Skiers urged to exercise caution
Off-piste skiers are being urged to take care this winter as early season weather has led to unstable snow in the Alps


Off-piste skiers are being urged to exercise caution in the Alps after early-season weather that led to dangerously unstable snow-last week, four people died in Val d'Isère and, on Boxing Day, David Robinson, a former Olympic sailing coach, was killed in the same area.
These tragedies come in the wake of a high casualty rate in 2009-10, when 41 people were killed in France alone, compared with a 15-year average of 25. ‘This year, the risks seem even less predictable than usual,' says guide Henry Schniewind (www.henrysavalanchetalk.com).
‘We have seen slides in places where they don't normally happen. There are weak layers under the snow pack, and these are unusually hard to spot.' Some 90% of deaths are caused by ‘slab' avalanches, and Jean-Pierre Aguillon, technical director of piste security in Val d'Isère, explains: ‘After early snowfall, we had high temperatures, then strong winds, then temperatures of -24˚.
The snow layers haven't bonded well.' Nigel Shepherd of the Ski Club of Great Britain advises: ‘Be cautious, get advice and never think you're an expert. Even with the best equipment, nobody is invincible.'
Sign up for the Country Life Newsletter
Exquisite houses, the beauty of Nature, and how to get the most from your life, straight to your inbox.
Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.
-
Uniquely unique? The Yorkshire grain silos transformed into a home that's a symphony in glass, steel and curves
Amid the beautiful countryside of North Yorkshire, on the edge of the Castle Howard Estate, The Silos is a property for which the word 'house' simply doesn't cut it. And that's not the only way in which it's made us throw out the dictionary.
-
Polluting water executives now face up to two years in prison, but will the new laws make much of a difference?
The Government has announced that water company executives caught covering up illegal sewage spills could now be imprisoned for two years, under new laws — but many still have their doubts.