J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by ise

RossF wrote:I was under the impression warmer temps increased stability, allowing the layers to "fuse".. or at least speed up the process.

that's true, it depends on the layers already present though, generally it (positive temperatures) will stabilise powder snow but destabilise already saturated layers.

Admin wrote:
Be careful out there! Warm temperatures over the next few days may well increase instability off piste, so take note of local warnings and don't ski closed slopes - they're closed for good reason.

Conditions are actually stabilising, the temperature spike isn't helpful but generally risk is a lot lower than a few weeks ago. It's probably a problem with the influx of holidaymakers without sufficient skills, not properly equipped for the slopes they're attempting and ill-informed about the risk.

bandit wrote:
You can see the drag lift pylons at the top of the image.

We were just over in Vercorin and you can see it from there, that photo' doesn't quite show how steep that bit is actually.

It also might be they weren't skiing it as such, it's possible they'd fallen off the drag lift and were trying to down, that's pure speculation of course but it's not unusual just there.

Admin wrote:
Be interested to know what clues made you doubt your route Ise?

a variety of things, a large slope where our line would have taken us on a traverse line on about 20' with a large expanse of steeper slopes above us, some weakly bonded layers in the snow pack I'd noticed when I'd been clearing snow on the drive, wind transport events in the last few day, all this we knew before setting out of course, but also positive air temperatures and solar warming.

Mostly, I didn't need to go there and a local restaurant were offering free vin chaud to mark opening of the season and that appeared the more prudent choice.

Additionally, the local police are reporting the avalanche at 300m long and 20m wide and that the second casualty was recovered at 1300 and airlifted to hospital.

and there's a photo from the local police

http://www.romandie.com/valais/pdf/policevs_Avalanche_Chandolin.jpg

At 1130 today in Chandolin, one of our neighbouring villages, two teen's from Geneva were caught in a avalanche. One was able to free himself from the snow while the other was recovered with serious injury by a rescue team from a metre of snow. The slide occurred near the Illhorn poma lift on what's a fairly popular slope a few metres from the piste and frequently skied. Neither teenager was equipped with an avalanche transceiver and the rescue response included two helicopters from Air Glaciers and 7 dog handlers.

We were snow shoeing a couple of km down the valley on slopes the same aspect but curtailed our route as my slope assessment made me uneasy about our planned route.

One of the papers did a bit on this :

http://www.20min.ch/ro/news/suisse/story/25669496

that could be question one in the Xmas ski trivia quiz?

IIRC the Sami have folk legends that they invented skiing as much as 10,000 years ago, there's a slight definition problem about what's a ski and what's snowshoe of course. Surprisingly, there's a similar problem with the wheel, you need to define if it's some sort of transport or not as oldest archaeological findings have the first wheels used by potters. Generally, provably, skis are around 5000 BC and the wheel 3500BC I think.