Whats in your bag for a weeks skiing?

I guess you're right Tino. Having said that, maybe people didnt understand the risk years ago or just simply didnt consider it. We all get fed too much information, opinions and statistics these days and the odd isolated incident now gets blown out of all proportion.
People have been skiing for years, and on equipment not as good or safe as it is today, yet there is now a call for people to wear head protection. I dont believe thats because we necessarily go faster. I do however it has something to do with the fact that, as far as I have been able to make out, more people go skiing these days who possibly wouldnt have years ago, and not only that a lot of those that do are quite unsafe. I have witnessed it first hand, and seen several incidents involving people I know including yourself and Skidaddle. I believe people just do not take on board the rules of the slopes any more, hence why i get annoyed with people who stop RIGHT in the middle of the piste, and I dont mean boarders sitting over the brow of a hill either. My opinion is that too many people think they are good enough to be on slopes that are probably too difficult for them, but there is no way of policing it. I saw a beginner with a friend on the main run in St Anton, the one we christened the Dentist Run because it froze your face in that valley....she stood out like a sore thumb and would have struggled with no one on the slope, let alone with about 5000 people all skiing off at 100mph. It was a matter of time before she either ran into someone, got ran into, or got seriously shouted at. Sadly, all 3 happened in the space of about 45 seconds and I didnt see her get up from the second fall. I couldnt tell you what her assessment of the risk might have looked like though.

Glad we are on the same wavelength Dave. I am also glad Tony put his thoughts up. I must say to Tony though that at one stage I may have been one of the people I am alluding to (to a certain extent). Not deliberately dangerous, but definately one without the experience to know better. I chose to teach myself, and I am very proud of it because I really think I am now an intermediate rider after maybe 60/70 days of experience. I would never claim to be advanced or expert, but am genuinely pleased with my progress.

I started this late in life when I was 31, but I invested in it. Bought my own kit, travelled alone and tried to acheive come summer or winter. Now, I can afford it, but I must pay for it (twice, as tax here is about 50%). Kids, parents and friends who fall into it may not get it like we do. The danger and risk to oneself and others is waived by an E111 and not a thought more is given.

In the UK a sailing qualification is voluntary, but respected as one of the best in the world when it comes to ability and employability. This encourages a sense of self worth that a highly regulated or non-regulated system does not. Having a system similar in skiing/snowboarding would do nothing but good.

Risk management is all about weighing the risk against benift, all of us understand the benefit on a personal level (i hope), but do we understand the benefit of our potential positive action on others? I am not so sure we do.

P.S. I really need to look up benefit in terms of spelling, cos I have looked at it so long I am not sure it begins with B even :shock:

Hi Everyone,
I'm glad you enjoyed looking at my photo - Dave Mac, Tino, and Tony, even if it was only to look at the old fashioned bindings and boots on my feet.

As I said somewhere before, I don't remember falling over at all with those bindings and skis when I was only 8 - just as well!

What I do remember about the slopes in those days (around 1970) is that they were much less crowded. And although I was very naughty 8 year old and bunked off my lessons to go hurtling down the slope on my own, I did stick to beginner's slopes. I didn't try going down a black. I'm amazed at the number of beginners who aim to go down a black by the end of the week - even some of the ski instructors seem to be happy enough to allow this.

The only way to stop this, I suppose, would be to stick compulsory labels on beginners with L or D (for debutante) on them and have the piste patrol and lift operators on the watch for them so they can't go down any of the really hard runs. But it would cause an awful lot of extra trouble and clog up the lifts even more, and I suppose they'd find a way of getting the labels off (come to think of it they could do it with the lift passes but it would be pretty complicated in practice).

The new skis are definitely much better than the old ones. When I first tried out the new ones, after 30 years without ski-ing, I was amazed at how easy it was to turn them - in fact I was accidentally ski-ing in zig zags for a bit until I got the hang of how to ski straight.

I have found that in lessons they do usually do an informal test on everyone at the beginning of the week to group them according to their ability, and also at the end of the week to tell them which group level they should ski with next ski holiday. But I have never had a proper piste safety talk, which ideally should be given at the beginning of the week.

I did a quick search just now and found an article and a website on piste safety

http://www.chalatlaw.com/articles/skiercollision.html

http://www.ski-injury.com/research

Ally