I have read a claim made by a poster on another forum, that wearing a transceiver is mandatory for off piste skiing in Serre Chevalier. Has the Mayor made a local law? If it is true, how could it be enforced? Has the resort installed “gates” at all entry points perhaps?

it would be impossible to introduce gates unless they fenced the pistes as to access the off piste you simply leave the pistes

I read that post, I assumed it wasn’t true and the poster had got the wrong end of the stick. People are a bit credulous on some ski forums sometimes :D

I thought I’d give him the benefit of the doubt, it’s a while since I’ve been to Serre Che.

Reckons transceivers are £60, must be a different planet to the one I shop on for avvy kit.

If you can find me a transciever for £60 i’ll buy it, thats roughly what I value my life at remembering that being killed in an avalanche saves me £1800 of student debt.

They’ve installed some beacon checkpoints at the lift stations

http://www.serre-chevalier.com/ARVA-check-points

which I think are a good idea, at least to get people thinking.

As for a ban on off-piste skiing. Zinal has Arva controlled gates, Ian would probably be able to tell us more, so it is possible to install these but I’ve not heard of any local bye-laws for Serre Chevalier.

davidof - 02 December 2008 02:22 PM

They’ve installed some beacon checkpoints at the lift stations

http://www.serre-chevalier.com/ARVA-check-points

which I think are a good idea, at least to get people thinking.

As for a ban on off-piste skiing. Zinal has Arva controlled gates, Ian would probably be able to tell us more, so it is possible to install these but I’ve not heard of any local bye-laws for Serre Chevalier.

It’s got just one but it’s never been working all the time I’ve been there. The freeride area can be nominally opened or closed but it’s a lot more to do with marketing I think than anything else. In effect any slopes that pose a risk to villages, lift infrastructure or patrolled slopes are going to be secured. That’s really all that’s happening for the freeride area as far as I can see, there’s some fairly serious avalanche barriers about half down the combe durand lift which protect the piste running into the Chieso chair and more importantly the village itself, the slopes are prone to avalanche so they get secured. The next col along is just the same, it’s right above the aigle piste and they blast the summit of the garde de bordon to protect that end of the village, even so some of their blasts can drop pretty major slides down onto the XC area out of the village.

I would imagine people might have been skiing in the freeride area already if, hypothetically, they’d booted in from the Sorebois

There’s no bans on off-piste skiing but at high risk levels civil defence measures can be invoked but this is in country where the army always reserved the right to stick a tank on your lawn and shoot you for training purposes anyway.