Weekly report from HAT - 19/03/08
Snow report March 19, 2008
It's still coming down !
At times like this it is good to a look at a bit of recent history - to remember some awesome days as well as to think about how the snowpack is evolving.
With the new snows that fell just before the 12-15 March came great skiing and numerous accidental releases: with all the slabs pulling out, it is amazing that only several people were killed in our general area (e.g. Les Arcs and Chamonix). Most of the accidental avalanches that I observed or heard about were released by more than one person in one place or by explosives. Seemed slabs were releasing on all slopes aspects (but mostly east to northeast).
Since then it snowed again and we've had an epic week starting with the snows of the 16th & 17th . I have to say that it doesn't get much better than the 18th & 19th! Great snow: not too little, not too much and it bonded much better than the week before. I only saw a few large(ish) releases on northeast slopes and I think they were form blasting.
It is going to snow a lot. Especially from Friday & Saturday 22 March into this coming week and it's probably snowing right now as you read these words! I'm going to take each day as it comes: check out the avalanche bulletin in the evening, look around in the morning for signs of recent avalanche activity and choose where I go from there (and if I can't see then I'll stay down low in the trees where the vis is better - it is supposed to stay cold too; so that is really good news for skiing at lower altitudes). Is it going to be dangerous out there? That will depend on where you go and when & how you and your mates ski the slopes you're on. Keep thinking when you're out there!
Tip of the week
Look for slopes that have avalanched recently and/or slopes that have been skied a lot. Take note because often a slope that has just avalanched, or that has been skied a lot, will be more stable during and after the next storm than similar slopes that have not avalanched or been skied. But then again, if it snows as much as is predicted for the weekend and this coming week, the instability may be more of a question of shear quantities of new snow and the makeup of the different types of layers within the recent snow (like a big dense layer on top of lighter layers).
'Ride Hard Ride Safe'!
PS We're doing lots of transceiver training at the moment in Val d'Isère: 35 euros for saisonaires for a full afternoon of coaching, timed searches, basic rescue procedures & a waterproof reference card. Call Jamie on 06 23 05 75 09
