Avalanche Safety Gear

From: [pistehors.com]

Italy has decided to make avalanche safety gear (avalanche beacon, shovel and probe) mandatory for all winter sports enthusiasts heading out of marked and secured ski runs. The law will also apply to off piste skiers.

The law covers to the Piemont region in the north of Italy and supersedes the national law (L. 24 December 2003, n.363) which obliged ski tourers to use avalanche beacons if there was a clear risk of avalanche (this probably means risk 3 or above). Fines are up to 250 euros.

British skiers should take careful note of this law as they may find that their insurance is invalid if they ski off piste or tour in the Piemont without the appropriate gear required by Italian law.

Cross post from WH and pistehors (as stated) could be an interesting one for anyone wanting to dip off the side of the runs.. imagine that costing you 250 e's

I don't think I have missed this posted before...

It's pretty interesting this on first read but when you think about it then not a lot has changed for the UK skier. Mostly their insurance is still invalid off-piste unless they're with a properly qualified guide regardless of how (over) equipped they happen to be. That you can be fined 250 euros is new of course.

It's all good though, there's still too many people skiing off-piste without proper equipment. I saw people the other week, because it's holiday time, entirely unequipped and apparently oblivious to the risk (3 or considerable) heading onto dangerous slopes.

For number crunching, 250 euros will buy you a transceiver, probe and shovel from Telemark Pyrenees which is a better deal than a fine :lol:

I think this is actually quite dangerous. If somebody is skiing off piste without gear, you would hope they knew they were in danger. However, a law forcing skiers to buy equipment will not make them learn how to use it, all it will do is give them misplaced confidence to take even greater risks.

A better law to have passed might have been to require anybody who skis out of bounds to have recco, next of kin and ID forms, to help body recovery and identification. It would make people think twice about the consequences of their decisions.

I remember seeing a news article from Florida a while ago where the police, who could not enforce windsurfurs stay out of the way of an approaching hurricane, instead handed out ID armbands, "to help with body identification after the storm". Apparently it was quite effective.

steverandomno wrote:I think this is actually quite dangerous. If somebody is skiing off piste without gear, you would hope they knew they were in danger. However, a law forcing skiers to buy equipment will not make them learn how to use it, all it will do is give them misplaced confidence to take even greater risks.

A better law to have passed might have been to require anybody who skis out of bounds to have recco, next of kin and ID forms, to help body recovery and identification. It would make people think twice about the consequences of their decisions.

Most people spending a lot of money on a transceiver will play with it, it's human nature. It's also the bit of kit people who do know what they're doing will be carrying and they are most likely to be on scene first and they won't have RECCO detectors.

What's more likely is that people without kit will be deterred from venturing off-piste and that's a good outcome and obviously the aim.

I think you missed my point. The idea is to stress the danger. In an ideal world everybody would carry the full kit, know how to use it and know how to manage risk.

There are pseudo out of bounds places in north America where they enforce transciever use at the access point via electronic gates. I bet half the people that use these areas have no probe or shovel and no idea how to use the transciever. Even if they know how to use the transciever, it does not stop them skiing dangerous slopes in dangerous conditions.

I take your point about RECCO I did not mean to say that it can be relied upon for out of bounds recovery. Of course it is primarily an in-resort based system. (I didn't want to start a debate about RECCO). The point was that it would be used in these cases to recover bodies, and by pointing that out, you stress the danger. I suppose this is too subtle a point to be effective.

Whilst the aim of the fines is to deter people from venturing off piste unprepared, I think that all it will do is encourage those who do venture off piste unprepared to buy equipment, and take even greater risks. Buying the equipment does not prepare you. The last thing you want to do is cultivate the idea of trancievers as a magical saftey blanket that will protect you from everything. This is already part of the problem.

I hope I'm wrong and it kicks people into asessing what they are doing properly.

At the very least if someone thinks that it is illegal to enter without the magical threesome of off piste skiing then they may have it.. if they do have it then they will be easily found in a burial situation (assuming lots of traffic close to resort off piste) and god forbid someone else being buried they can make use of the shovel and probe and aid in a search. I am pretty sure there has been a Recco debate on here before :lol:

Making off-piste gear a requirement scares me a little but I guess that is because I know the consequences of not having it in a dangerous situation (both the threat to your own safety and that of others).

I suppose having more shovels and probes in a high traffic area is one advantage.