Avalanche across a Blue piste in Samoens today

Came across the immediate aftermath of a large slide that crossed the Blue piste (Dahu) just below the peak of the Tete de Saix. It passed under the Chariandes Express chair, from which we saw an extensive search underway just after 13:00 today. The search lasted around an hour, with 20-25 searchers involved in an organized search. We saw at least one helicopter arrive and depart. Not nice.

To my untrained eye it looked like a classic wind-laden slab starting at the top of a gully and, apparently, triggering a much larger slide on a convex slope immediately below that swept through scrub vegetation and onto the piste. Fierce winds had been blowing from the other side of the ridge for 2 days and we saw a number of smaller slides on similar aspect slopes today.

The rather crappy picture below (phone and poor light) shows the debris almost right across the piste; I'd estimate up to 2 metres deep.


:shock:

That is scarey. You really do not expect avalanches to cross over popular blue pistes. Hopefully, nobody was killed.

I do remember a few years skiing down a blue piste in Tignes when half-way down, we were stopped while the helicopters flew in, threw dynamite onto a ridge above the slope to try to bring down an overhang or something. If didn't budge and they reopened the slope. You have never seen a bunch of beginners schuss down a slope with such enthusiasm!!!

Le Dauphine is reporting two people injured, one seriously, in the avalanche.

http://www.ledauphine.com/haute-savoie/2010/12/21/deux-blesses-dans-une-avalanche

Not a good Christmas, but the injured are not in danger so that's one blessing.

Thats not just bad news but a reminder of the reality of what we are all dealing with when we head up the mountains with ideas of bluebird days and not a care in the world.
Heres hoping those involved are all ok, and there are no repeats anywhere else this season.

MMMMmmmm I've skied that run :shock:

I guess piste colour doesn't really indicate risk of avalanche. (Although it would be a bit daft to develop a busy run of any colour in a high risk site)but even relatively low risk areas can be affected if the conditions are that way.

In this situation piste colour is largely irrelevant. It appears that the slide came from a steep slope above the piste. Due to piste machines and skier activity the snow is heavily compacted and unlikely to avalanche on-piste. If there are steep slopes above a piste which receive a critical amount of new snow through wind deposit or precipitation there is a danger they can slide onto a piste (regardless of what colour the piste happens to be).

It happens a few times a season. Two years ago a child was killed in an avalanche (that he or his parents set off) which ended up crossing a piste in Davos, Switzerland. I seem to remember at least one (possible two) slides crossing pistes in Zermatt in recent years and also in other resorts in the Valais in Switzerland. I saw some small slides reaching the edge of the piste in Lenzerheide, Switzerland two weeks ago.

The resorts tend to do their best to bomb potential avalanche dangers close to pistes but sometimes the bombing might bring nothing down and a skier passing through might still release something. (I've seen this happen in the past too!)

It would be interesting to know if that slide was spontaneous or skier triggered.

That's really horrible :cry:

I should think loads of people will have been traumatized by that - not just the ones actually caught up in it. Most people think it's perfectly safe on the piste, and avalanches only happen off-piste.

At least they seem to have got the victims out okay :D

Ally