Avalanche blasts wake up our Netti

Hey everyone, let me tell you something … for days now I haven't been able to sleep properly in the mornings. There's so much banging that you'd think it was New Year's Eve every day. Sometimes it starts as early as 5 a.m.! If I didn't know better, and hadn't grown up right here in the Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis ski area, I'd think World War III had broken out. But of course I know exactly what's behind all this banging. Every morning I get woken up by one of those dull booms that you can feel right under your skin, I know it must have snowed heavily overnight. Since I'm already a big plush pony, and I know my way around pretty well, I know that the hardworking guys from the mountain lifts are blasting potentially dangerous avalanches!

But how this actually works, or how such a dangerous avalanche can even form, is something I'm still curious about. So, being as nosy as I am, I trotted off, still a bit sleepy, to visit an operations manager of the Komperdell cable car. A little surprised by my visit but quite proud that I was interested in his work, he told me that avalanches are simply part of everyday winter life here in the Alps and aren't really anything unusual. However, the avalanche commission checks the avalanche situation on every operating day of the lifts, covering the village, the slopes and routes, the cable cars, as well as the hiking trails and roads, even several times a day when it's snowing.

If there's a suspected danger, the affected slopes are closed off and the slope is deliberately blasted so that the snow masses release, triggering an avalanche artificially and under controlled conditions. Some slopes have to be blasted from a helicopter, by radio-triggered detonation via blasting cable systems, or even by hand. However, this usually only happens in extreme situations, which occur with large amounts of snow, strong wind drift, or temperature-related unusual snow layering.

"What's been waking you up every morning lately, that's our Gazex blasting systems," he told me with a laugh … almost as if he found it amusing that he and his colleagues aren't the only ones who have to put up with the racket so early in the morning! But what on earth is that??? These are fixed, thick pipes where an explosive gas mixture is detonated with the click of a mouse from the control centre. The resulting shockwave then sets the fresh snow moving. That way, a dangerous situation never even gets the chance to develop, and any potential avalanche is defused before the first skiers even get to enjoy the wonderful fresh powder on the slopes. What's absolutely essential, though, especially when avalanche danger is elevated, is that everyone follows the rules and stays on the open and secured slopes or hiking trails. We can't clear all the snow off every mountain. The danger outside the secured areas is enormously high!

I politely thanked him for his fascinating explanation and wandered thoughtfully back to my stable. So from now on, I won't be annoyed by the early-morning disturbance anymore. All this banging is necessary to ensure safe ski operations and even to save human lives. What an amazing thing!