J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Ranchero_1979

Well am pretty sure you are going to love it, should be the European default for early skiing. Mountain is super easy to navigate and everything is nice fall line skiing. Great place to improve your skiing. For someone who rarely eats on the mountain the food there was a revelation vs a lot of European resorts. Affordable and well worth taking an HR out of your day for. No idea where club med is but nothing is very far from a lift as pretty small. Enjoy.

Easy to judge but looks like was closed due to significant risk from avalanche above. Either cornice break off or wind slab significant distance from skiers (no obvious crown in pictures have seen).

Pisteurs have done a great job identifying danger i just wonder if people would have payed more attention to "piste ferme" sign if explicitly stated Avalanche risk. See piste closed and fresh pow on it easy to assume that just needed grooming.

Sounds like J2ski should sponsor a VB weekend. Am not taking about extreme skiing here, jumping off a lift onto glacier.

I assume everyone is following unfolding tragedy in Alps :-(. No transceiver = needle in haystack, recovery mission.

Would completely agree if we are taking about lift accessed skiing. Am just pointing out within 20min of a coffee shop, you can take a lift to serious terrain where you should really be prepared. Zero skinning or mountaineering involved to get you into areas where is outside the remit of pisteurs to assist. Too many people want to delegate their safety to others which as we have recently seen is frequently too late. Some great courses out there for introduction to ski touring, Avalanche awareness etc.

I will post some pictures of holes to convince you about the glacial gear.

Definitely the glacial kit that does it. But with a lot of skiing here in Cham being on them you have no choice but to carry. Yes we have an the amazing PGHM to help and they should always be your first call but you also need to be able to stabilize a situation, if someone is in a hole get them onto a rope and some sort of anchor, ideally a screw. As well as being conscious that bad weather means you could be alone.
Midi ridge requires crampons even once roped, which leaves you the ice axe. Useful tool for making belays in event of crevasse rescue (even if skis as the anchor) and required for uphill of some itinerary.
This is where people can have some problems in Chamonix. E.g. Valle Blanche has a reputation of being an intermediate run. Yes one version is very mello but you are at 3800m on glacial terrain. My strong belief is that every skier should do a VB at some point. Only a cheap flight and transfer away. If you don't have the above then simply you need a guide who will have.
Of course you tailor depending on your plans but always good to have an excuse for being in the back seat. Plus what else is there to argue over if you don't have a rope to carry within your group.

Brutal day in the N Alps, most be huge accumulations of snow up high. Looking like a few days reading a book before things open back up. No need to worry about touching bottom anymore, snorkel days ahead.

Just to be clear skier was offpiste, Val did not have an onpiste avalanche fatality.

Is interesting how resorts grade their runs, there seems to be two main issues:
The battle for piste KM has resulted in so many off camber narrow green and blue paths in the Alps is ridiculous. Perhaps what is needed is a real definition of a piste vs. just being pisted. I would suggest something like does not deviate from the natural fall line of a mountain by more than 25 deg. That way people ski terrain vs. paths which is far more enjoyable and stops resorts engineering mountains.
Countries are very inconsistent. Italy is far too conservative and the North Americans felt the need to add a grade, so no wonder people are confused.
Probably best people chose their resort by fatmap to really understand where they are heading and the likely quality of the skiing.