The Dangers of Skiing Off Piste In Europe

[PowHog]

What are some?

Adelboden, Gstaad, Scuol, Leukerbad, Torgon, Flims/Laax, Flumserberg, to name a few. Davos is not a favourite of mine either.

 

[Rod MacDonald]

Only heard of 5 of those. Can't say they'd be on my bucket list for my next alps trip.

 

[Jacob]

Adelboden, Gstaad, Scuol, Leukerbad, Torgon, Flims/Laax, Flumserberg, to name a few. Davos is not a favourite of mine either.

What is it about Laax that you don’t like? I haven’t been there myself, but it’s a place I’ve briefly considered visiting in the past.

 

[PowHog]

What is it about Laax that you don’t like? I haven’t been there myself, but it’s a place I’ve briefly considered visiting in the past.

Flims/Laax is the right place for beginners and intermediates resorting mainly to groomers but lacks challenging runs imho. But to each his/her own.

Regarding Torgon: while Portes du Solei is a great area as such, Morzine/Avoriaz and Chatel is where it's really at.

 

[James]

Flims/Laax is the right place for beginners and intermediates resorting mainly to groomers but lacks challenging runs imho. But to each his/her own.

Regarding Torgon: while Portes du Solei is a great area as such, Morzine/Avoriaz and Chatel is where it's really at.

Interesting. I’ve posted some grooming vids from Laax with a fleet of groomers going at it. Ut I disn’t know a thing about the place.

Lenzerheide has a lot of fun lift-served off-piste terrain. There isn’t a lot of super challenging stuff, but there isn’t much that’s boring either. There also aren’t many hazards for a resort in the Alps, so it’s a relatively safe place to ski.

It’s one of my favourites, but I usually stay in Arosa and ski over.

Someone told me Federer has a house in Lenzerheide.

 

[Choucas]

​ Lenzerheide has a lot of fun lift-served off-piste terrain. There isn’t a lot of super challenging stuff, but there isn’t much that’s boring either. There also aren’t many hazards for a resort in the Alps, so it’s a relatively safe place to ski. It’s one of my favourites, but I usually stay in Arosa and ski over. What is the advantage of staying in Arosa vs. Lenzerheide? Does it get super crowded? I see it as busy weekend place given reasonable access from Chur & Zurich. How about weekdays?

 

[Jacob]

Someone told me Federer has a house in Lenzerheide.

Celebrities' favourite ski resorts - in pictures

From the Royals to Posh and Becks, we round up the favourite resorts of the rich and famous

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[Jacob]

​ What is the advantage of staying in Arosa vs. Lenzerheide? Does it get super crowded? I see it as busy weekend place given reasonable access from Chur & Zurich. How about weekdays?

The two main reasons I prefer Arosa are because you can get there by train and because it’s more of a town. Lenzerheide requires a car or a bus ride from Chur, and it’s more of a sprawl of houses, chalets, and farms (you can smell the horse manure in some parts of Valbella), so it’s not as convenient for me.

I haven’t ever been to Arosa and felt like it’s crowded. There can be a small crowd first thing in the morning at the base, but it’s really not that bad, and you’re fine once all the early birds get up the first lift.

A lot of weekend visitors come for other events. One year, there was a curling tournament going on at the outdoor rink the weekend I arrived. Another year, they were preparing the lake for a winter golf tournament (yes, golf on a frozen lake) the weekend I was leaving. Also, a lot of the weekend or day-trippers I see appear to be coming in for the walking trails.

Usually, it feels slightly less crowded on the slopes than some of the other destination resorts I’ve been to. That said, I’ve never been there during school holidays or a Lenzerheide race week.

 

[slow-line-fast]

Again late to the thread but presuming to make summary PSA-type comments. I don't mean to be pedantic.

Off-piste (Europe) is not the same as out-of-bounds (North America).

'Inbounds' in North America is usually a rope line around the whole ski area, within which the terrain is controlled for avalanches. On the trail/piste hazards are often marked, off the trail/piste there can be unmarked cliffs etc, but typically ski patrol has knocked down the avies. Both are inbounds.

In the Alps only the pistes (trails) are controlled for avalanches. If you ski in between two trails/pistes, you have to assess the avalanche risk yourself.

Agree with the posts below, from the first few pages

Skiing the Alps in general (Verbier in particular) and having skied stateside too the key difference is the one already stated. In Europe anything outside the groomed runs is considered off-piste and mostly without any marking for hazards. You see occasional poles with diamond shaped signs which mark an uncontrolled side or back country run but this is the exception. This means as soon as you venture from the groomed and marked trails you are entirely skiing at your very own risk. This is the price which comes along with this concept of choosing your own way down and not being strictly limited to bounds. We like it that way!

Despite this stop signs can be in place at the entrance of back country runs in case of risky conditions (avi danger). As with closed groomers you are officially not allowed to enter them. Still people ignore this since often they are put up and just left there for the entire season. However if caught by mountain patrol or law enforcers while trespassing you can be in for a really hefty fine.

And please don't attempt to sue the resorts if things go wrong away from the official marked runs so you either need to scope your routes precisely or sack up and hire a guide. In almost any major resorts ski schools run various groups consisting of advanced or expert skiers venturing off-piste most of the time. Just ask specifically for those, describe your level and they will match you up with suitable people, way cheaper than hiring an individual guide and a good way to start and make new ski buddies.

I disagree with the idea that skiing in Europe is more dangerous than in North America due to unmarked cliffs inbounds.

It is actually far more likely to find (unmarked) cliffs in controlled terrain in North America than in Europe.
All the cliffs shown mentioned so far, are ‘off piste’, meaning, they are literally OFF the marked and controlled skiterrein that you bought a ticket for.
In North America, on the other hand, the controlled terrain (all the marked terrain open terrain within the resort boundaries) includes some very steep and rocky terrain, that might be marked or it might not.

Now, once you venture outside of the terrain the ski company is responsible for, aka, into the backcountry, you won’t find many warning signs and fences on either continent.

The difference being that, here , the "backcountry" begins as soon as one puts his/her ski tips out of the groomed run, and often is not clearly stated so. Discussing with one of my coaches (freeride coach) some years ago, and e was saying that the vast majority of ppl getting caught in an avalanche in the Alps occured at a distance not more than 100 mt from the groomed trails (since then tried to find references on that, unsuccessfully).
If one is used to the N.A. signage, could very easily be caught in the euristic trap to think that in Italy too, there is a sort of "controlled area"and ski out of bound thinking it's all good. Where in truth, is not...unless one knows very, very well the area.

Actually, there is one huge difference: you don’t see backcountry terrain in the middle of a trail map in North American resorts. You basically have to go over the edge of what’s shown on the map to get into uncontrolled terrain. In Europe, you can be skiing uncontrolled, unmarked off-piste terrain even if you’re smack dab in the middle of the piste map between two groomers or directly below a lift.

For example, in St. Anton, if you get out of the Galzigbahn and ski straight down the fall line, you are around 10 turns away from falling into a huge, unmarked gully that is potentially deadly (most likely from triggering a slide, though one side is unskiable due to exposed rocks and small trees). But if you go left or right from the top of the lift, you’ll be on an easy groomer. And that’s the main base lift in town, so it’s not like it’s on the edge of the ski area.

Skip to the 3:00 mark below to see.

But if you come from a place where everything on the trail map is considered inbounds and you go to Europe, there’s good chance you won’t be aware that going off a marked piste is like going out of bounds. It can be easy to misconstrue the piste markers as being simply for navigational purposes or to underestimate the dangers for various reasons.

Remember those US Ski Team guys who died in an avalanche in the Alps a couple of years ago? They just jumped off the side of one piste and were skiing down to another on a Level 3 avi danger day. I doubt they ever thought that what they were doing was dangerous, because they were in the middle of a ski area on a day when the avi danger was listed as moderate.

 

[Idris]

Yesterday on the Aiguille du Midi. Deep fresh everywhere.

BUT the day before 2 dead on the Midi and yesterday 4 dead elsewhere (source PGHM).

1st was a young freerider dropping into the Couloir Cosmique and setting of a huge slab avalance
2nd was a older guide soloing the Cosmiques arete and on easy ground, the same slab layer avalanching him into the Vallee Blanche side.

There has been summit to valley natural slides in the Argentiere basin yesterday!