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| Off Piste Nick Parks UIAGM mountain guide |
Sorry for the delay I've been sea kayaking in Tasmania the past few days (tough life). Back in the Alps on the 15 March.
"Nick, thanks for your question to PlanetSki re snowboarding on a glacier near Morzine. Great to hear that you are keen to get off piste with your board but there's a couple of flaws with your plans. First and foremost from a safety point of view snowboarding alone off piste and especially on a glacier is not recommended at any level.
This is because the two incidents that can happen avalanches and crevasse falls require companion rescue if there's going to be a happy outcome. It also stands to reason that you and your partner or group members need the equipment and the skills to assess avalanche risk, select safe routes and effect avalanche and crevasse rescue before heading off.
I would strongly recommend that to start with you should hire a mountain guide to point all this out to you.
Finally you'll have to travel 1.5hrs from Morzine to the Mont Blanc area to find the nearest glacier as there aren't any in the Portes du Soleil."
"In a news story on the web site you quote some Swiss mountain guides in Verbier as saying at high altitude there is the same amount of snow as usual and not the bumper amounts lower down. Is this the same across the Alps? What are the snow levels like on the glaciers?"
High up I'd say there's a reasonable cover on the glaciers here in the Chamonix area, by that I mean the crevasses seemed well filled in and all the bridges across them had plenty of snow.
However it is certainly nothing exceptional and though the Alps have received huge levels of snow on the ski slopes, at high altitude it is pretty much normal. In fact the exit couloirs onto the Mer du Glace are very rocky, as are the lower reaches of the glacier.
Nevertheless a small price to pay for being able to ski all the way out Chamonix, a rare event in the last few years. There's nothing like woooping round the hairpins James Bond style to celebrate surely one of the best ski descents in the world. There are some pictures of a recent descent I did with my son and daughter on this story.
Happy Christmas everyone!
"Does all the new snow in the Alps at the moment mean we are going to have a good base for off piste skiing this winter? How will I know if the base is going to be stable?"
Yes significant early snowfalls are welcome news for off piste skiers and boarders.
Short of a minor heat wave (not impossible in these strange days of climate change) mean temperatures for this time of year coupled with few hours of sunshine mean these considerable depths of snow will remain and form a good base.
In fact even as early as September the signs for this winter were good with snowfalls above 2000m starting to fill the crevasses on the glaciers. An important consideration for ski tourers heading into the higher hills.
In terms of stability that's a harder question to answer as the majority of avalanches don't occur because the base fails but due to failures within layers in the snowpack.
However, as a general rule of thumb, winters that start with shallow snowpacks and prolonged cold temperatures have a less stable base than winters with a deep snowpack and milder weather. In lay terms this is because the shallow snowpack is more likey to promote the growth of unstable depth hoar crystals.
The only way to know if the base is stable is to dig a snow pit down to the ground and examine the snow crystals in the snow pack. If you find a considerable amount (more than 15cm) of ball bearing type snow that pours out of your hand, then the base is unstable.
This could be a major hazard if or when it cannot support the depth of snow above it usually in spring when the snow starts to melt.
Want to learn more and understand it in the field then book yourself onto an avalanche course http://www.mountaintracks.co.uk/winter/alpine_skills/avo_awareness_foundation
So all in all early snowfalls are good news!