Author: admin

Posted on

Early Season Skiing in the USA

US West Coast Ski Resorts
Faced with the prospect of Autumn in the USA, I was interested to know if early season skiing was going to be a possibility. Generally European resorts don’t open until December, and often not until Christmas week. This last season there wasn’t enough snow for some well known resorts to open even for Christmas.

I have managed to track down opening dates in North America for last season, and it looks pretty encouraging. Most major resorts seem to open in November. In Colorado Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Keystone and Loveland opened on 7th November with Winter Park opening on 11th and Aspen, Vail and Beaver Creek later in the month. Arapahoe Basin opened on 17th October and Wolf Creek is a perennial early season opener.

Timberline Lodge on Mt Hood in Oregon seems to have a history of opening early.

The major resorts in Canada, on the East Coast and around Lake Tahoe open during November, as does Jackson Hole in Wyoming. Utah resorts open a little later, in late November through early December. Typically resorts have opened when they have enough snow to ski on, so season opening dates are pretty fluid.

I need to do some more research on opening dates for the upcoming season and find out a little more about early season snow and weather conditions, but the prospects of getting some turns in during the Fall look promising!

Posted on

FIS Ski World Cup Calendar 2015-16

FIS World Cup Schedule 2015
Despite all the controversy over the football world cup, the men’s Alpine world cup schedule for 2015-16 was announced in Bulgaria last week by the International Ski Federation (FIS) without a whiff of controversy. Indeed the mood was celebratory as the 50th birthday of the FIS World Cup was announced with 24 venues and 47 events.

Sölden hosts the first races on 25th October, with all the classic ski races in the New Year, starting with Adelboden on 9th January. Wengen, Kitzbühel, Schladming and Garmisch-Partenkirchen follow, then circuits in South Korea and Japan have been added before the schedule reverts to Chamonix.

The World Cup finals round off the season in St. Moritz from March 16-20th – St. Moritz will also be hosting the 2017 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships.

Posted on

Skier survives crevasse fall

Frenchman Benjamin Spilthooren, his father and two others were skiing down the Strahlhorn in late May when the world moved for him. Literally. As the video shows he was skiing behind his companions, and fell down a crevasse that opened up below him. Fortunately he seems to have escaped unscathed from his ordeal and did not fall all the way to the bottom. It seems his companions were not aware he was no longer behind them, and it was another party that lowered a rope for him to climb out.

The Strahlhorn is an impressive 4190m high and lies deep in the Valais Alps, south of Saas-Fee and close to the Italian border. It is not lift served, but with its elevation – higher even than the highest lift-served runs above nearby Zermatt – it is popular with late season freeriders.

Posted on

Fresh snow, fresh dangers

SnowboarderOn Saturday a British expat living in Switzerland was killed by an avalanche on Mont Vélan south of Verbier near the Italian border. He was skiing the 3600m couloir d’Annibal with his brother, who survived. Both were apparently experienced freeriders with all the right equipment and the avalanche risk was 2/5. However the couloir is steep, upto 45°, and long.

A 60-year-old German was also killed in an avalanche on Saturday on the Pigne d’Arolla, again in the far south of Valais.

Across the Alps a number of skiing and snowboarding fatalities occurred this weekend, bringing the total in the Alps to over 100 for the season. A large dump of fresh snow, high winds and the height of the freeriding season have all contributed.

However the fatalities need to be put in perspective. The number who die off-piste makes headlines, as do stories of drunk Brits topping themselves in the Alps, but skiing is relatively safe. The stats for Europe are patchy, but it would seem like there is roughly one fatality per million skier/snowboarders days, and roughly one serious injury per million skier/snowboarders days, based on stats collected by the NSAA in the USA. The USA boasts about 10 million skiers and snowboarders, who put in an average of about 5 days on the slopes per year. So in the USA maybe something around 50 people a year die on the slopes.

However, according to the National Safety Council, in a typical year 36,000 Americans died in motor-vehicle accidents; 5,000 pedestrians were killed; 9,000 died from unintentional public falls; 4,500 died from unintentional public poisoning; 2,500 people drowned while swimming in public areas and 1000 died while bicycle riding;

Incidentally, on the question of how many people ski rather than snowboard, The National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA) of the USA reports in 2011 there were 6.9 million skier and 5.1 million snowboarders. According to NSGA, 22.2 percent of snowboarders also ski, and conversely, 16.6 percent of skiers also snowboard.

Just thought you would be interested.