Berthoud Pass 2012-2013 Observations, Conditions and Stoke

[Foggy_Goggles]

4hrs. from the choke of Rush? WTF? What were her injuries?

[georgio]

I'm hesitant to say this because I'm not 100% positive that she's completely fine, but her friends indicated she was okay. Sounds like it was just fear of triggering anything else or sliding the rest of the way through. I saw the crown a little before 1, not sure how long before that it had slid. Got over and made contact with her at 1:20ish. And SAR extracted her a little before 4:30.

Part of the issue is that if anything else came down on her she would have gotten swept off the cliff. And it was well over an hour between when I called it in and SAR mobilized to start the recovery.

[garuda]

While driving over the pass this afternoon, I saw a lone track down Russell and large slide that appeared to be triggered by the skier. Any info on that?

[georgio]

Two things:

1) Some group was running an avy class on the west side today. They decided it would be an awesome idea to hang out a few feet above the crown of a very recent slide. From below we were yelling at them to get the fuck out of there and that there was a woman stuck on the cliff. To which they replied "chill" and told us they were an avalanche class. Which I guess either means, they are impervious to setting off hangfire, or they are raging douchebags ... I lean towards the later. They hung out up there for almost an hour, even as emergency vehicles piled up in the parking lot. It took explicit instructions from SAR before they would move. If they triggered something, even small, there is no doubt in my mind it would have washed that woman off the cliff, and a decent chance of her not surviving that fall.

2) Out of a completely full parking lot everyone was too busy chatting about how cool the avalanche was to maybe think that the ski tracks running directly into the fracture line, directly above a cliff, in plain sight from the parking lot, might not come out the other side. In fact there was no other side for them to come out, neither Rush nor Nitro are even close to being in yet so there really was no happy option for where those tracks went. I didn't realize there had even been a slide until probably 10 minutes later when I put together what everyone was talking about and took a look. At that point I asked around if anyone had gone over there to look if there was anyone caught and everyone looked at me like I was the retard. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This is disgusting, and makes me afraid to/not want to ski Berthoud. How about just using a minuscule amount of common sense when someones life is potentially in the balance.

[SterlingSpikeDancer]

Two things:

1) Some group was running an avy class on the west side today. They decided it would be an awesome idea to hang out a few feet above the crown of a very recent slide. From below we were yelling at them to get the fuck out of there and that there was a woman stuck on the cliff. To which they replied "chill" and told us they were an avalanche class. Which I guess either means, they are impervious to setting off hangfire, or they are raging douchebags ... I lean towards the later. They hung out up there for almost an hour, even as emergency vehicles piled up in the parking lot. It took explicit instructions from SAR before they would move. If they triggered something, even small, there is no doubt in my mind it would have washed that woman off the cliff, and a decent chance of her not surviving that fall.

2) Out of a completely full parking lot everyone was too busy chatting about how cool the avalanche was to maybe think that the ski tracks running directly into the fracture line, directly above a cliff, in plain sight from the parking lot, might not come out the other side. In fact there was no other side for them to come out, neither Rush nor Nitro are even close to being in yet so there really was no happy option for where those tracks went. I didn't realize there had even been a slide until probably 10 minutes later when I put together what everyone was talking about and took a look. At that point I asked around if anyone had gone over there to look if there was anyone caught and everyone looked at me like I was the retard. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This is disgusting, and makes me afraid to/not want to ski Berthoud. How about just using a minuscule amount of common sense when someones life is potentially in the balance.

I've skied up there twice in my life, as an ignorant youngster, but have been driving over to WP for 21 years now. On behalf of all of the skiers on here with a soul,

THANK YOU for acting appropriately. Well played.

[FiveLarge]

Right on, Georgio. Way to be heads-up about the situation.

Definitely lots of idiots up there - and any easily accessed backcountry. I appreciate what FOBP does to help with all the easy access education they do.

Saw lots of reports of stuff moving today in Clear Creek/Summit/Eagle/Grand counties.

[fastfroggy]

Two things:

1) Some group was running an avy class on the west side today. They decided it would be an awesome idea to hang out a few feet above the crown of a very recent slide. From below we were yelling at them to get the fuck out of there and that there was a woman stuck on the cliff. To which they replied "chill" and told us they were an avalanche class. Which I guess either means, they are impervious to setting off hangfire, or they are raging douchebags ... I lean towards the later. They hung out up there for almost an hour, even as emergency vehicles piled up in the parking lot. It took explicit instructions from SAR before they would move. If they triggered something, even small, there is no doubt in my mind it would have washed that woman off the cliff, and a decent chance of her not surviving that fall..

wonder if those were the guys hanging above the slope...https://avalanche.state.co.us/obs/avi_report.php

[FiveLarge]

wonder if those were the guys hanging above the slope...https://avalanche.state.co.us/obs/avi_report.php

I'd like to think Markus/Alpine World Ascents would be smarter than that...but I don't know.

[Pinner]

Lots of emotional responses to yesterday's incident. In the backcountry, just as in real life, decisions driven by emotion rarely end well. Let's try to keep this respectful and learn something constructive together.

Sounds like the rider stuck in Rush chute was shaken up pretty badly by the experience. I can only imagine how scared and cold she must have been waiting for help to arrive. Curious: where were her partners?

At the same time, the Level 1 avy course was learning all they could about backcountry safety and took advantage of a great teaching opportunity to examine a fresh crown that they'd just witnessed from afar. I know from experience that we can learn a lot from poking around debris and looking at fresh crowns. The party in question was lead by Alpine World Ascents who know what they're doing. They are CAIC observers and they know the terrain and conditions at the Pass like few others. Those guys do as much or more for avalanche education on the Front Range than anyone. AWA guides have probably 100 combined years of experience and I trust their ability to make safe assessments for their clients.

Are there lots of idiots up at Berthoud Pass? You bet there are. And this is likely to continue, I'm afraid. But if we each take what we know, remember that there's just as much that we DON'T know, and approach the problem collectively, we stand a much greater chance of doing something constructive and useful up there. How do I know this? Because over the years that FOBP has been learning and teaching up there, things have really gotten better because of people coming together. It's still a shit show up there sometimes. But it's not the killing field that it could be.

If you have any ideas on how to keep people from continually fucking themselves up in Rush Chute, I'm all ears.

I'm glad yesterday at the Pass ended with a happy outcome. In the San Juans things didn't end so well. Condolences to the friends and family.

Stay safe out there.

[BFD]

Lots of damage control going on here. been wasting the morning here so caught the whole thing.
I hate the term hangfire. Most people using it really cannot recognize it.
However the response by the observer was one of the most unprofessional I have ever read. My take was a 21 year old kid teaching his first class. I would really question how much that instructor contributes to their 100 years of experience.
Too bad someone got to the poster from Boulder this thread could have been HOF material.
edited it for you.

[Pinner]

could of been

could have been

[SterlingSpikeDancer]

Lots of emotional responses to yesterday's incident. In the backcountry, just as in real life, decisions driven by emotion rarely end well. Let's try to keep this respectful and learn something constructive together.

Sounds like the rider stuck in Rush chute was shaken up pretty badly by the experience. I can only imagine how scared and cold she must have been waiting for help to arrive. Curious: where were her partners?

At the same time, the Level 1 avy course was learning all they could about backcountry safety and took advantage of a great teaching opportunity to examine a fresh crown that they'd just witnessed from afar. I know from experience that we can learn a lot from poking around debris and looking at fresh crowns. The party in question was lead by Alpine World Ascents who know what they're doing. They are CAIC observers and they know the terrain and conditions at the Pass like few others. Those guys do as much or more for avalanche education on the Front Range than anyone. AWA guides have probably 100 combined years of experience and I trust their ability to make safe assessments for their clients.

Are there lots of idiots up at Berthoud Pass? You bet there are. And this is likely to continue, I'm afraid. But if we each take what we know, remember that there's just as much that we DON'T know, and approach the problem collectively, we stand a much greater chance of doing something constructive and useful up there. How do I know this? Because over the years that FOBP has been learning and teaching up there, things have really gotten better because of people coming together. It's still a shit show up there sometimes. But it's not the killing field that it could be.

If you have any ideas on how to keep people from continually fucking themselves up in Rush Chute, I'm all ears.

I'm glad yesterday at the Pass ended with a happy outcome. In the San Juans things didn't end so well. Condolences to the friends and family.

Stay safe out there.

So a couple of things. Just because they are experienced, as a group of teachers, means that they couldn't set of any small amount of additional snow into the scene of an active rescue? I realize that it was a valuable learning opportunity, but was it really a smart decision? Did they KNOW that there was someone stuck below them in the chute, with possible consequences of even small amounts of sluff heading down?

From my computer, the described situation seems like there were some dangerous decisions made (by many parties) that, luckily, didn't have grave consequences. I ask the above questions just as a means to initiate learning for some of us here, going forward, not to start a flame war or shit show or even armchair QB. I am curious about the group decision making that occurred and what everyone thinks about that type of thing going forward.

[Pinner]

If they thought that they might send any amount of snow onto an active rescue scene I really don't imagine they would have been there. But that's just my opinion.

I'm sure we'll hear plenty more opinions here in a minute. :-)

[BFD]

In the recently removed post by the observer. It was stated that they did not know someone was on the slope.

[blytha89]

Saw a lot of police cars, an ambulance, and some SAR trucks pulling snowmobiles going up. Haven't heard what happened.

[SkeezeBall]

Saw a lot of police cars, an ambulance, and some SAR trucks pulling snowmobiles going up. Haven't heard what happened.

Ditto, curious as well

[Pinner]

http://www.9news.com/news/local/arti...Pass-avalanche


EDIT: heard SAR is standing down. Confirmation pending.

[BraddA]

Some remarkable decision-making going on up there the last two days. Glad to hear the lady from yesterday's frontside incident is okay.
Anyone have any info on the No Name & Russel slides triggered yesterday/early this a.m? We were on the bench @ 8:15, saw nothing, so assumed both were results of yesterday's shit-show.That someone would jump out onto Russel right now is mind-boggling.

Also saw SAR up there today. Asked an alpine rescue team-member pulling up as we were leaving if he had anything he could share. He was pretty cryptic, which is to be expected, but he also seemed confused. He said he couldn't confirm slide or injury, just that he'd received the call. Folks in the lot claimed someone else ventured out onto No Name, and that it slid again, but we couldn't see any evidence of that.
Hoping for a positive outcome for all.

Plenty of fun, conservative lines to be had, though it got pretty warm pretty quick.

Edit: Thanks Pinner, though I think 9 got their east and west confused.

[Pinner]

Anyone have any info on the No Name & Russel slides triggered yesterday/early this a.m?

https://avalanche.state.co.us/obs/ob...p?obs_id=17095
(to expand the full obs report, click on the "+" sign to the left of the date, just above "Media")

[BraddA]

Ahhh. Thank you.

[ropeless420]

However the response by the observer was one of the most unprofessional I have ever read. My take was a 21 year old kid teaching his first class. I would really question how much that instructor contributes to their 100 years of experience.
Too bad someone got to the poster from Boulder this thread could have been HOF material.

SIGNED.

LOL at the 95% comment...

[georgio]

Lots of emotional responses to yesterday's incident. In the backcountry, just as in real life, decisions driven by emotion rarely end well. Let's try to keep this respectful and learn something constructive together.

Sounds like the rider stuck in Rush chute was shaken up pretty badly by the experience. I can only imagine how scared and cold she must have been waiting for help to arrive. Curious: where were her partners?

At the same time, the Level 1 avy course was learning all they could about backcountry safety and took advantage of a great teaching opportunity to examine a fresh crown that they'd just witnessed from afar. I know from experience that we can learn a lot from poking around debris and looking at fresh crowns. The party in question was lead by Alpine World Ascents who know what they're doing. They are CAIC observers and they know the terrain and conditions at the Pass like few others. Those guys do as much or more for avalanche education on the Front Range than anyone. AWA guides have probably 100 combined years of experience and I trust their ability to make safe assessments for their clients.

I tried to chill for a few hours after I got home before I wrote anything inflammatory ... but it was a pretty frustrating afternoon. I really don't believe AWA had any idea that someone was stuck in Rush. I don't know what else we possibly could have done to convey that. I was thinking about skinning up to tell them, but I wanted to stay below to be on site in case this woman fell the rest of the way down. Towards the end of the rescue the main thing she was saying was that she was cold and she was starting to seem more and more panicked, but she was up there for 3+ hours so both of those reactions make sense.

In regards to the possibility of hangfire, that is part of why it took SAR so long to get to her, and as they were ascending back up the rope over towards lift gully a reasonably large chunk of snow released. Much much more than it would have taken to knock her off her perch. So I don't think we need to speculate about if there was a risk of more snow coming down. There was, without question, it happend.

In regards to her partners, I don't know where they were at the time, she was skiing by herself (edit: apparently they had established a plan for her to exclusively ski some of the mellower lines while the rest of her group got out a little farther, and then she got mixed up as to where she was and ended up taking a seriously wrong turn towards Rush) Also, when I first got in communication with her, the first question she asked me was if I could get her snowboard out of the debris.

[Danno]

http://www.9news.com/news/local/arti...Pass-avalanche


EDIT: heard SAR is standing down. Confirmation pending.

That link didn't work. I saw a heli too, about 1pm. I assumed heli meant serious injury, not "possible" lost people.

[georgio]

Lots of damage control going on here. been wasting the morning here so caught the whole thing.

Was out skiing today so I missed whatever went on, someone want to give a synopsis? Did someone from AWA chime in? Was there any opinion given about anything we should have done differently from below to clear up the situation? I like to think I have a decent amount of avy experience and knowledge but if we did anything stupid I'd like to be aware of it...

[fastfroggy]

bc-observer posted this at some point but seems to have since deleted the post


TO ALL THESE QUICK-TO-JUDGE BABBLERS: Before you start taking big words in your mouth, try to engage your brain (provided you have one). Your squabble is laughable and shows one thing: you don't know shit and follow your urgent need to to make yourself feel better and smarter than you ever can be.....

FACT 1) The slope triggered by the snowboarder slid at 95% of the start zone. The slopes to the left and right have recently slid and not refilled. Therefore, there was absolutely no danger for anyone standing on top to drop more snow on the person below. FACT 2) The approach to the crown line was on terrain in the low 20 degree. Our group gathered atop a small group of trees located at the crown, from where we stepped onto the bed surface. No hangfire at the crown. The sliding layer was the basal facets on the ground. Again, impossible for any snow to avalanche on people below us. FACT 3) As we approached the slope from the top, we could not see or hear the victim (later I heard she was somewhere at/below a group of bigger trees at the cliff's edge). We did hear and see a person down at the bottom of the debris shouting and gesturing - probably one of the dudes spewing obscenities and displaying his ill-knowledge on this thread? If we would have noticed the victim, we certainly would have helped the person in any way necessary. FACT 5) As we noticed people from the bottom and soon after the rescue teams showing up on the scene, it was unnecessary for us to descend (around the cliff, which would have taken us quite some time) to join the group. In fact, too many people are a detriment to any rescue effort, especially since the pros were getting organized to do their job. Instead, we elected to - safely - take advantage of this unique learning opportunity and look at the crown and analyze the events in the name of reducing avy accidents. Time better spent than gaping and bad mouthing like some on this forum apparently prefer. FACT 6) My frequent observations to the CAIC are volunteer contributions to help make the bc a safer place. Being aware of this knucklehead, ill-educated, arrogant group of yappers, it does make me wonder why I possibly would want to bother sharing my knowledge while risking my good reputation being torpedoed by this bunch. Honestly, get a friggin life!

So, if you can watch your mouth and actually produce some intelligence comments with substance and facts, then you actually get my respect and my time to enter a dialogue.
***************