 Good evening, everyone. Thanks for joining us this evening. We're just waiting for a few more people to join us, but we'll be starting very shortly, so please bear with us. Steve, can we hear you? I hope so. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Yeah, just checking everything works okay. Yeah, that's good. Where are you at the moment, Steve? I'm here in Chamonix. So it's actually been the cold as I can remember in years. It was minus 16 there today, so it's a proper winter. And we're just waiting for a big storm to roll in in the next couple of days and expecting about a meter of snow. So it's just a lift for running. I was just going to say the UK has been pretty cold, but not quite that cold. No, I'm not. It's unusual. It's good to feel proper winter. Yeah, absolutely. Great. Okay, we'll make a start. Thank you everyone for joining us this evening. Tonight's event is being supported by Arcterix and Stan is an Arcterix ambassador. So a big thank you for Arcterix and Stan for giving us his time tonight. Stan is a professional skier and for the last 10 years he's been a mountain guide. And through his work he's had to deal with decision making in avalanche terrain on a daily basis. So tonight he's joining us sharing engaging stories and some of his insights about how he has used his skill and judgment to stay alive, both as a pro skier and professional mountain guide. A few things just before I hand over to Stan is we will be taking questions. So we'll be putting those to him at the end. So if you want to ask any questions, please use a Q&A function if you're on Zoom. If you're watching on Facebook because we're also live on Facebook, please add any comments and we'll get to as many as we can. So I'll be looking after those as best as possible. So hopefully everything will go smoothly. So I'll now hand over to Stan. Over to you. Thank you, Mark. So yeah, welcome everyone. As Mark said, my name is Stan Hagen. I am originally Norwegian, but I've lived here in Chamonix for about 20 years. And I've been a professional skier for about 20 years. And through my work, I've had to deal with quite a bit of avalanche decision making. And yeah, I think maybe we'll start when I first arrived here in Chamonix. I was about 18 years old and completely clueless when it came to anything to do with avalanches. And at the time, there was very little information out there and people were just kind of going for it. And the first basically 10 years as a ski bum and professional skier here in Chamonix, I was very lucky. I didn't actually have to deal with any major avalanche issues. And as time went on, the net started tightening. And at one point, I heard about some friends that have been in some accidents and it was just kind of getting closer and closer to, to it felt like it was going to be my turn. And the first time I experienced pretty bad avalanche was on a trip to British Columbia. It was kind of like a dream trip really. When you look on the paper, I was with my wife that's also a professional skier. And we were sailing up the coast of British Columbia on a 120 foot yacht with a helicopter on deck. And we were making a ski movie up there. So we're basically sailing up the coast and stopping the boat wherever we thought we can find some good ski terrain and then flew up in the helicopter and filmed it. At least that's what it sounded like on paper. And the reality was that as you probably know, BC is not very known for their great weather and that's obviously one of the reasons why they have really good snow. So most of the time we were stuck on the boat and that felt more like a floating prison than a luxury yacht after a while. But anyway, we ended up getting some, some sunny days. And if I can work this here now, I'll show you guys a little movie from that trip and what happened. Let's see here appears to be something wrong with my mouse. Huh. I don't know what's going on here. You guys seeing this. We can just see the slide of you here. I think that work. That should work. I think. Are you seeing that mark? We can see that. Okay, so basically flew into this terrain. So this is, this is me skiing first. You can see my wife and another skier on the top here. And let's see what happened. When the skiing is this epic, it's easy to forget that there's danger lurking just below the surface. And with the closest hospital hours away, this is no place to push your luck. That's probably the biggest slide I've ever been in for sure. It's probably the scariest crash I've ever had to. Yeah, I'm feeling pretty humble right now. You got to respect the mountains. That was my wife going down in the slide and that was kind of the first time in my career where I was really got firsthand experience with a big avalanche. Luckily, she only broke her knee basically her ACL and nothing else. But it was an eye-opening experience for both of us for sure. The year after actually went back to the same place and ended up in another avalanche. And that summer I realized that I had to do something, educate myself and learn more about avalanches. So I started my mountain guides education and basically read as much as I could about avalanche safety and the first thing that happened the next winter basically in January after this was that my best friend died in avalanche here in Chamonix. And at that point, I lost all confidence in my decision-making in avalanche terrain. I found it extremely, I mean, I had the best job in the world in my opinion, but at the same time I was scared every time I went out. And what seemed like the best or should have been the best job in the world, all of a sudden became the worst job in the world because I was scared of dying the whole time. And so I decided that if I was going to keep doing this job, I needed to do something and figure out a way of dealing with avalanches. And what I did was that first of all, I had to figure out what my risk acceptance for avalanches was because you can ski and avoid avalanches if you want to. I mean, if you stay in terrain that's less than 30 degrees steep, there's no chance there can be avalanche, but that was not the type of skiing I was interested in. And what I figured out was that I accepted that basically at some point probably with the amount of exposure time I have that someday I will probably get caught in avalanche. But I can accept that as long as I didn't get killed in avalanche basically. And what I was looking into was finding a way of avoiding getting killed in avalanches. And I started out by looking at all accidents reports that I could find, both from Scandinavia, the Alps, and Canada. And really looked through all the avalanches where the very fatalities to see if there was some connection between all these avalanches with fatalities. There was something to be learned there. And what I found was quite interesting because when you look into this and start reading all these accident reports, what you see is that 99% of avalanches where someone dies, there is one common thing. And that one thing is that there is an avalanche trap involved in the accident. And what that tells you is that if you can avoid avalanche traps, you have a very, very good chance of surviving. So what are avalanche traps? And basically avalanche traps, I'd say there's four main categories of avalanche traps. The first one is if there's a cliff or something underneath where you're skiing and you get avalanched and you actually fall off and you die from the impact of the fall itself. That's the first one. The second one is if there is a stationary object in the path of the avalanche itself. So basically, if you get avalanched, you get the impact into something stationary. If that is, there could be a building, it could be trees, it could be a rock, cliff face, anything, and you die from the trauma of the impact. The third one is convexities in the terrain. So basically, somewhere where you're going to fall in and a lot of snow is going to come on top of you. So avalanche cats spread out over a big area, but the snow gets forced into, it could be like a ditch, a river valley, anything like that. And basically what happens is that you get buried so deep that it's going to take way too long to dig you out in time for you to survive. And the last one is cornices. So basically, any time on the ridge line or a peak where you have a predominant wind direction where it builds a big cornice on one side. And if you step on the wrong place, this cornice falls down and starts an avalanche and you fall down with it. So if you can avoid avalanche traps, you're looking very good. There's a very little chance of you dying in avalanche. So that's somewhere I would spend, I have spent myself and I recommend you guys to spend a lot of time is to learn to recognize avalanche traps when you're out skiing. And that's, you could be, even if you're skiing on the resort, look around you, be aware of how the terrain looks and imagine an avalanche coming down and what would happen with that snow. And then when you look at the 1% of the accidents with fatalities, where there were no avalanche traps, basically all of those involved either solo skier. So if you go out there by yourself and you get caught in the avalanche, there's no one there to rescue you, you're probably going to die, or skiers with little or no experience in performing a rescue and or with bad equipment. So the next kind of, I'd say, layer of safety that I like to talk about after avoiding the avalanche traps is the group. And when it comes to the group, there's a couple of things and one thing is the size of the group you ski with. Obviously, the biggest part of an avalanche rescue is the excavation of the buried person and there's always good to have a lot of manpower to dig someone up. It's got to be quicker if you have more people shoveling. At the same time, if the group is too big, I think it's more likely that you could end up in a situation where you have an avalanche in the first place because the group is harder to control when it's bigger. So having the right group size, I think is really important. And the way I like to look at it is, I guess most people know about the avalanche scale that goes from one to five. I would say that the minimum amount of people in the group should equal the number of avalanche scale on the day. So if it's avalanche scale one, or avalanche danger one, you can probably go out and ski by yourself and be all right. If it's avalanche danger two, you should probably be minimum two people in the group. If it's avalanche danger three, minimum three people in the group, and if it's avalanche danger four, you should probably stay at home because you shouldn't be skiing on avalanche danger four. And the maximum number of people in the group, in my opinion, is five. Unless it's a group with a clear leader like a guide that makes all the decisions. And that's because I think it's very difficult to control a bigger group than five people. Imagine if you have like a fantastic powder day and everybody is frothing and you're standing on top of a slope. It's very easy that people start skiing and without clear communication in the group. The other thing with the group that I find is very important is the way you travel as a group through the trade, and especially on the way down. So just into work, you should never expose more than one member of the group to avalanche terrain at any given time. If you, if you're two people in the group and both of you get caught in avalanche, it's no one there to help you. So, always ski one at the time. And when you ski one at the time, that means skiing one at the time from a safe zone to another safe zone. So basically, safe zones would be somewhere you're standing up high, where you can't get caught up by an avalanche. It could be behind a big rock, behind a tree, anything like that. And one product or piece of equipment that could make this even better and that I hope is going to be part of the standard avalanche equipment for the future is a two way radio. I have one here just to show you guys it's a BCA. It's a pretty simple two way radio with a microphone that you can have on the backpack. And the reason why I think that is really important is because it can help you have a clear line of communication between the members of the party. And when it comes to skiing from safe zone to safe zone, if you have a clear line of communication through a two way radio, you're able to increase the distance you can ski and still communicate. And sometimes there's no safe zones for maybe two 300 meters. But if you have that radio, you can still communicate with the person behind you. Great for safety, but it's also great for getting the best skiing. I don't know how many times I've skied down somewhere and look back up and realize that the best line is 50 meters to the left or right. So I think I think and hope that to a radio will be part of the standard avalanche equipment package in the future. And while we're at the equipment and they're hot like there's been a lot of new equipment coming out on the market in the last couple of years that I've made a big difference, especially on the beacons. If your avalanche beacon looks anything like this, it's time to put that in the recycling bin and pick up a new beacon. The new three antenna beacons that we have today are so much better and quicker and more reliable. So, if you don't have a brand new beacon, it's time to invest in the new one. It's a very good investment. The other thing is the shovel. Basically, you bring a shovel to dig your friend out of an avalanche. So out of respect to your friends, bring a proper shovel. If you made out of plastic has no place in avalanche rescue kit have a proper aluminum or metal shovel of a proper size. I prefer a D handle like this I think that makes digging easier extendable handle. This is a should be a proper tool. And I actually sometimes I at the start of the day if I have new clients or skiing with new people I get everyone to take their shovels out and whoever has the lightest shovel has to carry whoever has the heaviest shovel shovel. And that usually stops people from cheating with their way trying to carry a light shovel. So bring a proper shovel a proper tool. It's out of respect for your for your fellow skiers. The other thing I like to talk a little bit about is actually trading for avalanche rescue situations and I see a lot of people trading and spending a lot of time training with their weekends and I mean that's a good thing. Unless you forget about the other parts of the avalanche training or rescue training and with these modern beacons actually a search for one person is very easy. These new beacons are so intuitive. It's the other day I actually gave it for fun to my six year old daughter and dug down the beacon in the garden. Talked to her for about a minute about how it works and she found the other beacon within two minutes. As we talked about before if there's only one person skiing at the time, we're never going to have to search for more than one beacon. So learn how to use your beacon, but don't spend all your practice time on the beacon search. Because when you look at the overall time of rescue and avalanche rescue takes the beacon search is a very small part of it. Where you lose a lot of time is on the excavation phase and so I would spend more time practicing how to dig efficiently and in the best way. I'm going to go into all the details of the actual digging here now but that is where a lot of people don't train and but that is where you can save 10 minutes if you do it in the right way compared to the wrong way. And the other thing is also practicing the organization of the group. And when something goes wrong because one thing is the thing isn't that but when there's actually an avalanche and one of your friends are buried. It is a situation that's for sure someone's going to panic. And a lot of time can get lost in the confusion of what's happened. So obviously everybody turns their beacons over to search so we're not searching for one of the guys that are not buried. You know, people need someone needs to do the search. Probably the best thing is to have one guy take charge of the group and tell the other members of the group what to do. I'll do the search. Bob and Paul will get their shovel and probes out and be ready to do the excavation and so practice all these these parts of the of the whole scenario or potential scenario. And that will save you a lot of time. Very valuable time. That's something that in real life scenario is going to be really important. And so like I think if you follow these kind of simple rules with avoid terrain traps. Get the group size right ski one at the time. And have the right equipment and be efficient with using it. You have a really, really good chance of not dying in avalanche. And the whole idea here is kind of to get a little bit away from spending too much time trying to predict if there's going to be an avalanche or not by looking at the snow. Because even the most experienced people out there find that extremely difficult. And whenever I come up to the top of a slope and look down. There is no way I'm going to be able to predict if that slope is going to slide or not. So my approach is eliminate factors and look at the slope. I'm like, okay, is there a terrain trap. No, no terrain trap. How big is my group? Okay, I'm with two other people. We're going to ski one at the time. And the two other people are Bob and Paul. They're highly experienced. They have good equipment. The weather is good. So be easy. There's visibility. If we need to rescue, it's flying weather for a helicopter. Okay, I can ski. I'm going to eliminate these things and it will give you an answer if it's a go or not. And I think that is a safer and simpler way than to try and predict an avalanche from looking at the snowpack. So I think that was kind of what I had planned for you guys tonight. It kind of makes sense. But I find that a lot of the time avalanche courses go too much into the nitty gritty of the snowpack and not really into the decision making that's going to make the difference between life and death. So hopefully this can help you guys make some good decisions when you get out to the Alps and get some snow on your skis. Thanks. Thanks, Dan. That's great. I've got a few questions. If that's okay. Give me one second. We'll kick off with actually this one that was emailed in a couple of days ago, which actually is quite a few of these questions. You'll be no surprise. It's mostly about kits, but you covered off quite quite a bit of information about kit. The advice about the two way radio was really, really good. I think really solid because most people just think of shovel probe and transceiver. But Sean asks, what avalanche? No, sorry. Sean asked, do you use an avalanche? No, I don't. I used to. I don't anymore. And I'm predicting that it probably going to be a question about balloon airbags as well. And I spent hours talking about this, but my approach is basically, I think both products are good. The one thing though is that none of them work in an avalanche trap. There is not an avalanche trap in the world where it's going to help to have a balloon bag or an avalon. But that said, if you avoid avalanche traps and you do have a balloon pack, the chances of you being close to the surface are bigger than if you don't have one. And obviously, if you're closer to the surface or on top of the surface is always better than being buried. And I think to a certain extent that the avalon can work. But in my experience, and from talking to people that have been buried in avalanches, the chances are that you might be in a position where you're not going to be able to get to the avalon itself to put in the mouth. My hands might be stuck like this, who knows. So I think in theory it's good and it's not a bad thing to have one. But I think that the problem with all products like that too is like if you can't bring them into decision making when you're standing on top of a line. Don't get ready to ski down. They're like, I don't really, I'm not sure about it, but I've got an avalon and a balloon pack. Then you shouldn't. But I think it's good products to have but just be aware of the fact that it can change your decision making, I think. Okay, that's interesting actually. The next question, like Cassia asks, you talked about the transceivers there, just earlier. So there's which, which beacon brand do you recommend a skier who passed away a year ago today, had a beacon, but the impact of the avalanche switched the beacon off. Are there no ones that don't have this design fault? I have been using that what I'm using right now is the mammoth Berryvox S, which I find to be really good. I have probably 15, maybe more beacons in my drawer downstairs. And right now this is my favorite. I think most of the beacons from the from the top brands, the newer ones are good. I know there's been issues with one particular brand that had a switch that broke off. I haven't used that one myself and but I have been very happy with the mammoth one. So in my experience, that's a great beacon. Certainly, if it looks like this, it's time to head into your shop and get a new one. Thanks, thanks for the plug. The next question does does asks just we were talking about radios obviously. He says, did two way radios have any effect on the ability of a transceiver to search like a mobile phone does. So this radio, it's a BCA, obviously BCA also makes beacons and it's an avalanche equipment company. And they claim that there's no no interference with the beacon and I'm not experiencing it myself. So I think that's good and actually my own experience with the beacons and cell phones to I usually actually put my beacon. I have pants with the two pockets on the on the legs and I'll put the beacon in one pocket and phone in the other. And so that'd be approximately 30 centimeters apart, which should be enough. You're both on the outside of each leg. So I guess you have the meat of your legs in between. And I've never had any experience with the interference between my phone and my beacon doing it that way. And I actually find it easier and better to have my beacon in my hand pocket than having it on the harness. Because I find like on the harness I have like pants or bibs on and then I have the harness with the beacon and then I have your backpack on top. It's just so many straps. And I also find it easier to get the beacon out to do the beacon check before we go out by having it in the pocket. And actually in all the accidents reports I've read. I've not ever read another report where someone's had their pants ripped off. So it's among guides is considered okay to have a beacon in your pad pocket. But not. And there has been avalanche accidents with people have been their jackets have been stripped off. And it's also the case with maybe on the warm spring day you take your jacket off and you have the beacon in the pocket and you stick that in your pack and you pack are prone to get ripped off in avalanches. So, so keep your beacon either either on the harness or in your pad pockets. So thank you. I've got an anonymous question here. You've, you've talked about avalanche traps but this this person just says, could you outline a bit more about what constitutes an avalanche trap I know you sort of went over it but maybe you could just quickly go over it. Okay, we can go the other way we can say what's not an avalanche trap basically an avalanche that has a big run out on the flat or slightly down sloping area where the snow gets spread over a big area. Basically, there's very little chance that you're going to be buried very deep. And there's nothing you can hit so you actually won't get killed by trauma by hitting anything or falling off anything. And then so the avalanche traps is anytime that the terrain will either force the snow, a lot of snow into a small area like in a ditch, where you will have a deep burial, or where there's elements in the train that could kill you. So basically trauma, which is where you can get dragged into trees. It can be buildings rocks or off a big cliff or anything. So if you're standing on top of a slope, and it just perfectly spreads out over a big flat area. That's, that's a good sign if you're standing on top of a slope and there's a big forest at the bottom of the slope is not a good sign. So if you're skiing down and there's a big cliff underneath, it's on either, or if there's at the bottom of the slope you're about to ski there's a big river running down there, or it could be crevasse if you're skiing on the glacier, then you should probably stay away from that slope. Right, thank you. Another question just about terrain traps. Oh, how do you spot, how do you spot a risky cornice? Well, I would say all cornices are risky. And if you have even the slightest notion that it might be a cornice on the ridge you're going up to stay well, well away. I was actually shocked when I started reading all these accident reports how many of them were actually cornices that dropped. And my worst closest cold ever in terms of avalanches was a cornice as well. And I would, any ridge or somebody go up on, if you are unsure, just think there might be a cornice there and just stay well away from it because it's, even if you you could be 50 meters from the edge of the cornice and that could be the attachment point. And you'd be surprised how little extra weight you would have to put on it and the whole enormous thing can drop off. So just, if you are coming up to a ridge or a peak and you haven't been able to see the other side of it. Before you went up, just stay well, well away from the, from the edge of it. So the, the, one, you know, one of the questions I was going to ask you actually was not given their name, but they said have you got any tips for assessing. I know you talk about not wanting to get bogged down with the assessing snowpack but is there any way to quickly assess snowpack and also maybe the gradient of a slope if you're a little bit unsure about the easy, easy way and slope instability as a result. I, in my opinion, no, for a question a about assessing the snowpack. It's incredibly difficult to be able to tell from looking at the snowpack. I don't know if there's going to be an avalanche or not, but you can obviously there's indications in the terrain and the snow that you can see. And that's obviously if you see there's natural avalanches all around you. I would assume that there is instability in the snowpack. Also, I mean, like wind but always is one of the factors that can create avalanche danger because it packs the snow. So if you can see signs in the snow that that has been wind and the snow is sticking together. It's obviously more dangerous than if the snow is completely light and fluffy. And if you're out skitering and you hear sounds in the snow, if the whole snowpack goes when you're walking is an indication that there is a weak layer in the snowpack and basically to have an avalanche in the first place. You need two things you need a weak layer in the snowpack, and you need the snow to be somewhat connected in the upper layer to create a flake. But for a normal person to be able to dig into the snow and have a look at the layers of the snow and predictive it's going to be avalanche danger or not I think is extremely difficult. So even for experts that could be a bit of a guessing game. So I think the best approach would be normally to use a guide, I would say, if you're not very experienced. I think there's quite a few questions coming through about interference from one device to another. So, I know you've I know you've covered this but basically you were saying, keep things about 30 centuries apart and there shouldn't be any you know interference between your transceiver in your phone, people ask you about GPS watches having any interference, things like that, but I'm not really sure with GPS watches actually. I don't really use for myself but I can't say that I've read anything in recent studies or avalanche reports about it. But probably when it comes to that maybe do a quick Google search. Pretty much radios radio is working with different frequency to transceivers so there shouldn't be any issue there is that. That's right. I'm just going by what I've learned from from different manufacturers. Actually, I forgot there to answer your the second part of the question before about ways of of the seeing the steepness of the slope you're going to ski so obviously, the really important thing here is 30 degrees. Basically, if it's less than 30 degrees. There can physically be an avalanche and if it's more than as a steeper than 30 degrees, you're getting into avalanche terrain. So having a device to measure the steepness of the slope you're on can be very, very important. And there's a bunch of apps you can get that you can work on your phone. And you can also get I think peeps makes you guys probably sell it but it's a little device that you can strap to your pole and you can put the pole down in the snow and see the steepness. So being able to tell the steepness of the slope you're on is very important in avalanche terrain and it can be a good way of training too, but you're even if you're not in avalanche terrain but to try and guess the steepness of the terrain you're in and use the app on your phone and see how close you are to kind of calibrate your to know when it's deeper than 30 degrees. And then use that when you're out skiing so your internal alarm kind of goes on when you're like okay. I feel like this terrain here is deeper than 30 degrees okay well we're going to change our approach now we got to be careful. Right. Thank you for that. I'm just reading this one just to check we haven't covered it they're all they're all of a similar kind of pain but different angles is quite interesting so Brendan Brendan asks, I totally agree about the point about avalanche courses overly focused on snowpack. Not enough on the key decision making, but we've relatively novice back country riders what are the steps in making the go no go go decisions. What are your thoughts on that one? Well, I think I kind of, I guess I got into it before like, I can only talk from my own experience but I think, as I said before when I stand on top of the first wall obviously is the steeper than 30 degrees. If it's not steeper than 30 degrees they can't be an avalanche so then obviously it's a go and but then the next step is okay it's deeper than 30 degrees okay. Is there an avalanche trap? No there's no avalanche trap okay. Am I by myself? If the answer is yes well it's a no go because there's no one there to rescue you. If you have friends with me, yes, okay that changes it, that makes it possible. There are these friends who have experience in avalanche rescue, if the answer is no it's still a no go, if the answer is yes then you could probably ski the slope. It's like if you go through a color eliminated like that and then you have a green light at the end then I think it's a go. But all those things have to be in place and in my opinion the absolutely most important is that there is no avalanche trap and then the other ladies come on top of that. Thank you. Adrian asks what's the best way to get avalanche or information about the snowpack and avalanche but I guess that depends on a where you are. I guess in France where you are you have a specific daily bulletin whereas in Scotland they have something as well so. Every country I think where you're likely to ski in Scandinavia, the Alps, North America you will have a daily avalanche report and that's obviously a place very important I think. For me I think the avalanche scale in a way like you have like avalanche danger one, two, three, four and five. It doesn't tell you all that much in many ways because basically avalanche danger one is spring day but there's very little chance of avalanche. Avalanche danger two is you know probably usually has been a couple of weeks after snowfall there's still a risk but not as likely. And avalanche three is where kind of everything happens that's your pattern that's when you really want to be skiing but it's also the most dangerous. And because avalanche danger four all the ski resorts would be closed. So I think when you look at the avalanche report, it's important to not only look at the number, but also to look at what the text actually says because there will be information just that this is an isolated problem from 2000 meters and up on north facing slopes or so there'd be more information in there. So I think the number itself kind of gives you indication where it is but then you need to look into what the actual avalanche problem is. So if you can, you know, like read into the text to and then, and see if you can find some more accurate information there and I could, that can help you make a decision of where you want to ski on that particular day. Thank you. There's a couple of questions coming in around sort of going from being a beginner to going on a back country, sort of trip and what sort of timeline. Thank you on that one sort of timeline and kind of training would you say that someone has to go on to make sure that they're, I guess, back country aware or avalanche aware I should say it's really hard to say. I mean like, I would say, if you need to ask the question, then you're probably not ready. I think the best approach is always to use a guide. And I think particularly maybe for for British people that always travel to go skiing is very little chance that you will have time to spend a long period of time in the same place to learn about what what's happening in the snowpack through the season. And even for myself like, I know what's going on here in Germany, because I'm here every day but if I travel to Norway or to Canada or whatever. I will always make sure that I talk to local guides or use the local guide. Because they have the local knowledge and that is crucial. But I would always strongly recommend using a guide, not only for safety, but the guides second job after you find the best snow. You can come to a resort like Chamonix and think that everything is tracked and you go around by yourself and never find any good snow. If you have a good guide in that same week you could be skiing perfect snow every day. So it's a good investment you spend a lot of money on the equipment and the travel, but I would recommend spending that extra little money on someone to help you with the safety decisions. It's also a great way of learning for for later trips and to find the best snow, you know. Yeah, obviously some of the best days I've had on skis have been with a guide. It's been brilliant. So, well worth it. Are we okay? We've got a couple more questions. Is that right? You're okay with that? I know you're an hour ahead of us over there. We've got so many questions. We'll just take a couple more. So one of the, someone who doesn't leave their name but it's really useful says that the device for measuring slope angles is called Slope Angel. And you can find them at slopeangel.com. So that's useful. There was a question here. Where's your favourite place to ski? Presumably Chamonix because that's where you live, but it might be... Yeah, I mean, there's so many good places and on the normal season I'd do a lot of travelling. And obviously now it's a little bit different. So normally on the normal season I'd be travelling a lot and I'm always saying that I always miss coming back to Chamonix. But like this year, but I can't travel. I kind of feel like I would have loved to go travelling to some different spots. But my favourite place to ski depends a little bit on the season. One of my favourite trips is to go to BC this time of year and go on a hot trip somewhere in the interior BC. And I absolutely love that. And I think February, either Japan or late January, early February, Japan or maybe here in the Alps. And in the spring I really love going to Norway. It's really special up there in the spring with the midnight sun. I mean, you can go skiing anytime of day and you can ski into June sometimes. So it really depends on the time of the season. But there are so many good places. Best place to ski in Norway? I've never skied in Norway. It's on my list. I mean, there are so many good places in Norway. The north is sort of the Lingen Alps and the Lofoten is very special. And that's kind of almost becoming so popular that there's too many people up there. There's a lot of European or central Europeans like Germans and Italians and stuff going up there in the spring. But there's a bit of a secret spot in a way. It's the mountain range in the middle of Norway called Jotunheimen, which is actually the highest peaks in Norway. And it has fantastic skiing. It's not as big of elevation gain as you get on the coastal mountains in Norway. But everything is above the tree level. So it's really nice, smaller alpine peaks with great snow. And there's really nice lodges all around there. And you can do trips from lodge to lodge or stay in one lodge. And you're right in the mountains. You're sitting at the breakfast table seeing the lines you're going to ski through the day. And you come back and sit at the dinner table and see your tracks that you made through the day. And then check that out. It's called Jotunheimen. It's the mountain range. Good tip for April, April, May, maybe. I'm already going to plan it. That's all I'm going to do. That's really good. Thank you very much, Stan. And just loads of questions there. Thank you everyone for participating and sending in your questions. Someone's just sort of messaged in saying the Eagle Ski Club apparently run tours and things like that. So maybe check them out as well. But basically if anyone wanted to, because you're a mountain guide over in Chamonix, or are you working across Europe? I am a mountain guide, but I don't really work much as a guide at the moment. So I'm basically my job situation is as a professional sponsored athlete. And I do a lot of product development, both for Arcterics and Vocal Market Elbello. So at the moment I'm not really taking guide jobs. And I guess it's a pretty good thing these days. There's a lot of mountain guides in the Alps these days with not a whole lot of work because of the corona situation. Just to touch on what you do for Arcterics and Vocal is product development so that they send you some gear, you report back on it and... Well, it could be both ways. So it could be I would have an ID and then pitch it to one of the companies to see if they have any interest in developing it. So lately I've been working a lot on new backpacks for Arcterics ski packs. And also, I don't know if you guys saw this new Belbello Quantum Boot that I've developed, which is a one kilo ski touring boot. And that actually has some pretty good skiability, which has been a problem with a really light touring gear before now. It's like you haven't skied very well. And we see like what's happening here in the Alps right now because obviously the lifts are closed. So everything is ski touring. So in Germany, you have to walk up 800 meters to get to the tree line. So the weight of your gear is all of a sudden becoming very important. And the people that used to use kind of more freeride style gear is now changing to much lighter equipment because of the... You know, like now, if you want to have a good day, you've got to tour at least 2000 vertical meters really to get some good skiing in. And I'm going to get up into that kind of range. If you have two and a half kilo on each leg or one kilo makes a big difference. That's keeping you fit. Stan, thank you so much for this evening. It's been really, really, really good. As someone said, it's always worth talking about how we stay alive. Thanks for that Keith. And big, big thanks to Terex for helping organize this evening. And hopefully we'll have some more talks over the next few weeks and months. So do check out the website and sign up for a few more talks. And yeah, have a great evening. Thanks and enjoy your out tomorrow. I think are you skiing? Are you saying the weather's coming in? We'll see. We're waiting for a big storm to roll in. And I'm not really sure how much snow is going to come overnight. But definitely through the day tomorrow, we should have. They're saying maybe up to 50, 60 centimetres here in town. So there should be a lot of snow coming. So it's interesting, but we are going to have a major avalanche problem as well. So it's kind of time to not get too excited and play it safe for a while. Yeah. I think in the UK, we just have to keep, keep looking at all the pictures and fingers crossed. We'll get some, get some snow. I really hope you guys get to get to travel up and come skiing this year. But it's tough there and seeing it snowing here. So fingers crossed that this situation that sold itself and you guys get some snow this year. Thanks very much. Thank you. Thanks everyone. And yeah, stay safe. Stay healthy. Bye. Bye.