Thread: Avalanche with fatalities near Stevens Pass

Originally Posted by icelanticskier

nothing wrong with going out on considerable/high danger days. those ratings mean there is amazing snow to be had and very few folks willing to break trail and snoop around. terrain management is paramount meaning low angle slopes, including all terrain above/below/to the sides has to be taken into account to stay safe.

considerable/high days generally aren't rocket science as you can be pretty sure that shit will go if yer not mindful of yer surroundings at all times.

dig a pit? what good does that do, especially if it only tells most folks what they don't want to hear and have pretty much made up their mind to ski that slope anyways?

funny game ain't it?

rog

Sorry ROG, I think you are flat out wrong. Nothing wrong with going out on considerable/high danger days? Those ratings don't necessarily indicate that there is great snow to be had. If you subtract out all of the terrain you need to avoid, there may be very little left available. If you know what you are doing AND can maintain the discipline required for safe decision making, safe skiing may be available on "Considerable" days, but none of us can honestly make that claim when conditions dictate a "High" danger forecast. Your disregard for digging a snow pit is troubling. I don't want to insult you, but that attitude suggests a lack of training or inability to maintain discipline in decision making. Take an Avalanche Level 2 course - its where serious analysis of snow begins. You and your partners may all live a lot longer for the effort.

FWIW in the SW BC area considerable/high ratings make up 65-70% of forecasted days this season. Historically they run approx 60% of all days.

In AST 1 and AST 2 emphasis is switching from snow science to mitigating risk through terrain.

Just passing on observations

Sorry - I am in U.S.; I need to be more clear. Avalanche Level 2 course in U.S. is similar to Canadian Level 1.

Far be it from me to agree with Rog but if I never went out in Considerable conditions I would rarely leave my house. And I seldom dig pits, either. And I think of myself as a competent and safe backcountry skier.

the course that i took in the u.s.a. did not reward me with a certified piece of paper. it was 3 days long, the hazard ranged from moderate (uac may someday call it "moderate x") to high, we intentionally set off avalanches, mitigated vulnerability through terrain management, skied slopes greater than 35*, toured in 3 different areas, and dug a total of 1 pit.

great so what did you learn?

Originally Posted by jserra17

Sorry ROG, I think you are flat out wrong. Nothing wrong with going out on considerable/high danger days? Those ratings don't necessarily indicate that there is great snow to be had. If you subtract out all of the terrain you need to avoid, there may be very little left available. If you know what you are doing AND can maintain the discipline required for safe decision making, safe skiing may be available on "Considerable" days, but none of us can honestly make that claim when conditions dictate a "High" danger forecast. Your disregard for digging a snow pit is troubling. I don't want to insult you, but that attitude suggests a lack of training or inability to maintain discipline in decision making. Take an Avalanche Level 2 course - its where serious analysis of snow begins. You and your partners may all live a lot longer for the effort.

i do things the way i do them, you do things the way you do them. i'm still alive, so are you. the goal is to keep it that way. i don't go skiing cuz i wanna study snow down to the last snowflake, i'm there to be out in nature and ski. i tour on high days in terrain that allows me to do so safely. simple.

high days are great for learning. high days are great for having places to yerself. high days usually do mean great snow for skiing.

plenty of terrain to ski on high days east and west from my experience. not the gnar but pretty fucking good skiing imo.

my digging is lots of handers along the way as well as a ton of pole probing. works for me.

have a nice day

rog

doesn't quite work that way out west my friend, sure low angle trees are fine, but the few thousand vert snowfield or hotelsized cornice above dont care if you touched its toe before it goes.
i hope you can keep reporting for many years to come rog.
bobby

Originally Posted by flowing alpy

doesn't quite work that way out west my friend, sure low angle trees are fine, but the few thousand vert snowfield or hotelsized cornice above dont care if you touched its toe before it goes.
i hope you can keep reporting for many years to come rog.
bobby

disagree, plenty of safe touring on high days when i lived in the wasatch. from the ridges down. never missed a day due to high danger. trailbreaking was seriously herculean sometimes tho.

rog

go just a few more mountains over to the sierra or cascade range and the ridges hunker under the the massive maritime snowpacks above.

pnw, it's mtns and general snowpack are ruler imo. haven't spent as much time there, but some. like the higher h20 content of the snow. takes a lot less of it at a time to give a great bouncy ride over old surfaces. similar to high nh and our maritime-ish snowpack.

rog

doesn't take alot of it to crush a body or cover it in cement as soon as the bounce ends.
please come visit n ski with some pnw mags our snowpack is at 140% and adding
bobby

i may just do that bobby, thank you. love the looooong consistent vert moon skiing out there. nice you can do it all year.

rog

Originally Posted by jserra17

Sorry - I am in U.S.; I need to be more clear. Avalanche Level 2 course in U.S. is similar to Canadian Level 1.

Gotcha. CAA 1 is definitely more of an observers course and for people on the professional track though. I'm not convinced that moving recreationals over to snow science makes a lot of sense but on that there's definitely lots of debate

My mentor in PNW back country travel has gone out when conditions are extreme to watch it all come down. The conditions dictated the route. The mountains will tell you where it is safe to go if you listen. If you go where you want without listening, you may get dope slapped to death.

With High danger rating at tree line, I walked around all day yesterday in the gloom hail and then light rain and triggered perhaps 15 Size 1 avalanches and a Size 2 all for educational purposes comparing aspect and slope angles and shape with respect to reactivity. The skiing was rubbish, but the mountains where not. I was not once at risk and would not have missed it for anything.

Originally Posted by LeeLau

I'm not convinced that moving recreationals over to snow science makes a lot of sense but on that there's definitely lots of debate

Little off-topic, but when I teach the AST1 I spend not so long in a snowpit with my students - as per the prescribed curriculum. My students are attentive and engaged all day, however the moment my snow saw comes out, the cameras rapidly appear, the videos whirl up, the Gropro's start to flash red lights and even one guy took out a hand held tape recorder. It is strange how much emotional attachment there is to stability tests. My opinion is that it makes people feel clever, and look clever amongst their peers, when they perform them. On the other hand, very few people notice the incremental subtleties of good backcountry travel habits and on-the-fly terrain + snow character assessment. And humans being Human, we generally want to be regarded for our tangible displays of savvy in complex places such as "the backcountry", so at the entry level where ego is stronger, we attach ourselves to the tangible and obvious things that make us look and feel expert-like in the eyes of others who's approval we want.

Interesting digressions

Originally Posted by wooley12

My mentor in PNW back country travel has gone out when conditions are extreme to watch it all come down. The conditions dictated the route. The mountains will tell you where it is safe to go if you listen. If you go where you want without listening, you may get dope slapped to death.

I've been encouraged by various mentors and more experienced people to go out in extreme and high conditions if only to observe and to see why stability is poor. And I've done so and hopefully learned. In fact many people more experienced than myself do so. But its hard to get around all the "oh my god you are suicidal to go out when its EXTREME" rhetoric so its not something that myself or other people will get into. It's too hard to get around preconceived biases.

Originally Posted by Hohes

Little off-topic, but when I teach the AST1 I spend not so long in a snowpit with my students - as per the prescribed curriculum. My students are attentive and engaged all day, however the moment my snow saw comes out, the cameras rapidly appear, the videos whirl up, the Gropro's start to flash red lights and even one guy took out a hand held tape recorder. It is strange how much emotional attachment there is to stability tests. My opinion is that it makes people feel clever, and look clever amongst their peers, when they perform them. On the other hand, very few people notice the incremental subtleties of good backcountry travel habits and on-the-fly terrain + snow character assessment. And humans being Human, we generally want to be regarded for our tangible displays of savvy in complex places such as "the backcountry", so at the entry level where ego is stronger, we attach ourselves to the tangible and obvious things that make us look and feel expert-like in the eyes of others who's approval we want.

Not off-topic at all. I feel fully engaged when I'm in situations where stability is poor and I have to think ahead three, four steps. Now, I do not teach classes but am in a position where at the start of the year I frequently take out beginners and act the part of mentor (Sharon does the same). It's good for me to refresh but also a good karma thing. After all someone thought me once. I tell the newbs I am taking out to read Tremper in advance so we are past the theory and hopefully they already have some knowledge so they can absorb the practical aspect of ski touring and assessing stability. Occasionally I go out with beginner Alpine Club of Canada groups too.

Fwiw I see the distinct majority of newbs stay as terminal newbs. Some stay that way because they don't get out much. Some are just very cautious; overly cautious to the point that I'm convinced they are in paralysis by analysis mode (too bad because to me that takes a lot of the fun out of skiing). Many are like your students. If I may make some assumptions, they want a definite answer. To quantify what is hard to quantify. They have a hard time with the answer many teachers give "It depends". Perhaps not realizing that is not waffling but a truism.

To me, the newbs who then go on to acquire useful knowledge will understand that it does truly depend not just on externalities (slope angle, wind speed, snow depth, quality of shear etc) but their own subjective mutable qualities (the individual's risk tolerance, their skiing or snowboarding ability, their fitness level, their ability to select partners and ability to make group decisions). But then you are teaching people within a strict curriculum and with such limited time it is so hard to touch on all of this. But that's why, to me, ski touring is fun. There is so much to learn and so many ways to push yourself to learn. Like the course developers I think that overemphasis on snow science tends to lead to overconfidence and that recreational users are best taught how to assess danger through a more holistic approach with an emphasis on terrain

I'm rambling now, but that's why Lindahls thread and the responses are interesting. He has a risk tolerance that is beyond my comprehension. If he has no dependents and his death does not result in risk or injury to potential rescuers, intellectually I'd say that's his choice how he wants to end his life and wonder even why he asked this question of a bunch of anonymous people on the Internet? What's interesting though must be the challenge of teaching someone like that basic snow stability.

Typed too much. Thanks for the comments though

As much as I try to novate focus from pit stability tests to the more holistic [terrain character] + [snow conditions] as a rule based system of assessment, I still strongly encourage shovels to come out very often but only briefly. I encourage this a way of understanding snow hardness by layer, how it correlates with the weather, how it correlates with the way its feels to ski, and how it relates to the avalanche bulletin for the day at that altitude and aspect. And probably most important, to see and respect how it changes spatially.

Basically I say to touch the snow a lot, but don't get all hung up on the various technically standardised stability tests. And so then follows the occasional look of disappointment.

There is a difference in going out to "see" and going out to "ski". As I read this thread from the perspective of my accumulated years I am struck by the the fact that I am in the middle of mounting 10 year old Look P10's on 15 y o skis to play with tomorrow without (gasp) a release test. The boys on Epic would see me as a foolish risk taker but I'm not stupid and will ease into it with no heroics planned. I look both ways even when I have the green light because I was T boned once with the right of way. I ski without a pro mount because I started on non releasable skis and still have my knees. Experience can kill or lull. That's the way it is.

Originally Posted by icelanticskier

i do things the way i do them, you do things the way you do them. i'm still alive, so are you. the goal is to keep it that way. i don't go skiing cuz i wanna study snow down to the last snowflake, i'm there to be out in nature and ski. i tour on high days in terrain that allows me to do so safely. simple.

high days are great for learning. high days are great for having places to yerself. high days usually do mean great snow for skiing.

plenty of terrain to ski on high days east and west from my experience. not the gnar but pretty fucking good skiing imo.

my digging is lots of handers along the way as well as a ton of pole probing. works for me.

have a nice day

rog

Three reasons to possibly change your mind...
1. You will probably end up skiing more terrain, not less. About 2/3 of the time when I am surprised by what I find, it's more stable than I'd imagined.
2. You don't have to study the crystals to do a quick, but valid analysis (less than 10 minutes), but if you choose to, the crystal structures are pretty cool under a loupe - another amazing aspect of nature.
3. You sound like you get out a lot. People tend to emulate people like you and it might save the life of someone who follows your example.

You too, have a nice day. Many thousands of them.

Peace.

Originally Posted by jserra17

Three reasons to possibly change your mind...
1. You will probably end up skiing more terrain, not less. About 2/3 of the time when I am surprised by what I find, it's more stable than I'd imagined.
2. You don't have to study the crystals to do a quick, but valid analysis (less than 10 minutes), but if you choose to, the crystal structures are pretty cool under a loupe - another amazing aspect of nature.
3. You sound like you get out a lot. People tend to emulate people like you and it might save the life of someone who follows your example.

You too, have a nice day. Many thousands of them.

Peace.

thanx j. good things to think about fer sure.

be safe

rog

Originally Posted by bodywhomper

the course that i took in the u.s.a. did not reward me with a certified piece of paper. it was 3 days long, the hazard ranged from moderate (uac may someday call it "moderate x") to high, we intentionally set off avalanches, mitigated vulnerability through terrain management, skied slopes greater than 35*, toured in 3 different areas, and dug a total of 1 pit.

You took a 3 day course with no cert? Who taught this?
I took a 3 dday avvy 2 from the fuac/uac but hell i can't find my cert.
Now takin a semester long snow science class 1 night of class and field day a week.
this class for pretty much the same $$$$ is like 100x the knowledge of the aiire or whatever but has no cert.
IMO the whole certified avvy course/class is totally overpriced and just a good old boys network/club speil/scam.
There are plenty of more than qualified people who can teach a thing or two but don't want to pay and jump through the certfication hoops.
I hope more programs like the u of u's become available
knowledge is knowledge and a piece of paper is just that.
Emulate ROJ?
bwwwwwwwaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

bwaaaaaaah what? that class sounds pretty good SFB. just don't ferget to show up, eh?

rog

Originally Posted by skifishbum

You took a 3 day course with no cert? Who taught this?
I took a 3 dday avvy 2 from the fuac/uac but hell i can't find my cert.
Now takin a semester long snow science class 1 night of class and field day a week.
this class for pretty much the same $$$$ is like 100x the knowledge of the aiire or whatever but has no cert.
IMO the whole certified avvy course/class is totally overpriced and just a good old boys network/club speil/scam.
There are plenty of more than qualified people who can teach a thing or two but don't want to pay and jump through the certfication hoops.
I hope more programs like the u of u's become available
knowledge is knowledge and a piece of paper is just that.

i did fuac, too. great course, imho. my understanding is that it's not done anymore, which is too bad. it didn't include a piece of paper as far as i remember, which was fine with me. i learned a lot and saw a lot. for me, that particular session focused on terrain management, identifying problem, forecasting problem, and managing problem.

the point in my post, though, was that the focus of at least some courses (or former courses) in the US are not about snow science, mucking around in pits, and stability tests, and that the course encouraged exploration on a "high" day w/ focus on terrain management. there was also an open discussion about developing our own forecast of the risk based on our own observations as some of the instructors did not fully concur with the hazard rating for one of the days.

the u of u course sounds cool. as some have pointed out in that canyons thread, it would be useful to teach an age appropriate avi coursework in public schools in mountain regions.

cheers

Interesting discussions in this thread! I would looooove to be able to teach a course that was longer than 3 or 4 days and well spread out with the ability to get students to go out and do things between class, to actually go and read relevant materials, etc.

The Breadth of Field Snow Science Observation and Application

Pits are wonderful. I'm a geek. I love them. That said, more hasty pits and hand pits are better than one data pit etc etc because you increase your sample size to combat spatial variability on both the small and large scale. How information from pits becomes useful is dependent on the skill level, experience, education, and goals of the practitioner:

I've written on this subject in Slide Zone with regard to what the recreationist with a Level 1 should be doing with pits, reasons to say no: looking to see if the pack is worse than forecasted or if some unknown danger exists plus improving their understanding of the processes at work in the snowpack.

People who are out very often who have more experience and better understanding can do the above with perhaps a little better discrimination by using more pits to form generalizations of the snowpack as it varies between elevations, aspects, angles, mountains, ranges, etc. This sort of information can allow so called "now-casting."

More experience, education, and frequent observation by the professional combined with interprofessional communication and review can allow advanced practitioners to forecast.

Obviously, my little summary here is quite anemic and leaves out many factors involved, but I thought it would break things down as I hear many voices in this thread talking about each of these levels either from the user or the instructor standpoint.

High Days

Traveling on high days can be extremely educational, however, doing so requires excellent discipline and a very skilled eye for terrain management. There are plenty of people who have been out on high days and either gotten away with it or have been surprised that what they thought was safe travel was not. That is NOT the type of surprise one wants. Often skiing is not possible on high days, at least not what the TGR crowd normally seeks to ski, but often there is something low angle if the snow cooperates (this is more true now with fatter skis that let us maintain speed and float in deep/variable low angle snow that would have stopped us dead in our tracks with 60 or 80mm waists).

I love it when an avalanche class occurs during a high day because I can see/show people things that we'd otherwise only be able to talk about. Still, I have my slopemeter out a lot more as the danger goes up because I cannot allow the margin of error that my eyes create when judging angles (and there is still a margin of error with a slope meter!) The difference between 27 and 29 can be a fatal difference some days.