S5E11
TME 20/02/10
Saturday, February 20th, 2010Editor’s Letter
Saturday, February 20th, 2010After massive tension last week, some of you may have noticed Freddie is finally working. It has been some kind of battle and I’d just like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has helped along the way. Whether that has been moving, taking down door ways, fixing him, sorting out the Xerox guys or simply putting up with my whining. I just hope he doesn’t break!
It has been a massively busy week around town and on the slopes but pretty quiet in the bars. Next week it dies off a little but the Scandinavians are just around the corner with all that they entail.
The Olympics are in full swing and over half way through already so make sure you don’t miss them as at a cost of at least $2.5 billion they must be good.
Have a good one MB
HAT Snow Report for 20 Feb, 2010
Saturday, February 20th, 2010Most of the nice snow this past week (before Thursday) could be found if you were willing to walk a bit and/or if you new where to find some untouched snow and squeeze a few turns in-between older tracks after lots of traversing! The best quality snow has been on North’ish facing slopes as the South facing slopes have been ‘sun affected’ and crusty despite the very cold temperatures of earlier this past week. The predicted snow for this coming week will make it better and better!
Snow Quality and Stability
Several accidental avalanches were reported through mid week this past week (before it started snowing) by the Météo France avalanche forecasting services in parts of the Northern French Alps on East, North and West slopes above 1800 metres (no one was seriously hurt). These reports are not surprising to me as there is a very weak layer of snow that I keep coming across especially where the good snow is: on East, North, West slopes above 1800 metres. Any new snow that has accumulated since Thursday in these areas (including snow blown in by the wind) will easily create new instability specially
on steep slopes. You can keep up-to-date on this by visiting our blog on www.getoffpiste.com or if you can read French on www.meteo-france.com > Montagne> Bulletins Avalanches.
Tips for this coming week
There are a couple very weak layers on North’ish facing slopes and very shaded slopes due to the periods of cold temperatures that we have experienced this season. This weak layer has not been much of a problem recently due to relatively small amounts of snow in each snowstorm that we’ve had over the last few weeks… but I’m keeping an eye on this instability since the best skiing is in the very places where the snowpack seems the weakest… With the new snow, I’m therefore starting on low angle slopes and taking into consideration everything that we present in our talks – a summary is on my blog entry of 14 January on www.getoffpiste.com
Have Fun and Be Safe!
