Snow for the Euros.

[beer30]

Jesus, sounds like "freeriding" is going through some major growing pains. Sorry to hear about all the accidents. Hope this trend slows in a few years.

[jumpturn]

Yeah I've spent plenty of time in Jackson and more in Cham, I will say that nothing prepares you for Cham and you'll feel like a total gaper, but slightly less so due to living in JH.

Glaciers are scary.

Underlying ice and high angle are more so.

I am reminded of the ill-fated JH trip that resulted in 1 dead on mont blanc de tacul tacul from underlying ice and another getting avalanched from the tirangle all the way down the glacier rond.

http://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/whi...nt?oid=2557652

[rob stokes]

Skied a ***TOP SECRET*** spot in CH close to Verbier today and had untracked in the trees all day with pretty much no one else out

Top secret, as long as you dont read LC's blog.

[klar]

Gopro attached to side of shoe with selfie stick?

Ehh, that all looks okay (if you like that sort of thing), but who needs 50cm of blower pow when you can have three inches of the slickest Warwickshire red clay to lay down some fresh tracks through...

No avalanches here, either.



But no, on a more serious note, trail running still sucks several flavours of ballsack. I'm so glad winter has arrived for everyone, just make sure you enjoy it responsibly.

[stantonbum1]

Avies in Switzerland yesterday.....

http://snowbrains.com/8-people-die-4...y-switzerland/

[ulty_guy]

Stuck to low angle quest pow in Le Tour Saturday while the crowds crushed GM

Went back to GMToday in my fav conditions. Zero viz and over the head. Set off a few small slabs, storm came in with graupel, unstable..

[Charlie Don't Surf]

Had a blast staying the trees all weekend. Nice to have decent coverage in the sub alpine for once. Brunson, Champex, and Rochers de naye all skied deep.

[peds]

Gopro attached to side of shoe with selfie stick?

Nope, GoPro attached to a racing chicken. Training them for a competition next summer. They are fast, but their map reading is terrible, so I just have them follow me around at the moment.

[Ripzalot]

Avies in Switzerland yesterday.....

http://snowbrains.com/8-people-die-4...y-switzerland/

dang. there's at least one unreported avy on that chart. subtle, maybe we should have said something.

slf avy map is glowing read again. when will it be safe(r) again to ride in the upper alpine?

http://www.slf.ch/lawinenbulletin/index_DE

[Ripzalot]

This gives it away...

Top secret, as long as you dont read LC's blog.

noobs....it's an old joke here.

[klar]

Nope, GoPro attached to a racing chicken. Training them for a competition next summer. They are fast, but their map reading is terrible, so I just have them follow me around at the moment.

Neat. I have been thinking of a similar project involving my neighbours cows.

dang. there's at least one unreported avy on that chart. subtle, maybe we should have said something.

Always say something, seriously. Send an email to your avalanche center with obs of how when where, size of slide and if it's a big one that someone else might worry about, call mountain rescue and tell them nothing happened. They wont give you shit. They will however send a bunch of people out to probe in your slide if someone else calls it in and they aren't sure whether someone's in it.

[Marius]

klar is so 2005 regarding pov cams. pft.

Always say something, seriously. Send an email to your avalanche center with obs of how when where, size of slide and if it's a big one that someone else might worry about, call mountain rescue and tell them nothing happened. They wont give you shit. They will however send a bunch of people out to probe in your slide if someone else calls it in and they aren't sure whether someone's in it.

do it.

some more recent activities from mighty Arlberg with pics and some infos in ze german.
For information purpose: we ski tracked out bump runs. that steep looking faces are small and untouched pockets. i did not photoshop tracks out or whatever, usually at the corner of these pics, there are tracks. a lot of them. ne need for suicide runs these days. atm i would not suggest to go that steep outside of runs where you are not 100% sure they are totally tracked out already and regularly.






see this (watch in fullscreen). it happend when we were shooting/skiing fun laps. first avy lookers left. nothing happend. next guy/gruop entered the couloir one more on the right. he also triggered an avy, tumbled over the rocks and triggered with his slide the second avy. he was partially buried as official sources say. and injured. 1 guy digging him out in the pic. 8 standing around. also take a look at the other 8-10 guys on top of the run. less then half have proper equipment. 1 just fell, 1 is just about to crash.

[Ripzalot]

Always say something, seriously. Send an email to your avalanche center with obs of how when where, size of slide and if it's a big one that someone else might worry about, call mountain rescue and tell them nothing happened. They wont give you shit. They will however send a bunch of people out to probe in your slide if someone else calls it in and they aren't sure whether someone's in it.

yeah, normally i would have but subtle said something to the effect that they acknowledged that they were ok and it was on them to report it. it was last run of the day, by the time i pushed back from the end of the road, i had forgotten to ask again. i'll send in something today. i got a pic from the end of the road.

[freak]

when will it be safe(r) again to ride in the upper alpine?

at least over here, probably once meltwater within the snowpack kills those deep instabilities, so depending on the elevation and aspects of the slope mid april/mid may.

if there is a lot of new snow, things might improve, as in "skiers wont matter much, since there is so much weight (all the snow) on the slopes anyways". would be really bad if you trigger something small in the new snow, which then causes a slide on the deep instabilities.

freak~[&]

[Ripzalot]

and here's a tourist shot of subtle...

[peds]

For information purpose: we ski tracked out bump runs. that steep looking faces are small and untouched pockets. i did not photoshop tracks out or whatever, usually at the corner of these pics, there are tracks. a lot of them. ne need for suicide runs these days. atm i would not suggest to go that steep outside of runs where you are not 100% sure they are totally tracked out already and regularly.

This should be stuck on a poster at the top of every chair lift in the Alps for the next few weeks!

[JRainey]

This is like a "Where's Waldo" of clusterfuck.

[ClarkleberryFinn]

Breakfast tasted pretty good this morning:

[Meathelmet]

Weird stuff. The avy danger has been 4 the last days in cham area. Today we went to St.Gervais/Megeve as the weather charts showed the
cloud cover could break there as it was sink in cham this morning. Lo and behold, skied with sun & good viz the day, lapped balls deep fluff.

There was some wind waves in the snow on NW aspects (2000-2400m), close to the ridges but basically no slabbing. Just 40-80cm of really consistent snow. I have never lapped so much faceshots during one day in my life.
No glidecracks, no slabs, and marginal sluff.

Some lower parts of the mountains that didnt have a base week ago and the snow didnt come with a lot wind in some aspects so there can
be found some relatively safe skiing. I think I´ll stick to that the next few days..

[Franz]

Underlying ice and high angle are more so.

I am reminded of the ill-fated JH trip that resulted on 1 dead on mont blanc de tacul drom underlying ice and another getting avalanched from the tirangle all the way down the glacier rond.

http://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/whi...nt?oid=2557652

Yeah, glaciers are scary. I've spent some time on them (real ones, not the ones in the tetons), but I'm fully prepared to feel like a total gaper and ski the chillest of lines. All of it will be awesome and a new experience.

[Alkares]

This is like a "Where's Waldo" of clusterfuck.

Was thinking the same thing myself...

[subtle plague]

and here's a tourist shot of subtle...

meh tourists. I hate em!

[kalisto]

Another random question for the euro folks... How hard is it to find something other than a groomer ski to rent? Online it seems like I can ONLY rent slalom skis.

Heading to Zillertal over easter, and only have my tech set-up in Europe at the moment. Don't really want to rip around inbounds for three days on it...

Try to find rentals?
Put some more inserts in the ski and throw on some alpine binders?

Thoughts?

[ClarkleberryFinn]

In Zillertal these guys can probably help: http://www.greenroom.at/index.php/ski-und-board-verleih

[Ripzalot]

another killed in disentis....

http://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/650989...s-grisons.html