Well there’s something. It says the incident occured in the Les Jeurs sector of the Domaine de Balme on the Swiss side of Vallorcine. I hadn’t even realised there was a Swiss side. Will wait to see if the SLF logs this in their table.

Victim Albin Oskarsson is one of the Chamonix Scandies.

photo: http://www.freeride.se

Anselme Baud the author of the definitive skiing guide to Chamonix described it as the most dangerous place in the valley. It’s has fantastic skiing easily accessed from the Tete de Balme lift, but is subject to massive wind loading and takes several days longer than other slopes to settle. Known locally as the back bowls or sometimes the death bowls!

Apparently he didn’t make it. Condolences to his family and friends.

the last proper time I saw Albin was in Soulfood at the end of this past summer (my mate lived with him this past summer).  He was ‘pulling’ a fairly hot looking cougar of well over 40 years old. Good man!

Very sad news.

Very sad, condolences to family and friends

From the Swiss Press

Un snowboader suédois est décédé à l’hôpital de Sion ce mercredi, au lendemain de l’avalanche qu’il a déclenché près de la tête de Balme. Le jeune homme pratiquait hors-piste.

Un snowboarder qui pratiquait seul du hors piste à une altitude d’environ 2’000 mètres, sur la pente Nord/Nord-Est de la Tête de Balme, au lieudit La Grand’Jeur, a déclenché une avalanche de type “plaque à vent”. Emporté et enseveli par la masse neigeuse, l’infortuné a été retrouvé grâce à son DVA sous 1m80 de neige, par le peloton de gendarmerie de haute montagne de Chamonix.
La victime, un ressortissant Suédois âgé de 28 ans, a été acheminée par un hélicoptère d’Air-Glaciers sur l’hôpital de Sion où, en raison de ses blessures, elle est décédée le 20 mars.

http://www.lenouvelliste.ch/fr/valais/sion/un-suedois-meurt-apres-une-avalanche-a-trient-497-1144315

and from the SLF:-
Tête de Balme, Trient, Off Piste Snowboarding, Altitude 2060m, N, Risk 3/Considerable

A couple of posters above have hinted at the fact that this degree of high risk skiing in Cham is something comparatively recent to which I’d have to say it’s always been like that. When I was doing seasons in Cham 15 years ago Le Tour, especially the back side, was known as somewhere that was often under considered comparatively harmless and as a result of which was somewhere people frequently died. The chamonix valley in general was seen as somewhere that was often dangerous to go powder skiing as due to the number of really good skiers there, there’s always a race to get first tracks. As a result of which people would take chances they wouldn’t elsewhere as if you didn’t take the chances you wouldn’t get the lines. That was the case 15 years ago, the older guys I was skiing with at the time said it’d been like that pretty much since the Blizzard of Ahs.

Now i’ve no reason to believe it’s gotten anything other than worse since then. So the people talking heuristics and how things used to be better surely need to view it a little more objectively. The biggest wonder at all is that with the mass proliferation of fat skis and other gear that makes it easier to ski off piste and access the back country is that there haven’t been more skiing avalanche fatalities in Cham over the last couple to ten or so years.

frank4short, I would agree that it’s always been a place where people took risks and often greater risks than other places. What seems to have changed is the number of people. I have to say that feeling in the town the night before a big day and the sheer energy and excitement on the day is one of the things that keeps me coming back.

juice - 21 March 2013 05:22 PM

frank4short, I would agree that it’s always been a place where people took risks and often greater risks than other places. What seems to have changed is the number of people.

To be honest unless the town underwent a major quiet patch for a while there, which I highly doubt, I have difficulty believing it’s changed much. In terms of either risk normalisation or the volume of people doing same.

In the year 2000 on a bluebird powder day anywhere between Jan and the end of March the only limiting factor to what people were doing or the number of people on the mountain was the lift system. On an average powder day GM was usually completely tracked out by between 11 and 12 in the morning. I had a lot of much better travelled mates than me and the majority of them were of the opinion that GM was the fastest tracked mountain in the world, especially considering it’s huge. Once a lift opened people hit the lines. That was the case on the Midi, GM, Brevent, Flegere and Le Tour.

I have difficulty believing it’s gotten much busier short of a major infrastructure improvement i’d not heard of. The only thing I can see that’s changed since then is that fat skis are now the norm rather than the exception and ABS bags. Both of which may be giving added confidence to people who probably would have never had it in the distant past though on the grand scale I’m not sure how much of a difference they make.

I remain shocked by this fatality, it’s the fourth at Le Tour on days when I have been skiing there, may be we can have this discussion another time, but the back bowls were a very empty place before the construction of the Tete de Balme lift in 1997.

frank4short - 21 March 2013 01:20 PM

The biggest wonder at all is that with the mass proliferation of fat skis and other gear that makes it easier to ski off piste and access the back country is that there haven’t been more skiing avalanche fatalities in Cham over the last couple to ten or so years.

You’d expect accident rates to be in approaching 3 figures every year, especially with the number of people who’ve taken up ski touring in the last 5 years but no, except for some outliers the accident rate stays around the 30 mark each year.

Obviously Search & Rescue as well as hospital care have improved. A lot of people wear transceivers and a growing number, airbags. People know more about avalanche avoidance and rescue. Fatter skis may even help reduce accidents by reducing the impact on weak layers. But still.

Frédéric Bunoz, a moderator on Camp2Camp has a theory that accidents regulate themselves to a certain extent. After an accident that is publicised people take much less risk, their tolerance to risk then slowly increases to the next accident. The various parameters are the amount of time it takes them to get back to their normal risk level, the amount of media coverage of accidents, how much they decrease their risk, limit the number of incidents in a season.

You can add to that the fact that certain popular routes are so tracked these days they must reduce the risk on those routes compared to the past.

davidof - 21 March 2013 08:03 PM

You can add to that the fact that certain popular routes are so tracked these days they must reduce the risk on those routes compared to the past.

This is the main theory I’ve heard referred to specifically in the Chamonix instance. The fact that because there are so many good skiers that any route that will consistently hold snow will get consistently skied. As a result of which weak layers are frequently purged and tracked snow forms a better base for fresh snow than virgin snow. With this process ongoing it reduces what would otherwise be a near catastrophic accident rate.

this is very true and it’s no reason to blame “non french” for ignorance

Alan Scowcroft - 20 March 2013 09:01 AM

Even if you don’t speak French the pictorials are easy to understand:

http://france.meteofrance.com/france/MONTAGNE?MONTAGNE_PORTLET.path=montagnebulletinneige/DEPT74

frank4short - 21 March 2013 09:48 PM

davidof - 21 March 2013 08:03 PM

You can add to that the fact that certain popular routes are so tracked these days they must reduce the risk on those routes compared to the past.

This is the main theory I’ve heard referred to specifically in the Chamonix instance. The fact that because there are so many good skiers that any route that will consistently hold snow will get consistently skied. As a result of which weak layers are frequently purged and tracked snow forms a better base for fresh snow than virgin snow. With this process ongoing it reduces what would otherwise be a near catastrophic accident rate.

for the likes of grand montets, etc this is very true,
but with this le Tour incident and the ENSA couloir avalanche it doesn’t always work (both of which see lots of traffic too).  I used to put to much emphasis on this rule you mention than perhaps I should, now its a potential positive for a ski route finding.

edit,
oh and we heard this afternoon that some guys tried to ski the north face of le Buet and set of a big cornice/wind lip leading to one guy being dragged down the hole slope.  I don’t know any more than that and that a helicopter came.  All the guide books talk of an almost constant cornice for entrance to the north face (when we skiied it last year we entered slightly lower down the ridge as it was ‘safer’ yet people still jump straight down it.  Otherwise in the Aig rouges today we saw lots and lots of point releases, but generally felt good.