Neither God nor the mountains....

...know you are an expert.

On the way up towards the Val d'Isere glacier, Wayne's comment that he wasn't interested in skiing anything other than gentle slopes was music to my ears. And so we had another splendid morning skiing fresh tracks in soft snow in the Pays Desert. Despite ominous looking weather systems in the neighborhood, (if I was a meteorologist I could give the cloud formations their correct names) the light held out for us, which always makes for more enjoyable skiing. The sun bounced off the high clouds, giving our landscape a luminescent orange glow.

The light deteriorated quickly as we went over Col Pers, but now it was a helicopter overhead, making its way down towards the gorge, rather than the weather that was ominous. 'Perhaps some foolhardy souls have got stuck in the gorge and need rescuing', I thought. 'That's an 800 euro fine. Ouch'.

This was not the case however, and unfortunately the helicopter's destination was a very serious avalanche. A guided group had chosen to ski slopes other than the gentle kind, and had suffered the consequence. A photo of the scene can be found here:

picasaweb.google.com/jean.ribart/20102011ValPhotosOfTheDay#5560915368522545746

Our thoughts are with the families of those involved.

As I watched the tail end of the rescue operation I was amazed to see three other skiers descending the same slope about 100 meters away. I guess they had no idea of what had happened.

It's been snowing most of the afternoon and looks to continue through the evening. I've been learning about the 5 Red Flags (the first things to look out for when heading off piste) of Avalanche Awareness, on youtube videos. The first two flags are recent avalanche activity and recent snowfall.

Stay tuned....stay safe.

Photo: Jean Ribart