They can more or less spontaneously form on steep, snow-covered slopes. Pretty much impossible to predict, where they form (maybe you can guess, based on the weather, but I’d be quite a guess).
Disclaimer: I’m no snow-scientist. But I grew up in the alps and I went ski-mountaineering a bunch of times.
Snow is ice. And a bunch of weird material science happens when snow gets compressed, melts a bit in the sun and freezes again (which is afaik how glaciers formed in the first place - how else did the ice get there?).
You actually want to have an ice sheet on the slope when you go skiing. Otherwise the snow would get pushed away from the skis after a few swings and the ground wouldn’t be covered anymore (ruining the skis of the people that come after you).
I remember a crevasse forming onthe slopes of the mountain I grew up at when I was 9, I think. Obviously, it was only about 1.5m deep, but it was a clear tear in the snow sheet and you could see the grass underneath the snow.
Skiing on glaciers has been done since the invention of skies.
That pit probably wasn’t there a few weeks before. It’s not like this stuff gets puton maps.
Yeah I would avoid skiing in any area where there’s a possibility of crevasses forming without me being informed.
Well, then good luck, finding that out.
Do crevasses ever form on ski pistes when they’re open? I feel like most people are of a like mind with me.
They can more or less spontaneously form on steep, snow-covered slopes. Pretty much impossible to predict, where they form (maybe you can guess, based on the weather, but I’d be quite a guess).
Disclaimer: I’m no snow-scientist. But I grew up in the alps and I went ski-mountaineering a bunch of times.
To my understanding, crevasses form in ice, not snow. So if you are not skiing on a glacier or ice sheet, you won’t fall in one.
Snow is ice. And a bunch of weird material science happens when snow gets compressed, melts a bit in the sun and freezes again (which is afaik how glaciers formed in the first place - how else did the ice get there?).
You actually want to have an ice sheet on the slope when you go skiing. Otherwise the snow would get pushed away from the skis after a few swings and the ground wouldn’t be covered anymore (ruining the skis of the people that come after you).
I remember a crevasse forming onthe slopes of the mountain I grew up at when I was 9, I think. Obviously, it was only about 1.5m deep, but it was a clear tear in the snow sheet and you could see the grass underneath the snow.
Skiing on glaciers has been done since the invention of skies.
Presumably if the ice is only a few metres thick, falling in a crevasse is not too dangerous
Look at the crevasse. It is “only” a few metres deep.
… the skier would syill have broken a few bones if they fell in.