Avalanche Risk

So good skiing to be had at GM this morning. No pisting had occurred which made first hr great fun and then a bit of a nightmare as it all got chopped up. Offpiste conditions are a bit sketchy, few double releases as we went through to rocks. Plenty of signs of avalanche activity and triggered a small slide first thing traversing. In hindsight not very smart as slid for 2m with it and manged to stop before a small cliff into a terrain trap as everything poured over. Basically anything over 40 degrees has slid and anything less than that with small roll overs is ready to go. Good quality snow to be found though if you can find a low angle pitch.

Just to add to above, typical hot decision making. We were an experienced group who has all discussed previous evening to stick on piste. Despite this we found ourselves at front of lift line checking beacons at 7:40 this morning (I guess we had already made decision to hit the powder). Lifts opened at 09:30 where one person in group suffered card clash. Hence instead of being first persons on untracked piste we ended up around 20th and missing out a little. Snow was great and 1/2 way down piste we cut into some fresh and soon crossed into bowl. Pretty quickly we made the wrong choice of going further down and in where first signs of avalanche activity were evident. No skins, so we were committed and soon into full spread out mode. Basically brain failure and poopy group decision making.

Re-posting of this one (bad language in video involved if you have minors about).

http://www.henrysavalanchetalk.com/avalanche-foglietta-north-january-5th-2015-ste-foy-tarentaise