Dodged a bullet

[ak_powder_monkey]

So we are climbing this mountain yesterday and we are right up against the rocks on the final 200 feet to the summit it an awesome day the snow is perfect for the descent its sunny but not so muchthe snow is crusty. No wind just perfect when everything changes.


"Oh Shit"
The avalanche broke about 100 yards across I was on the edge of the slabe and swam a bit and self arrested easy never leaving my feet. My buddy though couldn't make it to the top of the slab and got swept down the slope 600 yards before being able to arrest himself losing a pole and scraping his arm but otherwise ok. THe avy then flowed about 3000 verticle feet and had a 300 foot tall powder cloud, in other words HUGE it was the scariest thing ever, we decided to retreat down the ridge we came and not ski that day.

The mistakes: Assuming that the massive freeze thaw cycle a week earlier meant that the lower part of the snowpack was homogeneous and frozen, and being lulled into a sense of security by lack of obvious wind loading.

The Avy: a 2 foot slab ripped to the groud with the initial failer on a 2 inche faceted week layer at the very botom of the snow pack, the rest of the pack was fine. My buddy about 600 vert below where it started.

Any how we are really lucky and I hope this is the one avy I'm ever involved with in my life

The lesson: The big mountains of Alaska are dragons, if you play in their lair chances are you'll get burned

[truth]

The lesson: The big mountains of Alaska are dragons, if you play in their lair chances are you'll get burned

You need 20 sided dice.

[upallnight]

The white dragon...

Glad you are OK, but I hope that this incident is one that can serve as a signal to get more education & travel with more experienced folks.

No shame in the game...we all make mistakes; the key is learning from -- and not repeating -- them.

Get any photos? :-)

[ak_powder_monkey]

yea I have pics they just aren't devoloped yet

[Pow4Brains]

Wow mang. Good to hear everyone is Ok and were able to pull something good out of a bad situation.

[ak_powder_monkey]

It was weird it was on the way up we thought we were close enough to the ridge to be off the slab we were gonna build and anchor and go on beley to try to get it to slide anyway.

Anyhow be careful mags it can happen to anyone

[LONG~DUCK~JONG]

never saw any mention of your assesments on your ascent
never even a pit......thought you just got out of 6th grade avy class outing?? wtf

i bet you got a racing stripe in your shorts where your puss is

also 2 caught at once sounds like you werent practicing safe travel either
post some pics of your drawers
after the event
way to not die,even though with 5602 posts im sure you felt invinsible!!!!

[Trackhead]

You said your partner ended up 600 yards below you, then you said 600 vert below you? So did he go 1800 feet? or 600ft?

How close together were you traveling?
Slope angle?
Aspect?
Prior days wind speed and direction?
Temps?

Answers to these questions would help the rest of this community better understand the situation, and help others learn.

Thanks.

[AKturnanburn]

what mountain?

[stuckathuntermtn]

never saw any mention of your assesments on your ascent
never even a pit......thought you just got out of 6th grade avy class outing?? wtf

i bet you got a racing stripe in your shorts where your puss is

also 2 caught at once sounds like you werent practicing safe travel either
post some pics of your drawers
after the event
way to not die,even though with 5602 posts im sure you felt invinsible!!!!

that's it, your on the ignore list

[nutcase]

that's it, your on the ignore list

I have been much happier since he's been on mine.

[Rontele]

patrick, glad to hear you are safe, but be careful out there.

[BFD]

before I start my ignore list I would like to say. Duck Jong you are a piece of shit like that self portrait you were putting up. A big difference between AKPM and you is you will always be a piece of shit while AKPM even with 5600 posts here still has the potential to be a descent person. What signs were you looking for when your pathetic ass got avalanched off the snowmachine seat? Now I feel better.

AKPM I think this going to be a tough spring for avalanches. The long cold spells created some persistent weak layers. One thing is remember often the top of the mountain has been warming alot longer than the bottom so pay attention if things are rolling above you. The other thing which is really easy to see with corn snow, is if the snow is collapsing you are to late.

[ak_powder_monkey]

Mt Vista East Aspect, north winds perviously, pits were gonna be dug on beley on the slope that slid, my partner went for a ride of about 600 verticle feet, that avalanche ran 3000' of vert or the whole face. We were way to close together less then ten yards, but we thought we were good cause we were right next to the rocks.

Slope angle was probably 40ish maybe a bit less so pretty much perfect (for slides)
I imagine the air temp was around 32 the snow temp on the aspect was far below freezing as it was perfect powder and was dry by avy forcasting standard,
the depth of the snow was less then one meter
the intial failure was on the 2-3 inches of facets at the bottom of the snowpack the secondary slab was on a different layer that was very slight, there was a distict ice lens in the middle of the two layer. I'll post pictures when they devolope.

I have to say watching my best friend rolling and bouncing off rocks and stuff in a massive avalanche was one of the worst things of my life. I was already planning to get my ass down there and dig him out. It was comforting to know that I had practice my beacon skills 4 days before and found the other beacon in 2 minutes.

When the avalanche hit me I swam through it and dug my poles into the bed surface when I saw it then looked up to watch my friend fall when the secondary slab broke above him. Swimming helped a ton, it came natural (I swam in high school) and ragdolling north face several times helped me self arrest fast (you learn fast rag dolling). If my buddy had a whippet he woulda stopped right away because he was on the bed surface the whole time just couldn't grip it.

When he finally stopped I could settle down and watch the avalanche and the powder blast, which was awesome (not in a good sense) the slide was so much snow moving so fast it was like the pictures from mt. hunter from the kahitna, just insane

can we ban unibogner/long duck jong now please?

P.S. if anybody has an extra BD flintlock pole they could spare that I could give to my friend pm me

[ak_powder_monkey]

on a side note my buddy just turned 20 thus we aren't invincable teenagers anymore

[ak_powder_monkey]

Heres a picture red is our route up

[LeeLau]

Glad you're both OK. That looks like a fairly safe route up as far as that face goes.

[ak_powder_monkey]

yea the travers was sketchy so we went one at a time over that but it was fine, I shoulda ski the couloir with the shadow lookers right it looked fun and was in the sun and frozen but we bailed from nerves

[edg]

Would you traverse above the roll over next time? (looks kinda sketch to me, but I don't have BC Class) saying on the ridge line to the next set of rocks seems pretty sensible...

edg

[bbirtle]

...THe avy then flowed about 3000 verticle feet and had a 300 foot tall powder cloud..

"OH SHIT" Indeed.

Way to give the grim reaper the old middle finger. Post dem pics!

Sounds to me like you were taking the amount of precautions anybody else would take. Too close together sure, maybe other mistakes, we can discuss, but it doesn't sound like you were doing something stupidly dangerous.

What was the avalanche forecast saying on this day?

Also, in terms of your assessment about stability caused by the "massive freeze thaw cycle", in retrospect was this a bad assessment? I know here a couple weeks back, pretty much every face under a certain elevation purged. But then the more above that elevation line you went the spring avalanches dropped off dramatically and the snow was still very unconsolidated up high...

...never even a pit......thought you just got out of 6th grade avy class outing?? wtf

i bet you got a racing stripe in your shorts where your puss is

also 2 caught at once sounds like you werent practicing safe travel either

What the fuck is wrong with you? As a person I mean? Do the world a favor and kill yourself. Or at least have yourself castrated. You're total scum, and I'm not saying that in a flame-war kind of way, I mean you are a total psycho.

In the meantime I wish Frozen would listen to what the entire board already said and get this asshole off the island.

[Trackhead]

AKPM,

I added some lines to your photo, to suggest alternater routes. Hard to armchair from Utah. And not knowing what the rock is like or how easy it would have been to climb, etc, etc.

Alternate routes in blue.

[LeeLau]

I'd just add one thing thats good for all snow packs. A friend of mine went for a 400 foot ride north of whistler. She skied a face above a gully. Did a big ski cut and the face went above her. Her partner said that the slab was large/perhaps thick and triggered about 20 feet above her. It rained the next few days after they got her out on a back board (spinal but she's walking and recovering). The snowpack that year was thin; about 200 cms base. It was spring but she was on N face. She stopped close to but not on rocks. She couldn't see the rock but she described what she stopped on as a pronounced ridge which she thought would be an "island of safety". Avalanche forecasters going up there after the rains stopped couldn't get much data because of the rain but they said they found unsupportable facets at the rock at close to or on the bed surface.

because she is pretty careful and because she is a friend this really reinforced the message that close to rocks can also be dangerous because the snowpack may be thinner around rocks. Thinner snowpacks => higher temperature gradient => faceting. Also this happened in a coastal snowpack which is like yours in Alaska with the difference being that yours is generally colder. I say this because as coasties we tend to forget about facets - its pretty rare here in coastal BC. I'd guess faceting is also not that common in AK.

Having said that, when going up a steep slope I tend to hug rock features too but try to probe them with a ski pole turned upside down or with a gloved hand to see if I can find facets. Doesn't do me any good for deep instabilities. Anyone else chime in with things to do.

[XtrPickels]

the intial failure was on the 2-3 inches of facets at the bottom of the snowpack the secondary slab was on a different layer that was very slight, there was a distict ice lens in the middle of the two layer.

Patrick,
Thanks for the info. Goodjob on making it out alive.

Did you know about the facets while ascending or did you notice them at the crown/bedsurface after the aspect slid?

[shamrockpow]

Alternate routes in blue.

Love that not-so-subtle blue line that says "to the top biatch!"

[bakers_dozen]

glad you guys got out okay. The board would have missed your antics if you didn't