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  1. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonathan S. View Post
    Since when are making solid safe terrain choices and general conservatism substitutes for carrying avy rescue gear (instead of a complement)?
    i remember being like, "huh". interesting.

    This reminds me of the variations I've had on the following conversation with various partners over the years before late-spring and early summer tours in the Sierra and PNW:

    He- "Do you think we should bring avy rescue gear?"
    Me- "Yes."
    He- "So . . . you think our route might have avy danger?"
    Me- "No."
    He- "Then why should we bring avy rescue gear?!?"
    Me- "In case I'm wrong."
    sound reasoning. i just love ditching the gear in spring on george tho.

  2. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonathan S. View Post
    He- "Do you think we should bring avy rescue gear?"
    Me- "Yes."
    He- "So . . . you think our route might have avy danger?"
    Me- "No."
    He- "Then why should we bring avy rescue gear?!?"
    Me- "In case I'm wrong."
    "In case we can't stay on our route."
    "In case we are asked to help with a rescue off our route."
    "In case of an injury and we have to bivy and conditions change."
    "In case the summit cone slides where there has only been one slide observed before."

  3. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fenris View Post
    "In case we can't stay on our route."
    if you can't stay on route, why would you have to enter avy terrain?

  4. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fenris View Post
    "In case the summit cone slides where there has only been one slide observed before."
    the area that slid is very easily avoidable and probably the most annoying area to try to ascend with all the easier/safer ways up the cone.

  5. #30
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    There was one photo that managed to make its way in to two of the presentations.

    hubris

  6. #31
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  7. #32
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    East Coast Mags: November 8 = Eastern Snow & Avalanche Workshop

    The accomplished skier thing was said by the guy with his arm in a sling. Could've sworn he mentioned that he had guiding experience. Not sure if he's certified. Either way, a bit of a strange panel. I guess I was just surprised that the people on the panel at an avalanche education event seemed to not understand such a basic concept. The moderator tried to bring it back at the end by mentioning how important it was to be searchable again.

  8. #33
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    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris

    "Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence, accomplishments or capabilities"

    Blu, I think reality is trying to get in touch with you - check ur texts
    Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Natures peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn. - John Muir

    "How long can it last? For fuck sake this isn't heroin -
    suck it up princess" - XXX on getting off mj

    “This is infinity here,” he said. “It could be infinity. We don’t really don’t know. But it could be. It has to be something — but it could be infinity, right?” - Trump, on the vastness of space, man

  9. #34
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    hubris=greek myth.

    summit cone avy:


  10. #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fenris View Post
    I've got vague outline-ish notes and audio from most of the day.

    First half of the morning
    - Intro
    - Effects of Sluffing on New Slab Development and Instabilites
    - Two Stages of Wet Snow: Basic Physics and Why We Care

    Second half
    - Mount Washington Summit Cone Avalanche: Persistant? Deep? Cold? A Near-Miss Case Study
    - Recent Advances in Understanding Avalanche Releases and Stability Tests
    - USDA-Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center - Logan

    Round Table
    - and NSP presentation

    Afternoon
    - Into the Black: Forecasting extreme avalanche conditions
    - Avalanche Bags: Do they really work? Yes (with some caveats)
    - USDA-Forest Service National Avalanche Center - Who We Are What We Do
    And thank for doing this -
    Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Natures peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn. - John Muir

    "How long can it last? For fuck sake this isn't heroin -
    suck it up princess" - XXX on getting off mj

    “This is infinity here,” he said. “It could be infinity. We don’t really don’t know. But it could be. It has to be something — but it could be infinity, right?” - Trump, on the vastness of space, man

  11. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by thewon View Post
    [...] i just love ditching the gear in spring on george tho.
    True, and that is indeed my one exception.
    After putting up with so much here during the winter and early spring, after we've had multiple weeks of Low, with no new loading anywhere, then yes, avy gear can finally be left home.
    Even this past season when we had those persistent weak layers, they finally did stop persisting.
    By contrast, I remember one video, I think from UAC, where the avy fx'er held up the facets dug out from a weak layer that caused an avy, and said something like, "these will continue to be a problem until they're coming out of your faucets."

    Quote Originally Posted by Fenris View Post
    "In case we can't stay on our route."
    "In case we are asked to help with a rescue off our route."
    "In case of an injury and we have to bivy and conditions change."
    "In case the summit cone slides where there has only been one slide observed before."
    Excellent summary, thanks!

    Quote Originally Posted by thewon View Post
    if you can't stay on route, why would you have to enter avy terrain?
    I think he meant that the original plan may have been to stay on a particular route but that due to unforeseen circumstances that route might change.

    Quote Originally Posted by thewon View Post
    the area that slid is very easily avoidable and probably the most annoying area to try to ascend with all the easier/safer ways up the cone.
    Agreed on all counts..
    In more detail, the area that slid has several factors that render it the most slide-prone of what I would distinguish as the four separate snowfields on the Eastern side of Mt W. I also think it's the least desirable ski route. (But perhaps it's the most tempting to those just booting straight up after topping out of Tux.)
    We ended up having an extended discussion of this at the classroom avy course last month as one of the students had been there at the time.
    Quite the scene beforehand, with someone even digging a pit in the middle of the slope that would soon slide.
    And quite the scene after, with chaotic attempts at search/rescue (which fortunately were not necessary).

    Quote Originally Posted by bern43 View Post
    The accomplished skier thing was said by the guy with his arm in a sling. Could've sworn he mentioned that he had guiding experience. Not sure if he's certified. Either way, a bit of a strange panel. I guess I was just surprised that the people on the panel at an avalanche education event seemed to not understand such a basic concept. The moderator tried to bring it back at the end by mentioning how important it was to be searchable again.
    That was Mark Richey:
    http://www.markrichey.com/who_we_are/mountaineering.cfm
    Certainly a skilled climber:
    http://www.markrichey.com/who_we_are...April-2012.pdf
    But I didn't see him listed anywhere here:
    http://amga.com/hire-a-guide/

    Overall, I think Dale's intro fit in perfectly with the panelists: they got to hear us say that they need to step it up with avy rescue gear, and we got to hear them confirm the current situation as summarized by Dale's #s.

    Hubris, is that something I learned in high school literature courses?
    Well, whatever it's called, when we start off with introductions at my avy courses, among the highlighted items are mistakes we've made in the backcountry. I set the tone with two case studies of mistakes that I personally have made in the backcountry.
    This also reminds of how at an AIARE instructor course, during a break one instructor was talking about how someone got caught in a slide. Then I realized he was talking about how it was his own client who was caught in a slide. At first I was amazed at this unprompted public admission of making a mistake. But the more he talked about it, the more I respected him. (I wish that same approach had been taken by the guide with the Tux avy after the Obs night.)
    Mo' skimo here: NE Rando Race Series

  12. #37
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonathan S. View Post
    True, and that is indeed my one exception.
    After putting up with so much here during the winter and early spring, after we've had multiple weeks of Low, with no new loading anywhere, then yes, avy gear can finally be left home.
    Even this past season when we had those persistent weak layers, they finally did stop persisting.
    By contrast, I remember one video, I think from UAC, where the avy fx'er held up the facets dug out from a weak layer that caused an avy, and said something like, "these will continue to be a problem until they're coming out of your faucets."



    Excellent summary, thanks!



    I think he meant that the original plan may have been to stay on a particular route but that due to unforeseen circumstances that route might change.



    Agreed on all counts..
    In more detail, the area that slid has several factors that render it the most slide-prone of what I would distinguish as the four separate snowfields on the Eastern side of Mt W. I also think it's the least desirable ski route. (But perhaps it's the most tempting to those just booting straight up after topping out of Tux.)
    We ended up having an extended discussion of this at the classroom avy course last month as one of the students had been there at the time.
    Quite the scene beforehand, with someone even digging a pit in the middle of the slope that would soon slide.
    And quite the scene after, with chaotic attempts at search/rescue (which fortunately were not necessary).


    That was Mark Richey:
    http://www.markrichey.com/who_we_are/mountaineering.cfm
    Certainly a skilled climber:
    http://www.markrichey.com/who_we_are...April-2012.pdf
    But I didn't see him listed anywhere here:
    http://amga.com/hire-a-guide/

    Overall, I think Dale's intro fit in perfectly with the panelists: they got to hear us say that they need to step it up with avy rescue gear, and we got to hear them confirm the current situation as summarized by Dale's #s.

    Hubris, is that something I learned in high school literature courses?
    Well, whatever it's called, when we start off with introductions at my avy courses, among the highlighted items are mistakes we've made in the backcountry. I set the tone with two case studies of mistakes that I personally have made in the backcountry.
    This also reminds of how at an AIARE instructor course, during a break one instructor was talking about how someone got caught in a slide. Then I realized he was talking about how it was his own client who was caught in a slide. At first I was amazed at this unprompted public admission of making a mistake. But the more he talked about it, the more I respected him. (I wish that same approach had been taken by the guide with the Tux avy after the Obs night.)
    I most certainly coulda kept my incident to myself, but considered it substantial enough, with a live to tell about it outcome, to share it with the community where it was put to good use by at least one avy instructed in his courses. No shame in sharing. No shame in doing what one does and makes a mistake, and wanting to learn from it.

    As far as that guide/client incident. Sharing that story could be bad for business

    thank you fenris for your input. And of course you as well, Jonathan.

  13. #38
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    ^ Yes, many thanks (albeit belatedly now) for being interviewed by Dave Lottmann for report on the GoS incident.
    (I'm not sure why Chris Joosen keeps using that picture at the start of each ESAW -- he just shows it in the background as he talks about other stuff. I used it in my airbag presentation while talking about trauma only to illustrate the prevalence of trees in our "above treeline" avalanche paths. If you zoom in all the way on that picture, you can even see trees at the crown, which perhaps were functioning just like the "perforation" rocks cited by the USFS report of the SE Snowfield avy.)
    Mo' skimo here: NE Rando Race Series

  14. #39
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    My pleasure.

    as far as pics of human triggered avy's go on mt washington, there can't be many to choose from. Especially those that are d2r2 and show a very fortunate skier sitting in the debris field.

    The crown line was actually below the trees near the ridge where the higher steel slab met the soft slab just below the top roll. Twas very much a different snow makeup compared to where we gained the ridge and skied our 1st laps. Bomber to climbers left. The trees that you can zoom in to are where i zipped up to to get out of the gully feature where i had triggered the slide. The trees where i stopped sit atop a much lower angle bench like feature. My chosen "safer" zone. Or so i thought. Till i looked up and swore at myself a few times as the crown propagated 150+ feet above me.

    If there was an incident on mt washington where avy airbag coulda helped, my incident woulda been pretty perfect as it was just a wide open slope with just a few bushes here and there. Or who knows, maybe a bag woulda given me much more dh momentum and i coulda gotten taken all the way down into the trees below. The reason why i didn't try to outrun the slide further to skiers left is because it was very treed below the rollover and i didn't want to get strained. Plus i had told andy before i dropped, where i would ski to if shit hit the fan. He could fully see me there from where he waited on the ridge. It all worked after some added excitement

    Shit there was a lot happening fast. Quick decisions and no panicking was paramount.

    Andy handled himself really well. A great partner as you know.
    Last edited by thewon; 11-11-2014 at 12:35 PM.

  15. #40
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    ^ Great discussion, thanks!

    So before April 25 of 2009, when all three avalanches in Tux were caught on video, only one avalanche in the Presidentials had been captured in action -- this is from March 19, 2005:






    Re trees in the crown for the GoS avy, I was focusing on the top left here -- do you think that's more just a coincidence than a factor in the initial fracture?


    Mo' skimo here: NE Rando Race Series

  16. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonathan S. View Post
    ^ Great discussion, thanks!

    So before April 25 of 2009, when all three avalanches in Tux were caught on video, only one avalanche in the Presidentials had been captured in action -- this is from March 19, 2005:






    Re trees in the crown for the GoS avy, I was focusing on the top left here -- do you think that's more just a coincidence than a factor in the initial fracture?


    i suppose it's possible, but in this case i really think coincidence. reason being is that there was no daytime heating issues at the time of the slide. trees and rocks tend to create weaknesses to point of failure when things are heating up and snow melts causing bonds to breakdown and water percolates down from those features to cause further weakening of the new snow/bed surface interface. sound reasonable? the slope failed a fair bit lookers right, like middle right of the crown line pictured, then shot across both left and right from there. i skied down from the mid crown area of the ridge and pulled the "winning" card from that brittle house of cards quite a ways down from the crown. i'll never that feeling of great snow feeling so very bad.
    Last edited by thewon; 11-11-2014 at 09:10 PM.

  17. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by bern43 View Post
    The accomplished skier thing was said by the guy with his arm in a sling. Could've sworn he mentioned that he had guiding experience. Not sure if he's certified. Either way, a bit of a strange panel. I guess I was just surprised that the people on the panel at an avalanche education event seemed to not understand such a basic concept. The moderator tried to bring it back at the end by mentioning how important it was to be searchable again.
    That was Mark Ritchie. He also said he usually doesn't bring a rope to climb Huntington. Climbers just seem to think that avalanches are far down the list of things that can kill them and usually asphyxiation isn't the cause of death. Which they do kinda have a point - however, to Dale's point, rescuers are going to come try to rescue you, and you owe it to them to be rescueable. I would have liked more discussion among the group, especially when they disagreed on things.

    Was wondering if you made it up Bern - was looking around the crowd but its hard to recognize people by their TGR name.

    The slab studies presented were the most interesting to me. They also kinda complimented the summit cone avy explanation. As Frank had shown, the facets weren't exceptional, just small facets that had been there for months. However, something changed on that day at that moment and triggered a collapse, which propagated over a wide area. I would guess that there are commonly facets on that slope, the snow never gets that deep, it has prolonged cold periods, etc. If facets are common, the pitch is 32 degrees, and it doesn't avalanche frequently, it must be the slab that keeps it in place.

    32 is the slope angle I remember Frank giving. Also, trees, rocks and other objects create weaknesses in dry avalanches too. They create facets, weaknesses in the slab, thinner slabs, etc.

    Edit - I was wrong about the 32 degrees. The steepest part measured was 37 degrees, and the bed surface below the crown was 34 degrees.
    Last edited by neufox47; 11-12-2014 at 01:16 PM.

  18. #43
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    only 32 on the slope that failed? mid-upper 30's for sure on that face. with all of the wind up high day to day, that slope and others around the cone get tamped down into mostly stable.

  19. #44
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    Quote Originally Posted by thewon View Post
    i suppose it's possible, but in this case i really think coincidence. reason being is that there was no daytime heating issues at the time of the slide. trees and rocks tend to create weaknesses to point of failure when things are heating up and snow melts causing bonds to breakdown and water percolates down from those features to cause further weakening of the new snow/bed surface interface. sound reasonable? the slope failed a fair bit lookers right, like middle right of the crown line pictured, then shot across both left and right from there. i skied down from the mid crown area of the ridge and pulled the "winning" card from that brittle house of cards quite a ways down from the crown. i'll never that feeling of great snow feeling so very bad.
    Makes sense, and thanks for the detailed analysis.
    Mo' skimo here: NE Rando Race Series

  20. #45
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    received some info regarding the summit cone avy tonight via email.

    "A friend pointed me to the TGR thread about ESAW. Just for clarification…the steepest part of the summit cone avy bed surface and slab above I measured was 37 degrees, just below and south of the apex of the crown. On the whole, the bed below the crown measured around 34 degree. That’s the number Frank referenced at ESAW. My pit down and north of the apex (~5700, 34 degrees) was dug to 1.9 meters deep, then my probe sank another 2.1m before hitting bottom. Given the underlying surfaces, I would not expect a uniform 400cm snowpack. In fact, my money is on the triggering party, being the ones hiking through the rocks on lookers left, probably punching through the slab into the rock garden less than a meter below the surface. That’s just my speculation though, after going there on Tuesday."

  21. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonathan S. View Post
    Makes sense, and thanks for the detailed analysis.
    you're most welcome. you may be spot on about those small trees that you thought may have contributed to the slope failure in my incident.

    same email:

    "Rog-rocks and trees do create weaknesses, and heating issues/percolation can contribute to natural releases (or human triggering being easier), but that’s not to say they can’t also contribute to unstable cold slabs. Looking at that picture, and how the crown runs toward the trees then jogs down through them, it looks to me like there was a minefield of weak points in those trees. The collapsing weak layer likely arrested in those trees. Imagine if they weren’t there and it was just grassy underneath. One, you might not have had an avalanche. Two, if you did, it probably would have kept propagating farther than it did."

  22. #47
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    ^ Good stuff, thanks.
    (I especially like the GoS analysis along the lines of on-the-one-hand/on-the-other-hand, which in this context is kind of damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't. Tremper has lots of that in his book, which underscores so much of the inherent uncertainty in all this.)

    Getting back to the specifics of all this, I had a three-page essay from an avy student this fall who had been in one of the two parties that was on the edge of it.
    Shortly beforehand, the scene up there was even crazier:
    "At the top of lobster claw (approximately 12:30 p.m.), we observed significant activity on the SE slope of the summit cone. What appeared to be a family on sleds, several skiers, a man on a kite board, and a man who appeared to be digging a snow pit in the exact center of the slope (confirmed with binoculars)."
    Made for quite the interesting class discussion!
    Mo' skimo here: NE Rando Race Series

  23. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonathan S. View Post
    ^ Good stuff, thanks.
    (I especially like the GoS analysis along the lines of on-the-one-hand/on-the-other-hand, which in this context is kind of damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't. Tremper has lots of that in his book, which underscores so much of the inherent uncertainty in all this.)

    Getting back to the specifics of all this, I had a three-page essay from an avy student this fall who had been in one of the two parties that was on the edge of it.
    Shortly beforehand, the scene up there was even crazier:
    "At the top of lobster claw (approximately 12:30 p.m.), we observed significant activity on the SE slope of the summit cone. What appeared to be a family on sleds, several skiers, a man on a kite board, and a man who appeared to be digging a snow pit in the exact center of the slope (confirmed with binoculars)."
    Made for quite the interesting class discussion!
    musta been quite the scene!

  24. #49
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    For anyone who might be subscribed via email to this old thread yet spending your August more productively than checking TGR constantly, here is a link to the preliminary info I just posted now for ESAW 2015:
    https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...*-Nov-6-8-2015
    Mo' skimo here: NE Rando Race Series

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