Avalanche Introduction

Photo: © Chris Souillac
‘Off-piste’ comes from the French ‘hors-piste’: hors which means ‘off’ and piste which means ‘path’, ‘runway’ or even ‘dance floor’. So, when you are ‘off-piste’, you are by definition ‘off the beaten path’.

In our discussions, off-piste and backcountry refer to unsecured areas. Backcountry can refer to more remote areas than ‘off-piste’, but here we will describe remote areas as ‘touring’ i.e. areas where a person needs to walk more than 30 minutes to access.

For an adventurous person, venturing off-piste and touring is where it’s at. It touches the pioneering instinct. It brings us in touch with nature and with ourselves. This is what makes it fun.

Know where the secured places end and the unsecured places begin. The local authorities do not engage in avalanche control (with explosives for example) in unsecured areas. It’s not that you will always trigger an avalanche once you venture out of secured areas. It’s just that this is where you start taking responsibility for your own safety.

The answer is, it depends on:

1. Where you go and when.
2. How you go down or up.
3. How well prepared you are.

In the off-piste, if you have an understanding of where to go and when, how to go down (or up) a slope and how to be well prepared, you should be fine. You may get close to danger at times, but at least you are aware of it and therefore you can avoid it.

On nice slopes with fresh powder there is always a risk, but if you are aware then you can manage the risk and make off-piste about as safe as driving your car to work and much more fun!

You can get a complete pdf containing all of this information from the HAT website by registering. It is intended as a short introduction to how we approach avalanche awareness and off-piste mountain safety at HAT.

www.henrysavalanchetalk.com