SnowSlider - Blogging From the mountains by ise

This was the third and final day of the day of the advanced avalanche course. We went up to Les Diablerets again where it was still windy but at 50kph rather less than the 70kph we’d “enjoyed” on Friday. The main objective was to run some avalanche scenarios and we were joined by Roger Payne who set one of those scenarios up.

We took a run down to Oldenegg later but in fact the snow was quite disappointing really, the piste was nice enough but the off-piste had a hard crust and wasn’t too much fun really.

I’ve been skiing the last few days (finally) on my new Black Diamond Voodoo’s which arrived last Wednesday. My initial impression is pretty good, I’m using them with my Garmont MegaRides which are probably a little on the soft side for this ski and it’s noticeable from time to time, I want to use these boots as they’re pretty light but if it doesn’t work out then I’ll use my Garmont Endorphins instead which are dramatically stiffer. In fact, I’d have been slightly disappointed if the MegaRides were immediately positive as I’d then have regretted not putting Dynafit bindings onto the skis instead of the Fritschi Freerides I’ve had fitted. If the MegaRides do work out long term then I’ll probably swap the binding to the Dynafit Vertical ST at the end of the season in time for longer spring tours.

This was the second day of the advanced avalanche course and we headed to Villars, the nice surprise being as I was about to trade in one of discount lift tickets I found out they were only charging 20 chf anyway which is pretty good.

The main objective of the day didn’t quite pan out though, an access lift we wanted to make a steepish descent into some interesting terrain wasn’t running so we had to improvise around the area. That wasn’t so bad though, there was some nice powder on some slopes and some pretty interesting snow in our avalanche pits!

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I’m attending an advanced avalanche course right now based out of Leysin, CH. The guide and instructor is Julie-Ane Clyma who’s based here in Leysin. The lift system’s not fully running today in Leysin so we went over to Les Diablerets/Glacier 3000. The bad news on arrival was that it was blowing a 70kph wind on the top, that’s bad enough normally but it’s especially difficult at Glacier 3000 as one of the key lifts is susceptible to wind.

Thanks today to Rich Hatton, who is also on the course, for supplying some of the photographs for this blog. I’m the guy in green but it was a bit cold to take my hood and hat off to pose for photo’s really!


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The information below is from the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research Davos, it is updated by them regularly during the ski season. This information and much more is on the SLF website and you should consult that site for more detail, this page just gathers together some key information in a single page.

These excerpts cover the Val d’Anniviers and surrounding area.

General Situation

New Snow in the last 24 hours

New Snow in the last 3 days

Snow depth