Really great report David - very informative, concise and interesting & thank you for making it available. It’s certainly given me food for thought.
I must admit to having some concerns regarding availibility of avalanche incident information, in resorts and a niggling worry about possible conflicts of interest there. For example, I was in Tignes last December driving up from Bourg St. Maurice, prior to Paradiski opening. I remained blissfully ignorant about the ‘December Incident’ until much later & really only absorbed the full details & implications through your report. It appeared to be kept very quiet there.
I was based in Bourg St. Maurice for much of the season. The subsequent avalanche incidents & deaths, mentioned in Davids report really did not filter through in the ‘English language’ domain. My sources of information were French daily papers, conversations in French in a local bar in Bourg and with people in the know.
I find it worrying. It appears that the information is available only on a ‘need-to-know’ basis and tourists don’t need to know about avalanches, deaths & injuries.
This is my opinion and I might be completely wrong. I hope that I am wrong as it would seem counter-productive to education and prevention.
In your report you make reference to early conditions, “The autumn of 2005 was warm and dry in the Alps. In October temperatures were in the low 20s°C in the Alpine valleys with some record highs recorded:...” In the context of your report overall, this seems quite important. I wondered if and where, an early summary of this approaching seasons conditions may be found? Or where the pertinent information might be researched?
Ski resorts are very sensitive about what they perceive as negative publicity. There are some grounds for this as the media often dramatizes avalanche deaths whereas you are more likely to die on the roads or on your summer beach holiday. The general public often gets ideas of avalanches raining down on the ski runs or accommodation (and of course this does sometimes happen with some notable lapses in security and planning as was the case in Val d’Isere/Tignes in 1970, Montroc in 1999 and Val Thorens in 1992 to name but a few).
Information appears to be much less readily available or at least much less widely diffused compared to what we are used to in the anglo-saxon influenced world. I think there is an expectation that these things are best left to the experts to interpret. That is more a cultural difference.
Regarding snow conditions. We have a mini-blog of conditions here
http://pistehors.com/news/ski/sub/category/Snow%20Conditions/
This has move location from last year but if you check our Autumn bulletin for 2005
http://pistehors.com/backcountry/wiki/Weather/Autumn-2005
you will see that we commented on the very unstable base that was forming.
If you read reasonable French then the Meteo France “weekly summaries” can quickly get you up to speed on the conditions for a particular department. You can find them here:
http://pistehors.com/backcountry/wiki/Avalanches/Avalanche-Bulletin
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