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| Karine Ruby trains to be mountain guide | 05/09, 2:05 |
| The Chamonix based ENSA has just announce the 46 new traininee guides for France. Amongst the list of names on the ENSA website is Karine Ruby. Karine won Olympic gold for snowboarding at Nagano in 1998. The first time this event had been included in the Winter Olympics. She topped it up with silver in Salt Lake four years later. Now retired from competitive snowboarding following injuries in a boarder cross event she won won six world titles during her career. | |
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| Holiski resorts angry with the CdA | 05/09, 1:40 |
| The relationship between local communities and the ski areas run by the mighty Compagnie des Alpes has not been great over the last few years with resorts accusing the CdA of favouring well heeled guests and is tight fisted with investments and lift pass receipts. The CdA has countered that it invests heavily in the ski areas it runs and is operating in a very competitive global market. Resorts were further angered by the introduction of the Carte Skier Fréquent pass last season. Mayors claimed the lift pass would homogenize ski resorts. | |
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| Mont Blanc avalanche, little hope for 8 climbers | 24/08, 12:31 |
| Rescue services in Chamonix have said there is little hope of finding eight missing climbers, buried by an avalanche on Mont Blanc early today, alive. Two missing Italians checked in with the authorities when they returned to the valley. | |
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| New off piste operator for Chamonix in 2008/9 | 30/07, 11:07 |
| If you were wondering how to start or improve you off piste skiing skills or get into backcountry skiing you may be interested to know that the British Alpine Ski School based in Chamonix is launching a programme of off piste, backcountry and performance courses for next winter. The courses will be run in partnership with other local providers. | |
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| Avalanche cords make a come-back | 07/07, 6:56 |
| A new avalanche safety system is about to be launched onto the market. Called the ?Flash Avalanche? the system is a development of the avalanche cords used by ski tourers before the widespread adoption of avalanche beacons. The main advantage is that is consists of four cords which are only deployed in the event of a slide. Aimed at off piste skiers the Flash Avalanche will sell for 55 euros. | |
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| Mixed opinions on CDA super lift pass | 02/07, 17:06 |
| Here at PisteHors we?ve never understood the problems with roaming between domains in the massive Companie des Alpes group. The CdA currently 13 ski resorts in France having recently acquired stakes in Val d?Isère, Valmorel, La Rosière. After checking the shareholders register we recently discovered that they also have a large shareholding in l?Alpe d?Huez. However skiing different days in different resorts has always been a faff. Why don?t they just sell one lift pass for the whole area? | |
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| Retrospective on the 2007-2008 ski season | 01/07, 11:17 |
| 2007-2008 was a comeback year for French ski resorts which posted a record turnover of 1.2 billion euros. More than 20% up on 2007 and even up in real terms on the previous best 2006 season. However with even high altitude resorts like Val Thorens covered by 50% artificial snow cover what was the season like for real skiing? November snow | |
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| Avalanche in the Hautes-Pyrenees | 23/06, 1:28 |
| A 68 year old female skier from Barcelona in Spain has been killed by an avalanche on Sunday in the Néouvielle range in the Hautes Pyrenees department. The slide was apparently caused by warming weather conditions. | |
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| Adventure skier Jean-Noël Urban dies on Gasherbrum | 22/06, 0:31 |
| News has reached us that Serre Chevalier based climber and extreme skier Jean-Noël Urban has died climbing on Gasherbrum I in Pakistan. The accident occured on the 18th of June at 5am. Jean-Noël was descending from Camp 2 to Base Camp when a snow bridge gave way. | |
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| First death of the summer season on Mont Blanc | 18/06, 12:12 |
| As we have continually noted in our snow report conditions are still very unstable above 3000 meters with around half a meter of fresh snow since Sunday. An avalanche may have been responsible for the death of a high mountain guide, Patrick Monzat, late yesterday afternoon. The first death on the normal route of Mont Blanc for the summer season. | |
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