Images of 08/09 – avalanche hits the piste, Arlberg, Austria

So as the season winds down (unless you are thinking of taking advantage of some of the outstanding glacier skiing that is on offer or plan to ski tour into any of the medium high ski areas that will be great for another month or so) then I thought about a ski photo series to accompany the closing lifts would be worth doing. First up then is a picture courtesy of Finbar over in Donegal, Ireland who had a near miss with an avalanche. This crossed moments before his group were set to ski this section of the piste. An avalanche team were on the scene in seconds with a rescue dog bounding down the piste but luckily nobody was caught.

View from inside the rescue pisten bully – image © Finbar / ineedsnow.com

Remember that all the glacier ski areas will be open long into what we think is the summer, the Arlberg and Ischgl will stay open until the end of April / start of May. Even of you miss the end of the season, the glacier skiing in the Tirol starts in October – I managed to get some great powder skiing under my belt on the 5th October last year. Endless winter – almost!