Day 13 Lockdown and the Good News from Serre Che

The New York Times reported that in the USA skiers are pouring into the backcountry now that the resorts are closed. One snowboarder was seriously injured in an avalanche, last week, involving a 30-strong rescue crew and heli to take him to hospital and into intensive care. So now the Americans are wondering, as they did here in France, should ski touring be banned in order to save rescue crews and hospitals at a time when they need their services because of the mounting coronovirus crisis?

Public officials have begun imploring the skiers and snowboarders to scale back. The Colorado stay-at-home order, which went into effect on Thursday, does not actually prohibit activity on the mountains. But on Friday, Gov. Jared Polis clarified the order and strongly discouraged travelling to the mountains for exercise stating, 'It is not a competition to see what you can get away with'.

We learnt, yesterday, that there are currently three coronavirus cases here in Briancon hospital. And in the Haut Alpine total area there has, thankfully, only been one death. This, of course, is really good news with the lockdown now on Day 13, indicating that restrictions have worked in the more remote mountain areas and so the chances of more cases should be minimal here in Serre Chevalier.

But the PGHM are still chasing down ski tourers, even locals, and fining them. As the hospital isn't exactly overburdened with coronavirus patients, could/should we be able to go ski touring maybe from Day 15, the original limit for the lockdown? When I say 'we' I mean locals, people who are living here ie not allowing an influx of ski tourers from outside the area, which was part of the problem in the USA.

Of course, then there's the problem of only being able to exercise one kilometre from your home, which here in France is the national decree under lockdown. Damn it, that only take us up to Le Bez.