Tag: ski

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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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Swiss take on US Skiers


The skit, from RTS, probably says more about a type of person who goes to Verbier than Americans in general. I remember once hearing a couple of Hoorays in a gondola at Verbier waxing lyrical about different makes of ski and the importance of certain types of boot and binding, only to see them gingerly snow-ploughing down the slopes.

Mind you I did meet one American resident of Anzère the other week who, without a touch of irony, told me he ran Europe from his chalet.

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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.