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On our own behalf | Coronavirus exceptional situation

How does PowderGuide.com deal with this?

by PowderGuide 03/14/2020
The coronavirus epidemic and the associated restrictions on public life naturally also affect the PowderGuide team and - at least in part - the operation of PowderGuide.com.

In most of the Alpine region, ski resorts have already closed or are ending their season tomorrow, March 15. A PG reader has rightly asked us why we are not yet providing information on ski resort closures and whether we can compile a list of resorts that are still open. On the one hand, we don't do this because we can't guarantee that we can keep such a list up to date given the rapid changes in the situation.

On the other hand, and this is the more important reason from our point of view, we want to behave appropriately to the situation.

According to our information - completely without guarantee - sporting activity in South Tyrol has only been permitted within its own municipal boundaries for a while now and only alone. The South Tyrolean Mountain Rescue Service expressly asks you to refrain from skiing and mountain tours. In Austria and Switzerland, public life is now severely restricted. Citizens are asked to refrain from unnecessary activities outside their own four walls as far as possible and to reduce social contacts to the bare minimum. Individual municipalities and regions in Austria are under quarantine. As we write this article, these are: St. Anton and the entire Paznaun Valley in Tyrol and Heiligenblut am Großglockner in Carinthia. People who have had contact with someone from these areas or have been there are called upon to go into domestic isolation. The German Ministry of Health currently recommends that anyone who has been in Switzerland, Austria or Italy in the last 14 days should also isolate themselves.

In view of the current situation and the expected worsening of the situation, we believe that we should all do our utmost not to unnecessarily burden the medical care system with our recreational sports. We therefore expressly encourage you (and ourselves too - it's very difficult for us) not to visit the few ski resorts that may still be open and not to go touring, but to stay at home. It is not about the fact that you might get infected on a ski tour, but about the fact that you would occupy a valuable hospital bed and require medical staff if you were to break a leg, for example.

For this reason, we are ending the CR season with a heavy heart. We ask our CRers not to write any more condition reports and will delete new CRs from tonight (14.3. 23:59). We will also adjust the editorial content on a case-by-case basis or send it into the summer break earlier. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense anymore - for example, all freeride competitions have been canceled, so the ContestHappening column is running out of material. Sometimes we just feel uncomfortable philosophizing about the current snow conditions during a crisis of this magnitude. We are also likely to end the weather service earlier than planned. We will continue to publish gear reviews, Gear of the Week, Videos of the Week and other articles that are more for general entertainment than for information about current ski conditions.

We will continue to publish gear reviews, Gear of the Week, Videos of the Week and other articles that are more for general entertainment than for information about current ski conditions.

Of course, it is basically up to each individual to decide how to deal with the situation. After discussion within the PG team spread across the DACH region, we have decided on the approach explained here. We are aware that the official recommendations for behavior and measures to slow the spread of the virus differ between individual Alpine countries and regions. Check with the local authorities.

If things don't turn out to be so bad after all and the situation eases again, we will of course resume normal operations.

We would be very happy about that.

This article has been automatically translated by DeepL with subsequent editing. If you notice any spelling or grammatical errors or if the translation has lost its meaning, please write an e-mail to the editors.

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