J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by SwingBeep

Msej449, looks like you were lucky with the weather, it's been very poor so far this summer.

There are insurance issues regarding preventive rescues. Insurance companies (not only UK based ones) often don't regard them as proper rescues so they are reluctant to pay out. There are also issues with helicopters being used to rescue people who are not (in their eyes) seriously injured enough to warrant the use of a helicopter. To avoid any problems I have a rescue card (Carte de sauvetage) it provides cover when the insurance company won't. I get mine from Air Zermatt, because I live in the region they cover. They are also issued by Air Glaciers and Rega, it could be the best 35 francs you ever spend. Rega have written a guide on calling out a rescue helicopter http://www.rega.ch/pdf/einsatz/Merkblatt_Alarmierung_Rettungshelikopter_en.pdf The number to call in Canton Valais is 144. If you have a smart phone it's useful to have an app such as SwissGrid which displays your location in Swiss grid coordinates, so that they can locate you as quickly as possible.

Grächen a small Swiss ski resort not far from Zermatt recently gave the people of Sarajevo a gondola lift to replace the one that ran from Sarajevo up to Trebevi? that was destroyed during the war http://www.bh-news.com/en/print/4025/sarajevo_will_regain_its_trebevic_cable_car.html

There were some very poignant images in the Swiss TV news report about it http://www.videoportal.sf.tv/video?id=6d564d23-28ad-4b17-b29e-78f1eaa7f17c

A rope is essential when traveling in glaciated terrain it's also useful to have one when entering steep couloirs and anywhere the terrain looks like it might be bit dodgy. We often take one when walking along the bisses as some sections are very exposed.



The accident probably happened somewhere along the Bisse du Saxon in the vicinity of La Tzoumaz, the exact location wasn't given in the report I read. If you look on this map you will see that there a few possible places http://map.wanderland.ch/?lang=de&p&etappe=58.01 the red dots don't mark them. The photos here http://www.alpavista.ch/Alp11/2009/05/10/col-du-lein-bisse-de-saxon/ will give you some idea of the type of terrain they were traveling through, as the guy who uploaded them mentions on image 15 it's strictly forbidden to ride a mountain bike along them. As you can see it would be a barrel of laughs walking along them in alpine ski boots when they were covered in snow and ice.

Don't under any circumstances leave the marked runs. There a lots of crevasses that are only covered by a thin layer snow at that time of year. Only a few weeks ago a lone boarder fell in one, he was reported missing when he didn't return the board to the hire shop. Because of the bad weather it took rescue service a while to find and recover his body. http://www.thelocal.ch/page/view/3727

verbier_ski_bum wrote: Well, it seems the law has a purpose to secure the jobs of locally qualified guides.

That would be in breach of the agreement on the free movement of persons that Switzerland concluded with the EU in 1999 in order to get access to the single market. There is no shortage of work for local guides or ski instructors.

The law was enacted following a series of fatal accidents in the mid noughties, the worst of which was the Saxetenbach canyoning tragedy in which 21 young people lost their lives http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Home/Archive/Canyoning_trial_to_open_in_Interlaken.html?cid=2398350 Anxious to prevent something similar happening here the Cantonal government decided to regulate the burgeoning mountain sports guiding and instruction business. They came up with a simple system which requires that any guide or ski instructor (Valaisan, Swiss or non Swiss) acquiring clients in Valais obtains a license. This involves downloading and filling out three very simple forms and sending them together with copies of your qualifications and proof that you have liability insurance to the value of 10 million Swiss francs to the Cantonal authorities in Sion. Guides and instructors who acquire their clients outside Valais and leave Valais at the same time as their clients are not subject to the law. Before the law came into effect schools used to recruit parents to look after the kids on school skiing days, now they have to use ski instructors.

When the accident happened the group was walking along a path beside an irrigation channel (bisse) these often pass through exposed terrain and are therefore not used by the locals in winter. The rep had never followed this route before and was not carrying any of the equipment that would normally be carried when exploring a new route i.e. a rope. They eventually got to a section where the path had been swept away, presumably by snow avalanching down a gully. The rep told everybody to put their skis back on so that they could traverse across the snow, unfortunately one of the group was on a snowboard and as you can't traverse a slope on a snowboard in the way you can on skis he went on foot. The rep went first and he followed, he slipped and fell to his death. If she had taken a rope and some basic mountaineering gear as a "real" guide almost certainly would have done, she could have secured the exposed section. She could also have turned back or even called Air Glaciers and asked them to carry out a preventative rescue. They would much rather rescue somebody before they are killed or injured than afterwards.

If you believe you're going to be as safe with a SCGB leader as you would be with a fully qualified mountain guide then all I can say is, the best of British!

I don't think you can buy just one ski. If the ski broke because of a manufacturing defect while it was under guarantee they will give you a new pair.

Skis are matched into pairs at the end of the production process. As well as flex, camber and tip height are measured so that they are both visually and functionally a pair. The ones that have cosmetic defects are sold as B grade skis.

This video gives a good overview of the production process; it was shot in the recently refurbished Blizzard / Nordica factory.

verbier_ski_bum wrote: Wasn't she found not guilty in the end?

She was found not guilty in the court of first instance in Martigny, the last I heard was that the public prosecutor was going to appeal the verdict in the Cantonal Court. It's not unusual for these cases to go all the way to the Supreme Court.

In the mean time the SCGB has changed the reps off-piste rules and Canton Valais has introduced a law which defines who is allowed to provide guiding and ski instruction here http://www.vs.ch/Navig/navig.asp?MenuID=23067&Language=fr have a look at the FAQs. A national law will come into force in 2014. It could be that the SCGB's leading activities are no longer legal here.

andyhull wrote: Those that last end up getting the bigger resorts as their experience is vital.

Like the one who was charged with manslaughter, after one of the group she was leading was killed at Verbier in 2007.

The B3 was wider and stiffer than the B2. The Theory is perhaps a closer in concept to the B2.

Ski prices for the coming season are normally fixed in April. If the Euro continues to fall against the pound at its current rate, they will be probably be considerably cheaper from one of the Euro zone retailers.