Piste Bashing

There's a red piste in Flaine that's often left, but there's a sign at the top that says Piste Non Damme - which does give fair warning ( if of course you can understand the sign).

Iceman wrote:Nowt like a good bash at night ;)

Summon the Bishop

I've never seen bashers coming out during the day no matter how choppy it may get. This is the whole point of skiing that you get to ski many different conditions during the day, from fresh and slightly icy cordiroy to soft moguls. Plus bashers on slopes will only contribute to hazard.

We were ski-ing in Zell am See about ten years ago on a red run and it was snowing heavily and there was a piste basher out. We just skied carefully around it - it wasn't going very fast!

But I suppose it could be rather dangerous and pretty much impossible on a crowded slope, I should think. They'd have to close the run, bash it, and then re-open it.

Ally

20-30 years ago I seem to remember piste machines routinely moving around during the core skiing day - sometimes quite a shock particularly when motoring along a road or narrow piste.

Pretty sure this stopped after a couple of bad accidents with people crashing into the machines and loosing the argument.

Personally I am not in favour of piste bashing during the day - enough things to avoid when skiing without b****y great big machines around every corner.

verbier_ski_bum wrote:I've never seen bashers coming out during the day no matter how choppy it may get. This is the whole point of skiing that you get to ski many different conditions during the day, from fresh and slightly icy cordiroy to soft moguls. Plus bashers on slopes will only contribute to hazard.

I think there are regulations that severely restrict the use of piste bashers on open pistes in France. The rules in Austrian appear to be more flexible.

But it is interesting that all the complaints appear to be about France. People seem to be happier that the Austrians are striking a better balance :!:.

I was in La Plagne this year for the 1st week of January. We had nearly 1 metre of snow overnight on the Thursday. Friday was a beautiful sunny morning and while I fully understand that there would have been severe avalanche concerns, it seemed to me that they were slow to clear the snow from runs and get a reasonable bit of the resort open. I suspect that they were not too bothered beecause it was the end of that week and the following week would have been very quiet. :evil:

That may be understandable but it does nothing to make skiers want to return :cry:

1 m overning is a lot of snow so avy danger must have been high, if it was windy during the day it's quite understandable they were not in the rush to open the resort.

Wanderer wrote:I was in La Plagne this year for the 1st week of January. We had nearly 1 metre of snow overnight on the Thursday. Friday was a beautiful sunny morning and while I fully understand that there would have been severe avalanche concerns, it seemed to me that they were slow to clear the snow from runs and get a reasonable bit of the resort open. I suspect that they were not too bothered beecause it was the end of that week and the following week would have been very quiet. :evil:

That may be understandable but it does nothing to make skiers want to return :cry:

Hi Wanderer,
In this particular instance I do know why the piste bashers were a bit slow getting into action. I was on holiday at the same time as you, in Meribel, and I got hold of Saturday's local paper. Apparently there was an enormous storm on Thursday night (5th January) and several avalanches which cut off electricity, and loads of roads were blocked by mud slides and snow. There were 400 people 'shipwrecked' in the Tarentaise that night - like 170 holidaymakers had to stay the night in the gym of a college in Bourg. And even the pisteurs had an awful job to get to work the next morning.

The electricity went off for a bit in Meribel, and I was standing in a queue for ages waiting for the lifts to start working again in the morning. And they had to blow up the pistes before they opened them. So I didn't get to ski until the afternoon, and even then it was only the lower pistes.

This is what the paper said about La Plagne (without the accents because I can't be bothered to put them in):

'Et enfin La Plagne, ou, apres une nuit digne du film "Le jour d'apres", les habitants se sont reveilles hier matin au son des plans de declenchement d'avalanche (Pida) et sous 50 cm de neige fraiche. Plusieurs coulees ont entraine la fermeture de la route reliant Belle Plagne et Plagne Bellecote" etc. etc.

So, in other words the whole area had a very bad time that night! I think in this case they can be excused from being a little slow in opening up the resort for ski-ing :lol:

I still have a copy of the paper if you want me to scan it in so you can read it.

Ally