Off piste skiing, snow reports, snow conditions, avalanche awareness, Val d'Isere, Tignes from Henry's Avalanche Talk

HAT season closes @ Natives Jobs Fair in Hammersmith

The 2008-09 HAT season came to a close with one final Talk amongst close to 600 people at the Natives Seasonal Job Shop this past Saturday in Hammersmith.

After seven and a half months of promoting 'Have Fun and Be Safe' in the off piste - including tens of thousands of participants and viewers of HAT talks, courses, web, film and print media - we did our last event of the season on Saturday in London. The venue was the Natives Seasonal Job Shop which was held at the Novotel conference centre in Hammersmith, London.

Despite boiling heat and the FA Cup final, the crowds came rolling in- most of the close to 600 people looking for opportunities next season were young winter sports enthusiasts. It was a 6 hour event that also included 5 talks on everything from how to find a job in a resort to training to be an instructor and the HAT talk on how to have fun and be safe in the off-piste!

We had a new partner,  come onboard as our title sponsor along with supporting partners of the event The Ski Club of Great Britain and Arc'teryx. These brands added to the rest of the core support of our other partners (see below) allowing for a talk that was free to the public. 

This event was also a great way to see some of our corporate customers in action. Ski World and Crystal, who HAT provides staff training for, were present and in full recruiting mode (I don't think they stopped talking to job applicants all day long!).

More and more young people are saying that they've achieved a good level of skiing and are venturing off-piste, but they struggle with the fact that they're not sure how to do it safely. They want to learn more so they can have fun and not worry. We had good discussions with people like this and we're helping by providing answers through HAT talks, courses and through www.henrysavalanchetalk.com 

And finally, this event and the talk were great opportunities to give a bit of extra visibility to all our sponsors that contributed to making the past 7 1/2 months a success. Thanks for a great season everyone!

HAT in Hammersmith @ Natives Jobs Shop London

I'll be giving a Basic Talk this Saturday in Hammersmith at the Natives Seasonal Job Shop (30 May 2009 & 24 October 2009)

The event is from 11am to 5pm: for more information on the event, or if you would like to pre-register for the day, see the contact form. I'll be there all day - hope to see you!

The Natives Jobs Shop is FREE and so is the Talk thanks to our Title Sponsor, Ski Force  and it's in the Bordeaux Suite, Novotel West London, Hammersmith, W6 8DR just down from Olympia. Hope to see you there!

Next Talk at Natives Job Fair, Hammersmith 30 May

On my way to UK! Next HAT Talk on Sat, 30 May at Natives Jobs Fair in Hammersmith http://www.natives.co.uk/skijobs/jobsfair/index.html 

Here are our reflections on a great season?

The question everybody asks us - Is it safe out there?  In the best season for 30 years the snow semed to fall steadily and regularly.  It rarely fell in such large quantity that it created massive instability. (except in a few places on the Italian border where a lot more fell).  

You might think this made it safer.  But the avalanche accident statisics suggest that this year was just as dangerous as previous years.  Deaths from accidents were the highest for 3 years with 14 deaths occuring across 17 reported accidents in Savoie.

Click on this link for detailed tatistcs file with report from Henry. 
Download Avalanche Accidents France April 24 2009.pdf (43.3K)

Also see report on a specific accident that Henry wrote

http://www.getoffpiste.com/avalanche_accident_comments/

 

Why does thishappen  when conditions were reportedly more stable?  The answer lies in how we explain what you should do to stay safe.  The answer to the question is it safe out there is not a simple yes or no. 

 

The answer is "it depends".  It depends quite a lot on you and how you conduct yourself.  It depends on three things.

• Where you and when?
• How you go down and up?
• How well prepared you are?

So how did we do in getting this message across this year.

Over 2000 people had a HAT experience either attending a talk or beeper training or an on-snow programme or a combination of these.

 

We started issuing certificates of competence and a number of you secured one of these.

 

http://www.getoffpiste.com/2009/03/this-weeks-hat-certificates.html

 

We launched the HAT off-piste shop.  so HAT supporters can buy  material that discusses this in more details.  Henry's Avalanche and off-piste awareness DVD and the Wayne Watson book on off piste skiing.. 

 

Click on the photos to find out more.

 

                    

 

These are two very straightforward guides that give loads of helpful and practical advice on how to get more from off-piste skiing.  You can watch the intro to the DVD on our website click here

 

We did our best to help and reduced prices as it became apparent that the euro/£ exchange rate was making things much more expensiev for British clients.

 

The Italians made transceivers mandatory for off piste in Aosta - our readers added some comments along the lines of the HAT message

 

See comments here

http://www.getoffpiste.com/2009/02/italy-makes-it-a-legal-requirement-to-use-beeper-shovel-and-probe.html

 

We promoted debate on Helmet wearing.  The majority of comments were in favour of helment wearing.  But as we said, this is a matter of personal choice and not for legislation or sanctimonious preaching at people.

 

See comments here

http://www.getoffpiste.com/2009/03/the-helmet-debate-please-contribute.html

Where you and when?

How you go down and up?

How well prepared you are?

Over 2000 people had a HAT experience either attending a talk or beeper training or an on-snow programme or a combination of these.

 

We started issuing certificates of competence and a number of you secured one of these.

 

http://www.getoffpiste.com/2009/03/this-weeks-hat-certificates.html

 

Thank you for a great season!

The HAT season began about six and a half months ago when I went up to the UK to begin our UK Tour with the Ski Club of Great Britain. We just ended the season today with my last day on the mountain. Thank you for your interest in HAT, my blog and the HAT web site www.henrysavalanchetalk.com 

I'll be updating this blog from time to time with relevant posts and we will be sending out E-zines from time to time with updates on how to have fun and be safe on the off piste along with other off piste and avalanche info. To sign up for the E-zine, got to www.henrysavalanchetalk.com

Next event: I will be giving a Basic Talk of, 'Ride Hard ! Ride Safe Talk' at the Natives 'Job Shop' in Hammersmith on May 30th.

If you ever consider coming out to the Alps over the May bank holiday weekend (or week before), I would say go for it - very good off-piste skiing more times than not!

Spring Skiing: hoping for HOT DAYS and clear COLD NIGHTS

If you're skiing off-piste this holiday weekend then you should be hoping for the same thing! As hot days and clear cold nights is what it will take to build a nice smooth melt-freeze layer. It is forecast to do just that.

Be careful of slopes above you. There's been a lot of new snow over the last few days in much of the Norther and Southern French Alps. Some big avalanches will be coming down as the slopes warm up - this will be especially true near the Italian border.

See below for a summary on what real spring skiing is (not slush) and how the melt-freeze layer can make for a great day out. 

(click to enlarge)

SPRING SKIING and the Melt-freeze Layer

 Melt-freeze Cycles: Understand the ‘melt-freeze cycles’ and have fun with spring skiing!

Once the new snow melts during the day and then freezes at night (1 melt-freeze cycle) a few times in succession after a snowfall, the top snow layer begins to form a crust that gets deeper and stronger after each melt allows free water to drip down and re-freeze during the night. Any given ‘melt-freeze’ layer becomes stronger with each cycle of melting and freezing due to the deeper penetration of each melt during the day, which then adds more depth to the potential frozen layer at night. If untouched, the top of this frozen layer is smooth and solid first thing in the morning, then it becomes progressively softer as the warm sun and increased temperatures melt it as the day goes by. This process starts on east faces because they get the sun first thing in the morning, then south, then west (north faces at 2500 metres don’t normally get a melt freeze layer on them until late April due to lack of sun).

 For good skiing!

The trick is, after a couple of good melt-freeze cycles have created a solid layer on a slope, you need to get on that slope when the snow surface is smooth and solid with only 2 or 3 cm’s of soft melted snow on top (these are generally slopes that have been in the direct sunlight only for an hour or so e.g. an East facing slope at 9 or 10). Then you need to get off those slopes when the snow surface begins to get too soft and mushy or you’ll start breaking through, which is dangerous for your knees. AND the slope may be unstable due to all the melting - then avalanches can be a problem.

 In sum:

After a solid melt-freeze layer has formed and there has been a good melt during the day, it needs to freeze well the night before; the ideal is a cool clear night with minimums of –2 degrees (or lower) at 2000 m. This will allow the melted parts of the layer to freeze solid again from that altitude up. Then, in the morning, you look to get on the east facing slopes first thing, 9 AM, because the sun rises in the east and therefore those slopes get the sun first. Then you move to south facing slopes, then west. Do this right and get some of the best skiing of the season.

 Aside from a night that is not cool enough, the only thing that gets in the way of great spring skiing is the nasty ruts in the snow that people leave behind because they either ski spring snow slopes (slopes that get lots of sun in spring: E,S and W) before the melt-freeze layer has formed or they ski the slopes too late when they are too soft and mushy.

Avalanche Rating of 4 out of 5

It's snowing so much that the avalanche rating has gone up to 4 from the Northern French Alps: in Savoie down the Italian border to the Southern French Alps: Hautes-Alpes, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence even as far down the Alpes Maritime. That's almost as far as Nice! Even in Corisca the rating is 3 out of 5... See the avalanche forecast from Météo France you can translate these forecasts by copying and pasting the text into Google Translate!

And it's snowing down pretty low too - photo below is at 1850 m in Val d'Isère. I'll be skiing off piste as usual, but will be very careful over the next couple of days.

Season coming to an end...

..and many of you are either sitting in your green gardens, sailing, playing golf, tennis or football, but for those of you who live out here, are skiing out here or just enjoy knowing what's going on in the off-piste in the region, Wayne Watson from Alpine Experience, gives a great description of his morning and the snow conditions off piste in the Espace Killy at the moment as more snow comes in and winter returns once again:

Wow, what a fabulous morning! It had to be some of the best spring snow, without the sun, that I can remember in quite some time. Only a centimetre or two of fresh snow fell overnight, but it was enough for the new snow to ‘eat into’ the surface layer and soften it to a nice texture without the warmth of the sun being needed to melt the frozen surface. It was +5C at 8AM with grey skies and a foehn wind of up to 80kph blowing it didn’t look like it was going to be such a good ski, but once on the snow I knew we were in for a good day. We started out with an excellent Alti-port/Lavachet, followed by a good Cocaine Sud, then a stunning Cocaine Nord, and then a superb Lavachet but from the top through the avalanche barriers. From there we skied a funky Familial to the bottom arriving around 1:20PM to finish off Jean R’s 93rd and last morning of a terrific season. We’ll miss his company and his excellent photographic input to the website. Merci beaucoup Jean! 

And here's a photo from Jean Ribart of Wayne skiing some of the nice spring snow described above:

More snow for Sunday

I know most of you aren't going to be out skiing in the mountains again until next season, but for those of you who are either out here now or will be soon, here is a quick update on what's happening and what's going to be happening in the Northern French Alps!

The conditions have been pretty good for spring skiing over the last few days with clear, cold/freezing nights down to 2000 metres following hot melting days. The off-piste has been kept in pretty good conditions (i.e. smooth spring snow slopes) since there haven't been too many people around to trash the snow by skiing these slopes too late and leaving ruts behind (for an understanding of what makes nice smooth spring snow condtions see my update on the melt-freeze layer on April 1 ) Otherwise, it should look like this when you ski it:

For the next few days: tomorrow is supposed to be clear in the morning then windy (out of S,SW), warm (max of 9° at 2000) and cloudy then snow showers in the evening. then Sunday is supposed to bring in snow especially around the Italian border (surprise!). Total snow 25 cm at 2500 m above 2000 m then more snow Sunday night as the winds move to westerly and the rain snow limit moves down below 2000 metres (another possible 40 cm along the border during the night!) and things begin to get cooler than average for the season. Clearing on Thursday. Each recent snowstorm has been followed by quite a bit of instability in certain areas especially on the lee side of ridges, passes and peaks. For more information on that see the Météo France avalanche forecast (you can always translate it on Google).

These updates will probably become less frequent as the season comes to a close and many of you are off doing other things..., but thanks for your interest during the season and please stay tuned for general HAT updates and other interesting things that we get up to during the off-season! All the best, Henry

Some Tour Images (22-23 april)

The images below are from the tour we did from the Refuge des Fond des Fours to the Refuge de Femma via the Col du Pisset and from the Femma to Val d'Isère via the Balme de l'Ours: