Thread: Lots of Inbounds Slides Today, Everything Stayed Open

As with most places this year, we haven't had much snow so far. Over the 2 days we got ~8-12" of super heavy wet snow that fell on top of old hoar. The local hill (Whitefish Mountain Resort) has been pushing hard to get terrain open since they low snow is reportedly resulting in them hemorrhaging money this holiday season. Today they opened a whole bunch of stuff that had not yet been open this year (because there just wasn't enough snow).

My first lap into some inbounds east facing trees, I popped off a small rock into a clearing and triggered a 1' deep, 60 foot wide slide that ran to the end of the clearing - probably about 75 feet. I was carried with it with no major consequence; it was a fairly slow moving slide, it stopped when it got to the trees at the end of the clearing, and I don't think there was enough moving snow to possibly bury me (I had debris up to my knees).

Here's a crappy cell phone picture of it:


I told patrol about the slide, and they apparently went to check it out. Sometime no long thereafter, some other guy went for a significantly longer ride in an adjacent, more open area. He triggered a slide on the same layer, but the crown was ~150' wide, and it ran for probably 300 vert. He apparently managed to grab a tree and was unhurt.

I went and looked at the bigger slide after the fact and I'm pretty surprised the area remained open; there was plenty of stuff to get trauma-ed on in that area, and slabs were still breaking off pretty easily on the test slopes I bounced on. All of the terrain in question stayed open, which I thought was a somewhat questionable call. I've seen plenty of snow sluffing and moving around inbounds, and if it had just been the little slab I kicked off I wouldn't have thought too much of it, but the big slab kind of sketched me out. I'm sure patrol had pressure on them from management to get terrain open, but given that they knew stuff was sliding and they still didn't close those areas seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Am I just over-reacting to perceived danger that wasn't that big a deal?

150' wide & 300' vert is enough to fuck someone up.

I wasn't there but no, you are not over-reacting.

Originally Posted by toast2266

As with most places this year, we haven't had much snow so far. Over the 2 days we got ~8-12" of super heavy wet snow that fell on top of old hoar. The local hill (Whitefish Mountain Resort) has been pushing hard to get terrain open since they low snow is reportedly resulting in them hemorrhaging money this holiday season. Today they opened a whole bunch of stuff that had not yet been open this year (because there just wasn't enough snow).

My first lap into some inbounds east facing trees, I popped off a small rock into a clearing and triggered a 1' deep, 60 foot wide slide that ran to the end of the clearing - probably about 75 feet. I was carried with it with no major consequence; it was a fairly slow moving slide, it stopped when it got to the trees at the end of the clearing, and I don't think there was enough moving snow to possibly bury me (I had debris up to my knees).

Here's a crappy cell phone picture of it:


I told patrol about the slide, and they apparently went to check it out. Sometime no long thereafter, some other guy went for a significantly longer ride in an adjacent, more open area. He triggered a slide on the same layer, but the crown was ~150' wide, and it ran for probably 300 vert. He apparently managed to grab a tree and was unhurt.

I went and looked at the bigger slide after the fact and I'm pretty surprised the area remained open; there was plenty of stuff to get trauma-ed on in that area, and slabs were still breaking off pretty easily on the test slopes I bounced on. All of the terrain in question stayed open, which I thought was a somewhat questionable call. I've seen plenty of snow sluffing and moving around inbounds, and if it had just been the little slab I kicked off I wouldn't have thought too much of it, but the big slab kind of sketched me out. I'm sure patrol had pressure on them from management to get terrain open, but given that they knew stuff was sliding and they still didn't close those areas seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Am I just over-reacting to perceived danger that wasn't that big a deal?

Hard to say if you're over-reacting since I wasn't there, but here are some facts and figures. Draw your own conclusions.

* 30cm is around the threshold depth for avalanches big enough to bury, injure, or kill a skier. ( The Avalanche Handbook )
* Debris up to your knees = more than enough snow for a complete burial.
* Slide you triggered: est. 4500 cubic feet of snow.
* The avalanche you describe as 1' deep x 150' wide x 300' vertical fall: est. 20,000 cubic feet of snow.
* I'm not sure about your background or experience, but: 8-12" of wet and heavy over old surface hoar = high instability.

Fun fact of the day:

* Small avalanches ( running 300' slope distance ) are responsible for ~50% of fatalities. ( http://www.nwac.us/media/uploads/pdf...e_Brochure.pdf )

Sketchy.

Your picture is broken.

What is this Whitefish Mountain Resort you speak of?

Originally Posted by CookieMonster

Hard to say if you're over-reacting since I wasn't there, but here are some facts and figures. Draw your own conclusions.

* 30cm is around the threshold depth for avalanches big enough to bury, injure, or kill a skier. ( The Avalanche Handbook )
* Debris up to your knees = more than enough snow for a complete burial.
* Slide you triggered: est. 4500 cubic feet of snow.
* The avalanche you describe as 1' deep x 150' wide x 300' vertical fall: est. 20,000 cubic feet of snow.
* I'm not sure about your background or experience, but: 8-12" of wet and heavy over old surface hoar = high instability.

Fun fact of the day:

* Small avalanches ( running 300' slope distance ) are responsible for ~50% of fatalities. ( http://www.nwac.us/media/uploads/pdf...e_Brochure.pdf )

Good facts there. I consider myself an avi jong, although I'm generally aware of everything you said. I had no question that stability was sketch today, and I definitely would have been ultra-conservative out of bounds. Needless to say, I'm much less conservative inbounds; I assumed they'd bombed everything thoroughly and wouldn't have opened it if stuff was releasing in a dangerous way. I heard one of the patrollers say they did bomb this area, although I didn't personally see any bomb holes. Given how easily I was kicking off slabs, I would be very surprised if they weren't getting significant results when throwing bombs. It was also snowing pretty heavily all morning, so I guess it's possible that there wasn't enough accumulation for early morning bomb runs to be effective, but that explanation seems fairly implausible.

edit to add - I don't think I could have been buried just based on looking around at the debris pile I ended up sitting in. Had there been a terrain trap or something that forced the slide into a smaller area, there was definitely enough volume for someone to end end buried. In the larger slide I mentioned, there's no question that someone could have been buried.

Originally Posted by RootSkier

Your picture is broken.

crap. tried the picture again. If you still can't see it, you're not really missing much.

Attachment 106657

If you like, you can call it the ski hill formerly known as Big Mountain.

Small slide inbounds at KH, same day as well.

Originally Posted by Reudi's Bowl

Small slide inbounds at KH, same day as well.

Yup... a chute in Feuz bowl went with a ski cut, and apparently there was a very small natural just by Pioneer chair even. Warm temps are the likely culprit.

KH was fun trying to beat your own slough down the hill! Yesterday the pow was quite different from Wednesdays pow. The whole wall behind the water reservoir came down while I was on it on Wed.

Originally Posted by toast2266

crap. tried the picture again. If you still can't see it, you're not really missing much.

Attachment 106657

If you like, you can call it the ski hill formerly known as Big Mountain.

Is that Elephant's Graveyard?

Originally Posted by Shredhead

Is that Elephant's Graveyard?

basically, yeah. A bit skier's left of what I would call Elephant's.

Another in-bounds slide at KH today...

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...84#post3489984

Stay safe out there, and ski with a buddy,.