Many huts offer an almost restaurant-style service throughout the day, although both the breakfast and evening meal are normally set menus. Food at huts is not discounted to members of any Alpine club. Vegetarians should make a point of informing the guardian when they arrive at the hut because meat is the norm. Vegetarian options are limited – eggs, cheese and pasta head the list. Breakfast remains light in most huts, some say slight. It is certainly traditional: tea, coffee or hot chocolate with bread, butter, jam and sometimes a little cheese. A few huts have improved their breakfast offering by providing cereal and yoghurt.
Most huts sell sweets, chocolates and a small selection of food items. Some will provide a simple packed lunch – be sure to order it the night before and not during the morning rush.
Some huts allow self-catering, but you normally have to carry your own stove, fuel and utensils. Guardians will also cook simple food such as pasta and soup for you, charging a fee to do so. Understandably they don't always like doing it, especially if the hut is crowded, and you are likely to find yourself eating last.
Water
Water is an obvious problem during the ski season. There is plenty of snow and ice, but hopefully it will remain frozen, which means that running water is in short supply. Hut water supplies have to be melted from snow and ice, or in some cases helicoptered to the huts. It comes as a surprise to many hut users that water has to be paid for and that during the ski season very few huts have running water for washing or lavatories. Be prepared to buy bottled water or have hot water or tea in your drinking bottle in the morning. Some guardians fill water bottles the evening before so that they can cool before morning. It is not uncommon to see them being taken to bed to serve as a hot-water bottle!
Avalanche Awareness
When people and snowy mountains meet the potential for avalanches exists. Every skier should make it their business to understand avalanche phenomena. They are not an act of God; in fact about 80% of avalanche victims trigger the avalanche they get caught in.
During a ski tour the risk of avalanche is a constant danger that must be faced whenever your skis are on the mountain. Assessing risk ultimately depends on your knowledge and the care you take in assessing the danger. The process doesn't need to be a lengthy one that will spoil a good day on the hill, but it does need to be a systematic one, both before and during a tour. A systematic approach will enable you to gather key information that will allow you to make an informed judgement about snow stability and avalanche hazard.
Group under instruction during an avalanche awareness course
On tour, assessment of avalanche danger should be gained from gathering observed facts about the terrain, the snowpack, past and present weather, and from slope stability tests.
Ask yourself these questions:
What information do I have that makes me think this slope is stable?
What is the likely outcome for our group should the slope avalanche?
Do we have an agreed emergency proceedure in place if it does?
First, the good news is that, if the victim is alive after the initial impact, they have an 80% chance of survival if dug out in the first 12 minutes. But after that the news is not so good. It is thought that unless recovery is made within 30 minutes, an avalanche victim's chances of survival are less than 50/50.
The fact is that less than one-third of those buried survive, and this doesn't refer to deep burial. For those buried under less than 50cm of snow the survival rate is around 45%. At more than 2 metres only 1% survive, and below 3 metres…?
THE HARD FACTS
Here are some hard avalanche facts based on Swiss statistics.
Of skiers completely buried by an avalanche only 4 in 10 survive.
Over a recent period 1347 people were known to have survived partial or complete burial by avalanche. Of these:39% dug themselves out34% were dug out by survivors on the scene27% were recovered by rescue teams – but most of these were near ski resorts.
In that same period close to 1000 died – two-thirds by suffocation.
Best Practice
It is ‘best practice’ to:
avoid obvious avalanche danger
adopt safe procedures when travelling and, in the event of an avalanche, not to rely on others outside your group for rescue.
Rescue, if it is to be successful, must come from your own party, and speed is the all-important factor. Speed comes from planning, preparation and practice.
The Three Essentials
To maximise speed of rescue there are three ‘must have’ bits of equipment for every off-piste skier and ski tourer.
Transceiver – Owning one will not stop you getting caught in an avalanche, but if you are buried it is almost your only hope of being found – dead or alive. A transceiver is not a substitute for good practice, it is part of it. Route planning, route choice and constant avalanche awareness are the basic ways to minimise risk.
Every skier going off-piste or touring should have a transceiver. However, it is not enough to own one: you must wear it and know how to use it in an emergency. That skill only comes from practice, regular and realistic practice against the clock – remember the first 12–15 minutes are all-important. Get into the habit of turning your transceiver on when you put it on in the morning and leaving it on until you return in the evening. Never turn your transceiver off during the day to save the battery. It is all too easy to forget to turn it on again.
Powder Hound carving a head plant!
Having turned your transceiver on make sure you carry out a transceiver check both on leaving the hut and at other times during the day, especially after rest stops. Rather than standing around in a huddle and checking transceivers work when you are standing next to each other, get one person to ski away (say 30m) from the group with their transceiver in receive mode. Then one at a time the group members with their transceivers in transmit mode ski towards the person on receive. As soon as the person receiving picks up a signal they should signify it. This gives a good indication of signal strength, which seems to vary amongst different makes of transceiver. Someone should then check that the person on receive is also transmitting correctly. Everyone should carry spare batteries on a long tour.
Snow shovel – It is not enough to have one or two shovels in a group of four or six skiers. Everyone should carry an avalanche shovel. One reason why I like touring with North American clients is the size of their shovels! They carry big metal-bladed things that can shift snow fast, not flimsy things the size of desert spoons. This really is a case of size being important. Don't bother with tiny blades that attach to ice axes or ski poles that bend the moment they come into contact with hard snow. If you were buried what would you want your rescuers to use? A JCB!
Avalanche probe – Used in conjunction with a transceiver avalanche probes can quickly establish the exact position of a body before
