Tag: alps

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Ed Leigh to be winter sports ambassador for Verbier

Ed Leigh on Ski Sunday with co-presenter Graham Bell
Heavenly Publicity issued a press release this month announcing that Ed Leigh, best known as presenter of the BBC’s Ski Sunday TV programme, is to become Verbier‘s winter sports “ambassador”.

Ed has a much broader presence in broadcasting and media than just Ski Sunday, and is expected to extend Verbier’s media presence on Youtube and other internet channels selling things like pointsbet bonus bet. He has commentated on three Winter Olympics, edited Whitelines Snowboard Magazine and has worked extensively with Red Bull TV, the BBC and Channel 4.

The press release quotes Ed as saying: “Verbier’s central location makes it the perfect touch base in the Swiss Alps for snowboarding, skiing and resort culture. It has a reputation as arguably the best spot in Europe for freeriding and pushing the boundaries of snow sport in the winter months and I’m excited to bring all this together and add a new dimension to the sports on show at the resort through new digital media.”

The Director of Verbier Promotion SA, Pierre-Andre Gremaud, is quoted as saying: “Ed Leigh is a well-known figure in the UK and European winter sports communities and we’re proud to have him working with us. This appointment is exactly indicative of Verbier’s commitment to promoting and raising awareness of the world-class facilities and activities available at the resort across a range of media.”

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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.

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Fatalities in Swiss Alps

Pointes de Tsavolire: Traversée Eison - Saint MartinAgence France-Presse report that two employees of CERN, the lab famous for its particle accelerator and for Berners-Lee’s invention of the worldwide web, died in an avalanche over the weekend.

A 49 year old Frenchman and his 33 year old Swiss colleague were swept away at the 3000m Pointes de Tsavolire in Valais. They were amnongst five members of CERN’s ski club who set off from Eison in Val d’Herens. The area they were skiing is shown in the picture above, which I took when I was skiing in the valley a couple of weeks ago.

The two men were members of CERN’s ski club and were among five skiers who set off cross country Sunday from the village of Eison for the Pointes de Tsavolire.

This is a popular and relatively easy itinerary, just the other side of the Bec de Boisson from Grimentz. It is possible to make the ascent on skins and make the run back in a day, and there is a hut at the top for those who want to make a longer trip of it, but it sounds like this party set off Sunday morning for just a day’s outing.

It just goes to show how dangerous the late snow from a couple of weeks ago has made late season touring. The dry avalanche risk is very low, but by lunchtime the risk of wet, full-depth avalanches across Valais has been rated considerable for some days. Wet avalanches occur where snow has frozen overnight but starts to get heavy and wet as the temperatures rise and the sun starts to hit it.

Apparently two members of the party were dug out by a fifth, but the other two remained buried until rescue workers arrived and dug them out of three metres of snow.

They were taken by helicopter to hospitals in Sion and Lausanne, where they later died.

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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.