With Meteo France warning of the possibility of skier triggered avalanches and after a period of strong southerly winds, rapidly warming temperatures and fresh snow you could fear the worst. In fact the day passed without serious injury, except to the dog of the Grand Plan refuge who was killed by a large snow slide.

Yesterday at 11h00 the gardian of the Grand Plan refuge near Courchevel was hit by a slide in the combe des Avals killing his dog.

At Valmorel an English skier was buried under a meter of snow after triggering a snowslab. She was rescued by units of the CRS des Alpes from Courchevel (mountain police) suffering from mild hypothermia and shock. The skier was with her dad and brother when the siblings ducked ropes in the Combe de Roche Blanche sector to ski a wind loaded ridgeline. The accident occured at 12h30. The victim was found using Recco reflectors in her ski boots.

In the Maurienne at Valmeinier an off piste skier was buried by an avalanche late in the afternoon under the col des Marches. A skier was quickly recovered by the pisteurs but a large rescue operation was put in place after fears that another skier had been buried. The missing skier had in fact escaped the slide.

davidof - 23 December 2009 09:31 AM

The victim was found using Recco reflectors in her ski boots.

lucky and making a bit of history It’s the first live recovery of a skier with RECCO I’ve ever heard of.

ise - 27 December 2009 04:29 PM

davidof - 23 December 2009 09:31 AM

The victim was found using Recco reflectors in her ski boots.

lucky and making a bit of history It’s the first live recovery of a skier with RECCO I’ve ever heard of.

There was another in les Deux Alpes a couple of years back. If you are close to a ski resort, say down piste from a pisteurs hut where they have the scanner than it would be possible for the pisteurs to get to you within 5-10 minutes. Recco always say their pastels are a complement to beacons.

I’ve often wondered how many RECCO sets a station really has when they say they’re equipped and where they’re located.

Hmm, these are the resorts with units:-

http://recco.com/resorts/resorts.pdf

but no idea how many sets they have. The Recco is useful as it can detect more than just Recco pastels so helps with body recovery as well. Anything that speeds up the time S&R workers spend looking for people has to be good news.

Thinking about I seem to recall another recovery in Zermatt as well, IIRC it was ultra quick as well.

I knew RECCO detectors could pick up other electronic chaff but AFAIK it’s doesn’t seem commonly used in Switzerland at least. Reading the SLF reports they generally record recovery methods and it’s usually dogs or probes, I’ve often thought that was odd actually.