davidof - 27 May 2010 10:35 AM
ericlodi - 26 May 2010 10:55 PM
More evidences that avalanches and falls are not accidents happening to unaware ‘tourists’ but more often to seasoned mountaineers pushing the envelope too far?
As Jereon of Skitour put it “is this a result of the normalization of steep skiing?”
http://www.skitour.fr/actu/1881-accident-au-davin
I think a lot of tourists see or feel this intuitively when they’re being told not to venture off piste without probe/shovel/transceiver and as a result don’t take the advice very seriously. I think they also sense that a lot of the advice, and I’m thinking of some ski forums, is just some people trying to out hardcore each other.
I think that’s unfortunate as it masks the nature of the risk recreational skiers often place themselves in. There must be some sort of distinction between what Eric correctly labels mountaineers who are placing themselves in environments with prolonged periods of risk with skills and equipment trying to manage that risk and the recreational skier with a new pair of fat skis, no equipment and no skills placing themselves in a shot period of extreme risk to ski an appealing slope near the piste.
My guess is that is you start to measure this by skier hours in terrain with elevated risk that the recreational skier accident rate doesn’t look good at all. ie mountaineers are experiencing fewer incidents per participant hour then recreational skiers trying those near piste slopes.
I’ve seen some awful choices made by recreational skiers this season, they’re focussed by that fact a young man lost his life no more than 20m from the piste in Chandolin last year and that this year not more than a couple of metres from where I’d been alarmed to see boarders that two were caught in a near piste slide.