Thread: Avie Kills 2 in Lech....

3 people got caught in a slide off piste in Lech. 2 dead 1 lived. None were wearing beacons.
Link's in German......

http://www.kurier.at/chronik/837086.php

edit....The third person, from San Fransisco died in hospital today.

Again, in German.....

http://www.networld.at/index.html?/a...0/100938.shtml

I spoke to some family in St. Anton Sunday and they got a meter in the village. They had nothing before so I'm sure conditions were/are prime for some major avi activity.

RIP

English Link

In English:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...255EST0067.DTL

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...255EST0067.DTL

The body of the woman, who had been skiing alone, was found buried in about 28 inches of snow. She carried an avalanche transmitter, which normally emits a signal to help rescuers locate people buried in snow, but it had not been turned on, police said.

THE FIRST RULE OF AVIE BEACONS IS.....

Originally Posted by Superstar Punani

THE FIRST RULE OF AVIE BEACONS IS.....

On at the car and off at the bar...

Originally Posted by Superstar Punani

THE FIRST RULE OF AVIE BEACONS IS.....

Think how much money she was saving on AA batteries though!

"The body of the woman, who had been skiing alone, was found buried in about 28 inches of snow. She carried an avalanche transmitter, which normally emits a signal to help rescuers locate people buried in snow, but it had not been turned on, police said"


Darwin award candidate?

RIP

Very sad. The no beacon/ having one and not turning it on are dumb/preventable.

The one gnarly thing about the alps is they have pow frenzy almost as bad as US resorts, yet most of it isn't controlled. I admit to having wondered a few times whether something was safe/controlled as 15 people are bombing the fresh right under the schindlergrat chair in St. Anton with a foot or two of fresh. Mrs. Comish and I are always skiing with our packs/beacons in the alps because of it and are adding avalungs to the arsenal this year.

You can't just stop and dig a pit as the masses are bombing into the pow. its a deferent deal than going BC in the US, yet it shouldn't be given the what you are dealing with.

Now having a beacon and not turning it on, Sad.

Psyched to see Austria gettin some as I will be there on Thursday

Originally Posted by comish

I admit to having wondered a few times whether something was safe/controlled as 15 people are bombing the fresh right under the schindlergrat chair in St. Anton with a foot or two of fresh.

That exact slope sketches me out almost everytime I look at it for the exact same reason. Add in the fact that the cat walk out of the schindlerkar cuts right across the bottom of it and a slide there could be devastating. I have seen them doing control work on the face in the past but even then, it always trips my warning signs.

The area they control is so large also that I wonder if it is truly safe sometimes. I can think of at least two times when I have skied something that was supposedly controled and safe over there and had no problems during the run only to see the tracks taken out by a slide later in the day.

It is big mountain skiing, be careful always.

A lot of Alpine resorts have invested in CATEX, which helps them control, but the only place I've seen blasting by hand was Les Arcs, and with all the explosives they put down they only manged to release some pretty small soft slabs, which is a good thing I suppose...

edg

GAZ-EX is the daddy. If one of those things go off when you're nearby you know about it.

This one ripped out a huge slab that went crashing through the ice on Lac Blanc. Hundreds of tons of snow came down.

As a safety aside: When I was skiing with Brownmonkey and Mrs Roo in Lech last Christmas, we were the only people in the whole resort seen wearing helmets. Weird.

Originally Posted by bad_roo

GAZ-EX is the daddy. If one of those things go off when you're nearby you know about it.

This one ripped out a huge slab that went crashing through the ice on Lac Blanc. Hundreds of tons of snow came down.

As a safety aside: When I was skiing with Brownmonkey and Mrs Roo in Lech last Christmas, we were the only people in the whole resort seen wearing helmets. Weird.

Heh, the little black thing on the left, eh? It took me a while to figure out what those things were at snowbasin.

Originally Posted by backpack

Heh, the little black thing on the left, eh? It took me a while to figure out what those things were at snowbasin.

Yeah, an explosion occurs within the mountain and is directed into the pipe where the gasses smash downard onto the snow.

There are also others which put dynamite on little cables that get sent round the system and dropped where needed (that's CATEX). My personal favourite is the 'avalancheur'

edg