off-piste #4
スキー場での事故が相次いでいます。
4 skiers dead in avalanches; 3 missing in Northern Alps
Avalanches in and around Japanese ski resorts killed four people including two Argentine men over the weekend, police and media reported on Monday.
The two foreigners aged 50 and 54 were visiting the Ryuoo Ski Park in Nagano Prefecture on Sunday, police said.
They were together with a man from New Zealand and a man and a woman from Australia, a local police spokeswoman said.
“When they skied off-piste shortly after 2 p.m. Sunday, an avalanche occurred and engulfed the two Argentine men,” she said.
“Their friends made an emergency call and rescuers found their bodies in the snow,” she said, adding they were taken to a local hospital where they were confirmed dead.
The avalanche was 30 meters in width and 200 meters long, she said.
Over the weekend there were also two deadly avalanches in Niigata Prefecture, reports said.
A Japanese man aged 48 died Saturday after he was hit by an avalanche as he snowboarded, the Asahi Shimbun reported.
Another Japanese man, aged 35, was found dead in an off-piste area of a ski resort in Niigata, it said, adding police believe he was also hit by an avalanche.
Separately, rescuers were searching for three men in their 50s and 60s who went missing while mountaineering on skis at Hakuba in Nagano’s Northern Alps. Police said the three men, aged 57, 59 and 66, had come from Nagoya on Friday for a weekend of skiing.
A helicopter searched for the trio on Monday morning but failed to find them.
今回取り上げる表現は、“off-piste”です。調べてみると、「固められた滑走コース（piste）から外れた【て】」（『ジーニアス英和辞典第四版』大修館）とあり、副詞と形容詞として使うことができると書かれておりました。
念のため“piste”も調べてみると、「【フランス】ピスト≪スキーの滑走路≫」とありました。日本語で言い換えれば、「立ち入り禁止区域」といったところでしょうか。私はスキーに悪い思い出しかないため、詳しくないのですが、そういった区域は新雪を楽しむことができるということで（Backcountryという用語もあり）、好まれる場合もあるそうです。とはいえ、雪崩に巻き込まれてしまうケースも多くなっておりますので、しっかりと管理されたところでスキーやスノーボードを楽しむべきなのではないかと思います。（Green）
