said but what happens if he's the one under the avalanche and we need to dig him out, and they said it wouldn't happen.

I feel terribly sorry for those killed in this avalanche, and their friends and families :cry:

http://alpes.france3.fr/2013/03/06/tignes-deux-personnes-decedees-apres-une-avalanche-211479.html

http://www.tignesnet.com/events/news/two-skiers-die-in-avalanche-in-tignes.html

For off-piste skiing : You should only do so once you have assessed the risk and to do that takes training. Everyone should carry a transceiver, probe, and shovel – and most importantly, know how to carry out a grid search to locate someone buried before outside help arrives.
Remember that the best way to survive an avalanche is not to get caught in it.
Always check the avalanche risk (on a scale of 1 to 5) and ski with a qualified guide.
Resorts complain that inexperienced skiers often ignore warning signs and ski in deep snow close to a prepared piste because it's inviting and easy for them to do so. Many avalanches triggered by skiers, happen within sight of a piste.

Sadly there are there are usually 2 or 3 fatal accidents involving mountain guides every winter. Every now and then they make a bad decision or something unforeseen happens and sometimes the clients don't do as they're told. This is a photo of the mountain guides memorial in Zermatt cemetery, as you can see the 4 plaques in the middle are quite recent.



By and large they do an excellent job and are very safety conscious, but mountains are dangerous places so there will always be risk involved when exploring them.

Thanks for the photo SwingBeep :)

It sounds as though being a ski guide is a pretty dangerous job :cry:

I was sitting on a chairlift with an ESF instructor after this particular avalanche, and I asked him what happened, but unfortunately for me he spoke too fast in French for me to understand most of it.

However, I think he was talking about layers of snow, and as I said before I think it had something to do with the wind. It had been very windy for several days and you could see the snow blowing along. There had also been a thaw going on. So I suppose with this combination the snow became unstable.

The ESF instructor also said something similar to you - that the mountains are dangerous and sometimes, very sadly, this sort of thing happens :(

AllyG wrote: I think he was talking about layers of snow, and as I said before I think it had something to do with the wind. It had been very windy for several days and you could see the snow blowing along. There had also been a thaw going on. So I suppose with this combination the snow became unstable.

All these factors have a major impact on snow pack stability. If you're interested in learning more about snow and avalanches Robert Bolognesi's books are pretty good and not very expensive.

http://books.google.ch/books/about/Snow.html?id=rgqhtUEhEY4C&redir_esc=y
http://books.google.ch/books/about/Avalanche.html?id=G98KAZmei-8C&redir_esc=y