 Poster: A snowHead
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A train has now been hit by an avalance in Switzerland.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| 8611 wrote: |
| Remarkable how they tracked them down, you'd think it was like finding needles in a haystack |
They tracked a phone location to put them in the vicinity then trancievers to actually locate, drones were also used in the search. Located at about 10pm having started the search at 7.30 so the whole thing was in darkness.
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The search involved the Neustift mountain rescue service, the Tyrol Mountain Rescue Service, the Neustift Volunteer Fire Brigade, several drones, the police helicopter and the alpine police. A mobile phone bearing revealed a search area between the Dresdner Hütte and the Gamsgarten valley station.
In the course of the search, an avalanche was discovered in the open ski room in the "Mutterbergl" area at an altitude of 2115 metres. The avalanche crack showed two tracks of entry, pointing to the missing snowboarders. The avalanche had a turf of 300 meters in altitude.
Around 9.30 p.m., the emergency services of the Neustift mountain rescue team were able to locate two LVS signals on the avalanche cone and recover the two buried shortly afterwards. However, the emergency physician was only able to determine the deaths of the two 37-year-old Austrians. |
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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@hang11, I interpreted what @gixxerniknik, said slightly differently to you.
My understanding is that in European resorts, ski patrol will ensure that the marked runs served by a lift are adequately safe, including from the possibility of avalanches from off piste running into them, before opening. A lift opening shows that ski patrol consider the marked runs served by the lift are adequately safe.
I thought what @gixxerniknik was getting at is that a resort may open a lift even though it can also be used to access off piste areas that they know not to be safe.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| offpisteskiing wrote: |
| BobinCH wrote: |
| One of the biggest dangers, especially on powder frenzy days, is even if you think you know what you are doing and can pick a safe line down, you can’t control skiers and exposure from above. |
But it's not a 'safe line' if you are exposed to lots of steep terrain above you on a day of generalised High risk... |
This is absolutely key. The (admittedly limited) training I've done made it quite clear that a "safe line" includes assessing what's above your and considering whether that could cause you an issue. You can't control what other people do, so the sensible thing is surely to assume they do the wrong thing. If a line is safe "so long as no-one else does something dumb" it's not safe.
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Another one in St Anton!
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An avalanche recently occurred in the off-piste area of the St. Anton am Arlberg ski resort. Two helicopters are currently assessing the situation; it is still unclear whether anyone is buried.
According to police, the avalanche broke loose in the area of the "Törli," a steep gully often used as an off-piste skiing route by winter sports enthusiasts. It is located not far from the Kapall mountain station.
Avalanche transceiver signals detected.
According to the Tyrol control center, the leader of a ski group noticed the avalanche and, while skiing past the avalanche debris, detected avalanche transceiver signals. He later raised the alarm. Poor flying weather, dangerous search. Despite
poor flying conditions, the Gallus 3 emergency helicopter and the Libelle Tirol helicopter are attempting a search flight. The St. Anton mountain rescue team is also involved. However, reaching the avalanche cone is extremely risky with a danger level of 4 – high danger. |
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The Brevent (Chamonix) pisteurs nearly over-cooked their blasting on Friday and glancingly hit the top station of the Parsa chairlift 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@hang11, @under a new name, My comments may have been a bit misleading. I am saying that sometimes in extreme weather there are only the free bunny lifts open when really it would be better to keep the whole resort closed.
In my enthusiasm (stupidity), I've been out in ridiculous conditions when it was nigh on impossible to see the piste marker poles. I've guided others down because they couldn't see where the piste was but I knew the way. The mountains are a damgerous place in a storm. Opening lifts in those sorts of conditions doesn't teach us to respect the mountains.
The avi control people do an amazing job in difficult circumstances and there is no way I would criticise them.
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@gixxerniknik, still not quite sure what you mean and what are these “free” lifts?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/16/train-derails-switzerland-fatal-avalanches-alps
The final few paragraphs make interesting reading
| Quote: |
Among those caught up in the avalanches in the French Alps on Friday was Daniel Matthews, whose profile describes him as an adventure skier, who was buried for eight minutes after a couloir he was skiing collapsed and buried him before being dug out by his companions.
“I don’t really know what I’m doing here but I have been getting asked so many questions about the avalanche on Friday and to be honest I don’t know how to answer them and maybe could help people not to make the mistake I made,” Matthews wrote on Instagram.
“I made a very bad decision and uneducated decision to ski Skimans [sic] Couloir just off the Palafour lift in Tignes. “I dropped in and did one turn the whole couloir collapsed underneath me and I immediately tried to pull my [avalanche] airbag but as I was fell I fell forward making it impossible to reach my toggle, I was then quickly thrown into what felt like a washing machine and I just remember falling for about 35 seconds (about 400m) and then coming to a very quick stop.
“I hope I and other[s] may be able to learn some things. I didn’t follow the signs that day that were clearly there! and I paid for it. The only person to blame is myself,” he added |
Lucky man but then perhaps most of us have done similar daft things in the mountains at one time or other and are still here to tell the tale!
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@under a new name, All I was saying is that in extreme weather the resort keeps one or two lifts open in order to avoid refunding lift passes or insurance payouts. Sometimes more than just the free lifts. I could be wrong as I am naturally suspicious!
If you have a look on the EK piste map the only lifts that are open are the free ones. What is the point of that?
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| under a new name wrote: |
| @gixxerniknik, still not quite sure what you mean and what are these “free” lifts? |
Not every resort has free lifts. So if you've not been to VDI/Tignes it may not be immediately obvious what this means. But in VDI some of the lifts that only serve the nursery slopes that are directly on the snow front down at resort level are free. VDI has a fairly extensive array of these free options, and I think fairly unusually they include a chair lift, when most resorts only have magic carpets or maybe a drag lift that can be accessed without a lift pass. In other resorts these lifts may require a lift pass, but they'd still keep the lifts serving low level nursery slopes open the longest. So the differentiator isn't that they're free, but that they're low and short lifts.
I suspect the reason these are kept running isn't just to avoid an insurance payout. More likely they're open because first and foremost they are the lifts that can be opened safely (they're low down and sheltered, so not subject to the wind issues which has kept the rest of the resort closed) and the resort genuinely wants people to be able to ski. They also serve beginners but aren't of much interest to someone who can already ski, and it's good for beginners to keep learning. A missed day in week 1 is much more impactful that a missed day for someone who can already ski the whole mountain.
In general I think this is linked to the much more reasonable attitude to risk in Europe than in the USA. The lifts can be open because it is safe for the lift to turn, it is up to the user to know how to safely descend from the top. It would be annoying if the lift closed because not everyone could be trusted to do that.
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You know it makes sense.
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| munich_irish wrote: |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/16/train-derails-switzerland-fatal-avalanches-alps
The final few paragraphs make interesting reading
| Quote: |
Among those caught up in the avalanches in the French Alps on Friday was Daniel Matthews, whose profile describes him as an adventure skier, who was buried for eight minutes after a couloir he was skiing collapsed and buried him before being dug out by his companions.
“I don’t really know what I’m doing here but I have been getting asked so many questions about the avalanche on Friday and to be honest I don’t know how to answer them and maybe could help people not to make the mistake I made,” Matthews wrote on Instagram.
“I made a very bad decision and uneducated decision to ski Skimans [sic] Couloir just off the Palafour lift in Tignes. “I dropped in and did one turn the whole couloir collapsed underneath me and I immediately tried to pull my [avalanche] airbag but as I was fell I fell forward making it impossible to reach my toggle, I was then quickly thrown into what felt like a washing machine and I just remember falling for about 35 seconds (about 400m) and then coming to a very quick stop.
“I hope I and other[s] may be able to learn some things. I didn’t follow the signs that day that were clearly there! and I paid for it. The only person to blame is myself,” he added |
Lucky man but then perhaps most of us have done similar daft things in the mountains at one time or other and are still here to tell the tale! |
Great reporting from the Guardian there, copy/pasting from Instagram. Here is the post from the man himself. Some interesting videos of the avalanche and subsequent rescue. https://www.instagram.com/p/DUylXS6jQ0T/?img_index=4&igsh=MzRyYXQ2djAyY3Jr
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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@bouquetin, some of us wont use social media so cant see that
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Poster: A snowHead
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@bouquetin, I guess it's the sort of thing you have to quote in it's entirety to make sure someone doesn't object to an edit. The [sic] suggests they did proof read it and check that reference (which I did not).
I can't read the post as I'd have to follow the guy to do that: his profile is private.
What do you think they should have done instead?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Read the Guardian article about the train avalanche as that’s where the quote from that skier is too.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| phil_w wrote: |
@bouquetin, I guess it's the sort of thing you have to quote in it's entirety to make sure someone doesn't object to an edit. The [sic] suggests they did proof read it and check that reference (which I did not).
I can't read the post as I'd have to follow the guy to do that: his profile is private.
What do you think they should have done instead? |
I suspect his page has blown up since the post was put live and therefore he's changed his profile to private. It was served to me by the algorithm. I suspect because in general I follow a load of Tignes based stuff and probably meta knowing I've been reading content about it on here! It was public then but it's been changed to private since. I guess he didn't want a load of trolls criticising him and a load of unwanted attention from the press. There was a lot more info than quoted by the Guardian.
The post just showed his entry into the gully, the slope breaking away as he made his first turn and him being carried away. Had a 3rd party POV from his mates standing at the top (he went first) as well as his own action cam footage which showed the slope breaking and then got covered in snow as he got swept away by the avalanche. Picture was of the aftermath as he got loaded onto a stretcher by the pisteurs. Text was a mea cupla saying they'd skied a different gully higher up and got lucky which fuelled their desire to ski this one rather than properly assess the risks. Said he reached for his airbag but couldn't pull it due to the force and action of the snow sweeping him away. He lost consciousness at some point. His friends located him using their transceivers within 6 mins and it took a further 2 mins to dig him out from a depth of 2 meters. They helped him regain consciousness before the pisteurs arrived.
What do I think they should have done instead? I'm by no means an expert in any of this stuff so probably not listen to me! But the obvious thing to do is to not be in avalanche terrain on a 4/5 day, just moments after the risk was downgraded from 5/5.
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How can you have an avalanche airbag and think it was ok to ski a slope like that in those conditions?? I really don't understand. Do we just need to educate people not to ski steep stuff on high risk days? Should the resorts actually tell people this at the lifts?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Can only speculate what the group thinking was beforehand but from the insta post it seemed to be just - Powder fever + a but of a poke and prod with his poles, yeah all good, dropping....... Oh faaarck.
Lucky man, fair play to mates that got him out.
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@phil_w, @bouquetin, either the post privacy had been changed (comments turned off) or it's fine, I don't follow the dude and could see it.
Strange that he posts it for learning but doesn't really state what the key mistakes are that he felt he made
In terms of the terrain, I'd have thought that's fairly risk on a high risk day. Steep, narrow and just asking to flush you out. Not sure of the aspect and at least looks like the wind loading is the other side of the ridge, but you wouldn't catch me near it.
Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Mon 16-02-26 22:22; edited 1 time in total
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| 8611 wrote: |
| How can you have an avalanche airbag and think it was ok to ski a slope like that in those conditions?? I really don't understand? |
I think that there’s a mindset amongst some that the airbag is to protect against foreseen dangers rather than unseen dangers.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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The privacy setting has obviously been changed back. I viewed the post yesterday, couldn’t earlier and now can.
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| SnoodyMcFlude wrote: |
| @phil_w, @bouquetin, In terms of the terrain, I'd have thought that's fairly risk on a high risk day. Steep, narrow and just asking to flush you out. Not sure of the aspect and at least looks like the wind loading is the other side of the ridge, but you wouldn't catch me near it. |
This is the pitch that slid under the arrow. Lookers left is the pitch they skied beforehand
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| bouquetin wrote: |
| [Text was a mea cupla saying they'd skied a different gully higher up and got lucky which fuelled their desire to ski this one rather than properly assess the risks. |
They made their mistake with their risk assessment whilst eating their croissants. That they got away with the different gully doesn’t mean they were safe there.
1. Grass
2. Snow with grass around it.
3. Somebody might very well die.
4. People will die.
5. Everybody will die.
1. No fun
2. No fun
3. Somebody else had all the fun. Last week.
4. Definitely fun
5. Yeah that was fun.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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TBH, I find it hard to slag off anyone caught in an avalanche. If Henry of HAT admits he fckd up once.
This season is being said to be one of those were the snow pack has been fckd and it will never be right. I am out March 28th for a week and will be skiing off piste. How smart am I and my companions. Who can really say. But for the grace and all that....
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I would suggest many folk adding comments here have done daft things in the mountains and are still here. Everyone makes mistakes and sometimes stuff just happens. Even the most experienced guides, skiers and mountaineers have been caught in fatal avalanches. For example Martin Moran was killed whilst working, I know from personal experience that he was very cautious and would have always turned back rather than put himself or his clients at risk. Yet one day he and his team set out and never came back. The risk is one of the reasons we keep going back, its never going to happen to us.
Also note Steve Angus has posted that one of the British guys killed in Val d'Isere was a client of his, had been discussing with him about possible guiding this season. Sobering stuff.
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You know it makes sense.
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Whole it's undoubtedly true that we've all done stupid things, I think it's good to pick up on them and try to learn. I don't want to be in the same position. As that dude, I'd rather be in the position where I think "hang on, I said that bloke was an idiot for being in that position, why am I about to do something similar". I want my head to be thinking about turning away.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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I did stupid things for sure but it was before I was avalanche conscious. If you know enough to have a bag surely you must know not to be on steep terrain on a day like that.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| 8611 wrote: |
| If you know enough to have a bag surely you must know not to be on steep terrain on a day like that. |
I don't think that's how the psychology on this works. Buying an airbag is quick and easy. Anyone with the money can do it and look the part. Learning about snow safety and how to assess risks takes time and effort (and an awareness that it needs to be done).
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| munich_irish wrote: |
| I would suggest many folk adding comments here have done daft things in the mountains and are still here. Everyone makes mistakes and sometimes stuff just happens. Even the most experienced guides, skiers and mountaineers have been caught in fatal avalanches.... |
True, although you need to look at the data quite closely. Professionals ride much more than tourists, so are inherently at a higher risk. Professionals typically ride first, so are most likely to go down. Professionals are less likely to be "daft", but there's a perverse incentive which some of them struggle to deal with: customers always want to ride dangerous stuff.
Here's more on the two Brit fatalities the other day. From that we have:
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| France’s national weather service had issued a red alert for avalanche risk on Thursday – only the third time such a warning has been given in the 25 years since the system was introduced, according to Le Monde. |
That's a pretty high risk level to be riding steep terrain, isn't it? If you ride avalanche terrain under that type of warning, you're definitely accepting a risk I'd not accept. There's nothing wrong with that - I'm not criticising anyone for their personal attitude to risk - but it's beyond my personal tolerance level.
There were hundreds of tracks on the slope which slid, I'm told, so your chances of survival were maybe better than 99%. In those conditions, you will feel to be "an idiot" for walking away.
When the storm risk in the Dales was high, we would retire to the pub, because we knew we'd be caving all night pulling idiots out of the places we'd never consider going on a day like that. Sometimes we pulled them out in pieces, returning bags of bits to their families. We were almost certainly dafter than anyone, but we did not share their risk taking behaviour. It was the pointless stupidity of it which got to me. All those families waiting in the dark to see if we could get their loved ones out in one piece and still warm, or not.
| Layne wrote: |
| If Henry of HAT admits he fckd up once. ... |
The mountain doesn't know you're an expert. Something various guides & professionals have volunteered to me many times over the years. Most of them are humble. But none of that is any justification to take unnecessary risks; if anything it's the opposite, isn't it? There's a high objective risk here, be cautious.
| Layne wrote: |
| I am out March 28th for a week and will be skiing off piste. How smart am I and my companions. Who can really say. |
If the conditions are the same as now, you probably have a better than 99% chance of survival. I would not ride avalanche terrain in these conditions, and I doubt your mate Henry would either. That "booking ahead" thing caused a lot of trouble in cave rescue. It's hard to pre-book the correct weather conditions.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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@phil_w, the group was being 'guided' by an instructor. Surely he should never have taken them into that terrain if the level was 4/5?
I wouldn't even consider going off piste under those conditions, and certainly not into a steep couloir with a big terrain trap at the bottom of it!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| sugarmoma666 wrote: |
| 8611 wrote: |
| If you know enough to have a bag surely you must know not to be on steep terrain on a day like that. |
I don't think that's how the psychology on this works. Buying an airbag is quick and easy. Anyone with the money can do it and look the part. Learning about snow safety and how to assess risks takes time and effort (and an awareness that it needs to be done). |
I agree, there is definitely a gap in education with regards to avalanches, from people who are oblivious to their dangers to the other end of the spectrum where people believe just going off piste at all is spectacularly dangerous so of course everyone who does it dies. Which is the cause of a flurry of whatsapp messages I get every time something like this happens implying that if I go off piste I've got a death wish.
I've noticed an increase in rhetoric around needing to have "the right equipment" if you go off piste, but much less about entry level information regarding how to understand the risk of getting caught in an avalanche in the first place. Although I have noticed this latest episode with the 5/5 days has increased people's visibility of there being an avalanche warning scale. But I don't think most people have any idea what to do with that information.
Tricky one as I suspect the last thing the resort tourist offices want to do is start giving everyone a greater understanding of how dangerous avalanches can be, it would ruin the Disneyland vibe. Also most resorts probably don't want to be seen to be encouraging/enabling people to go off piste. But for anyone considering venturing outside the poles some basic training could be a life saver by preventing people getting into the most dangerous situations (how to understand the avalanche warnings, slope angle, terrain traps, exposure from above, basic navigation, equipment to take etc.). More of an "if you're gonna do this anyway, here are some things you should know" warning than full on avalanche safety training. A bit like we see in the UK with paddle board warnings, they know people are going to do it anyway, so it is useful to know some very basic stuff (tell someone you're going, take your phone, don't go in an offshore wind).
Although it doesn't look like what happened in either case here. In Val d'Isere the speculation would be the group had descended a shallower pitch, knew they we're crossing under exposure from above but took the chance and got unlucky. Something the seems inevitable now in hindsight, hadn't happened for the previous couple of hours, anyone crossing under then would have been fine, people probably did. In Tignes the fact that the skiers companions dug him out so quickly suggests they had trained, would know the risks, so the psychology at play probably isn't "all the gear and no idea" but more about rolling the dice, knowing the risk but not believing it could happen to them, further compounded by the fact they had rolled the dice before and their number didn't come up making them believe the odds were more in favour than they were the first roll. People play roulette even though it is obvious the house will always win in the long run.
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| phil_w wrote: |
| There were hundreds of tracks on the slope which slid, I'm told, so your chances of survival were maybe better than 99%. In those conditions, you will feel to be "an idiot" for walking away. |
I doubt that many people do feel like an idiot in those circumstances, although I agree with you they should (I plead guilty to this charge, from time to time, like plenty of people here). Most people will just feel elated that they have made some nice turns in great snow. And that's the conundrum, which Henry talks about in his article which references the Val d'Isere fatalities.
I'm not in the Alps at the moment so looking at things from afar, without the lure of making fresh turns in new snow. But the Red Vigilance warning from France Meteo got my attention, not least because it's so rare that I didn't even know there was this kind of warning made by the authorities. If I was in resort that would definitely have influenced what I'd be prepared to ski.
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| Grinning wrote: |
| SnoodyMcFlude wrote: |
| @phil_w, @bouquetin, In terms of the terrain, I'd have thought that's fairly risk on a high risk day. Steep, narrow and just asking to flush you out. Not sure of the aspect and at least looks like the wind loading is the other side of the ridge, but you wouldn't catch me near it. |
This is the pitch that slid under the arrow. Lookers left is the pitch they skied beforehand
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From arm chair education point of view (along with Instagram link below) that photo is interesting
i) Lots of skiers nibble at the 30 degree terrain on cat-4 day. They get away with it. Either through luck/ conservative terrain choice
ii) based on ski tracks / lack of avalanche activity someone is tempted onto steeper 40 degree terrain. Avalanche triggers and propagates. Skier is buried.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DUylXS6jQ0T/?img_index=4&igsh=MzRyYXQ2djAyY3Jr
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@bouquetin, agree with all you've said there, it just seems to me some very simple indicators and rules would go a long way to prevent incidents like this. The 30 degree thing is such a basic threshold.
I think looking at the slope that they couldn't have come from easier terrain, if caught at the bottom the skiers were going lookers right to left, there doesn't seem to have been anything else to lookers right that was easier (maybe there's something not visible around the mountain)
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| afterski wrote: |
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/16/two-british-skiers-killed-in-french-alps-named |
RIP, such sad losses. They were exactly like many of us on here, love the mountains, love the adventure of chasing fresh snow. Given their ages its quite possible they posted on here at some point.
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| Steilhang wrote: |
@phil_w, the group was being 'guided' by an instructor. Surely he should never have taken them into that terrain if the level was 4/5?
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Although the Guardian report refers to the person. leading the two British skiers as an "instructor" other sources have said he was actually a mountain guide. I guess his status will be clarified in the ongoing judicial investigation.
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FAQ
