Dominique Perret is a freerider, in fact he’s probably one of the most established pro riders around, with umpteen films and several world records to his name. In an interview with Le Matin this week, he calls for the ‘massacre to stop’. He refers, of course, to the increasing number of deaths due to avalanches, 11 so far this year in Switzerland alone.
He points to a number of factors that seem to be contributing to this worringly high number.
- Holiday makers are perhaps unreasonably keen to get their fresh-tracks and go off-piste. When they are only in resort for a week, they take chances that they shouldn’t.
- Many are spending several hundreds of pounds on airbags when the money would be better spent on training and education on how to read the slope, spot avalanche terrain and interpret the weather and snow forecasts.
- Many aren’t paying attention to and some may not even be aware of the avalanche bulletins.
The interview with Le Matin (in French) : http://www.lematin.ch/suisse/Cette-hecatombe-doit-cesser/story/31376451
Dominique’s site: http://www.skier.ch/