J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by ise

AllyG wrote:
I have also been trying to work out a reasonable route to some of the Austrian and Swiss ski resorts, on the train, but I've temporarily given up, which is why we keep going back to France. For example, to get to Zell am See it seems that you have to start at about midday on Friday at St Pancras and go via Brussels and then overnight arriving on Saturday morning.

I'd be interested if you can make it economical. I have to go to the UK a lot and each time I want to use the train and it's always cheaper to use EasyJet. I'm not too fussed about time, by and large I've plenty of time, it's just expensive and I can't make onward connections in the UK properly.

actually I should clarify those figures, I was rushing around to go ski earlier .....

400,000 cubic metres would be a daily usage for somewhere around 600,000 to 800,000 people based on rough European averages of 0.5 cubic meters per person per day. The Tarentaise has around 300,000 tourist beds and 50,000 people living there, they're using around 18,000,000 cubic meters of water yearly right now peaking in the winter.

Winter water capture for snow making is most needed when precipitation is low of course and snow cover is poor. Away from snow cannoned slopes the thin cover has the effect of cooling the ground and freezing water supplies, again increasing pressure on supply.

Then, cannoned snow, like any snow blown through the air, is massively more dense than fallen snow and takes longer to melt, that means that pisted slopes never really recover in the spring and part of the environment is lost.

Why are they making snow? It's because precipitation has dropped, by around 25% in the last decade, so there's less water around anyway. Meanwhile, in Arcs particularly, CdA can't build quick enough, they're not particularly bothered if there's not enough water or sewage processing, they build anyway, pay the fines and force the local government to try and catch up meanwhile making it ever harder by capturing water.

Meanwhile, come the spring for cultivation around 2100 cubic meters per hectare is required from EDF storage facilities.

I've been out in the desert recently and it's pretty clear that we'll see just the same happening in the mountains as happens there, in the desert we've got manicured and irrigated golf courses with water being diverted from the local population and in the mountain we'll have high ski stations holding all the water for the benefit of visiting tourists. It's just not sustainable.

The first thing is to realise just how much water that is, 400,000 cubic metres would supply a city of around 600,000 people. It's reckoned in some French valleys that streams in winter are carrying as much as 70% less water due to these high altitude reservoirs. Estimates run now that the Tarentaise area will require 8 to 10 million m3 of water by 2015 to make snow.

There's a lot of local concern about this, it was called “ecological suicide” by Herve Gaymard the member of parliament for the Savoie, former minister and former president of the ANENA (National Association for the Study of Snow and Avalanches).

You don't get nothing for nothing and this water would normally be entering the water course, alpine environments are pretty fragile and can't really sustain this sort of abuse.

Pablo Escobar wrote:
Interesting that, I did my avvy 1 (which ovviously makes me an expertz) and digging holes was part of it and explaining about all the different layers and how they could be used to assess slope stability etc including the Reusch sp?! block thing and different assortments of fingers and fists.

It's vital to be able to do it if you're out in the mountains leading groups, the only way to understand how snowpacks work is to dig down and test it out. But it's only really a study tool, not something you'd do while out moving. Various tests show that if you dig many pits over a slope that (a) you've trashed it and (b) they give a range of results.

For example, after the Buachaille avalanche it was widely commented that if they'd dug a pit they'd have known it was unsafe which is a nonsense, if they'd read the SAIS advisory they'd have already known that it was dangerous. And that's a common scenario, you've generally got enough information without digging pits. And the question is, when and where to dig one? At the top of a slope? How did you get there? What's it going to be like lower down? Or around the corner? and so on.

By doing that as study you're armed with enough background to read the more detailed reports, like this :



that made me do a double take :lol: failure at RB4 :!: then I realised it was 10 days ago :D

Admin wrote:Ski lift operators have taken into account environmental aspects in this project.

... and decided they could safely be ignored.

Admin wrote:Following on from this investment, ......

.... much of the local flora and fauna will die.

The French ones are usually in French, the make an English available but only to some ski stations which is quite disgraceful. As is the appalling quality of their data. Your best bet is to dig out the reports auto-translated on pistehors.

The Swiss and Austrian reports are massively detailed and there's loads of background data for those that can read it. Not so in France though :roll:

Here in Switzerland we can get reports via WAP as well, But, really it's posted at access points and if it's not then go ask the pisteurs for it. Obviously there's times where some of us are on multi-day trips at high altitude and we don't have internet either, generally hut guardians get reports though.

Pablo Escobar wrote:The only way to be really sure is to have the knowledge yourself and start digging.

We don't dig pits in Europe really, it's not an effective decision making tool. We dig pits for snow science purposes and study but not to give a go/no-go decision on any given day. I would perform quick shovel shear tests while moving sometimes but at least partly to explain to people how the snowpack is evolving as much as decision making.

bandit wrote:ise my system can't find the suitable plug-in to install which will enable your video to play :(

you can't play quicktime? you should upgrade to a mac

this is a slightly bigger one, triggered by the pisteurs yesterday. I was trying to take a photo of it and fat-fingered the camera into video by mistake



does that work?