I had a fantastic day of skiing with my young son and neice (visiting Switzerland for the first time) today in and around Champery today. Until that is we stopped for a mid afternoon refreshment. We left our skiis amongst the other 50/100 or so pairs in the snow outside the restaurant, whilst we rested our heels for 20 minutes.

When we returned to the site we left our skis, one set was missing.

I still cannot believe some nasty person would really steal someones skiis half way up a mountain and am praying it was an honest mistake and we there is a chance they may be returned.

Has anyone else heard of such happenings?
These skiis are hired from Stockli and I am worried for my neice. Can rented skiis be traced if stolen? Can police be of assistance?

There was a Romandie film recently about the very thing - skis being stolen on a regular basis by kids from down in the valley for re-sale.

It happens often, which is why as a couple we always swop 1 ski so we have odd pairs, and put them in a totally different place. Were you insured? You should phone Stockly for advice asap.

For my 50th birthday I bought myself a very good snowboard, with all the accessories, knee pad, wrist guards, gloves, boots - and the whole lot was stolen from the ski locker at our hotel. I was gutted, as I'd spent 2 seasons learning to snowboard, and was very proud (due to age and injury) of having 'cracked' it and decided to treat myself for that special BD.

Is your niece insured? Have you reported it to police to get an insurance report/number? So sorry but it is quite common - and not only in Switzerland. Friends of ours got all their skis (for the whole family) stolen in Bulgaria, after paying a local (they more or less force you to pay!) to look after them whilst having lunch up the mountain.

it happens all the time, we often see someone going down with a second set off skis or a snowboard, this could be perfectly innocent but appears to be too frequent to be so.

i was in davos last year when a guy had his board stolen from the hotel ski locker room. Police said they get about 4 or 5 reports per day of stolen equipment.

I often ski or board down holding spare skis, board, sticks - because someone in my party has injured themselves, or want to practice carving without sticks, etc, etc, or because I want to spend part of the day skiing and part boarding (usually ski in morning when snow is hard, and board in the afternoon when conditions are softer. Would hate to be accused of stealing though

Some of the Stockly hire skis have instant adjust bindings, with no need for even having a screw driver with you, like the ones used for ski tests- so they are even easier to steal.

Thanks Odile and Rod1, I appreciate your replies.
I had been monitoring the mountain returns later in the day to see if noticing anyone with 2 sets of skis, but did not notice anyone. In my mind, it would look totally suspect.

I am so upset thinking about this selfish act I am fuming.

Apart from selling second hand skiis online, are there typical retail stores in the region.

As nothing opens in Switzerland Sunday, I will have to wait until Monday before speaking to Stockli.

Bonne chance. Skis are not usually stolen for own use, but for re-sale, sometimes for drug use.

A lesson to be learnt - as said above, we always swop skis, if with a group swop around the group, so there is no 2 pairs that can match, and put on different racks on different areas. We also have all our equipment insured- and when we lived in the UK, always took specific holiday insurance that included skis, etc, specifically.

If they were rental ones (and clearly marked) then they will probably turn up sooner or later - some newbie most likely picked up the wrong ones.

That happened to us in Engelberg. My daughter's skis were basic hire ones and were taken, and another pair was nearby almost the same. Can't remember how we could tell the difference - I think hers had some tape on them or something - anyway, the hire guys were totally not bothered, and as there are two hire return points in Engelberg, they just told us they will turn up sooner or later...

Were they kids skis ? I think twice as likely then that some other kid accidentally grabbed the wrong ones, that look almost the same...

Hi guys, guess what, I have been informed that the skiis have been found returned. It seems it may have been simple mistake afterall.

Thank you all for your contributions and opinions.

i guess if the person taking them have also rented skis for the day, they might not have noted well enough that they took the wrong pair if the bindings fit.

I now take a small combination lock with me. I spent an entire afternoon on mis-taken skis that i'll never get back

got groaned for joking. man...gotta stop posting after drinks

From Cannut? He was probably having one too many too, don't worry. It is not his style to groan and especially not to get a joke.

Hello Hundini

Came across your message via Google

I believe we have your skis ! We were skiing in the Champery area on dec 29th and my wife somehow took some Stockli skis by mistake. We only noticed this morning when we went out to ski again..... they are very similar looking skis to the ones she has.
[phone number removed - send a pm] tomorrow morning and we can return them to you. Many apologies for all the inconvenience this may have caused you and your niece.

A few posts above, we were told the skis were found and returned. So you must have someone else's.

Hmmm

That sounds far too much of a co-incidence..2 pairs of Stockli skis taken from the same place on the same day ?? they may have just found my wifes skis which obviously were left there at the end of the day. Anyway i have PMd houdini to try and sort it out !

Not at all. Mistaking one set of rental skis for another is quite literally an everyday occurrence. This is particularly true if there's a local Stoeckli rental shop, as they only supply their own brand - and even different models often look very similar to each other. I've had clients experience this on several occasions, all of which resulted in all the skis being returned to the shop with no problem whatsoever.

I like the idea of mixing the pairs of skis! I would just have to remember where I put the other pair

It does happen many times a day. A friend took the wrong set and I had an angry man knocking on our door asking for me to give him money to compensate him for his ski pass that he couldn't use without his skis.

Police time usually gets wasted and in our case, the person waited until the end of the day and took home my friend's skis, the last remaining pair, and called the rental shop. They gave out the address of where we were staying. She only realised when she went to put them on the next day.

Many shops now put a sticker with the renter's name on the skis - great idea!

The film is called 'L'enfant d'en haut'. It's about a swiss boy who steals skis to sale them later. You may watch it here, if you understand French.

I would say fair enough. Actually a real compensation would include ski pass, a night's stay and a day's salary (as he wasted one day of his days off).

Quite a notable patience. However, what if it's not mistakenly taken but stolen? He would not find any skis left.

They should all do that and with BIG letters.