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02-13-2007, 01:28 AM #1
Avalanches=Scary, Me=Jong, Edumacation=needed, TR 2/10-2/11
So my big plans for the year included:
1.Skiing a lot
2.Take an Avy Class
3.Hook up with some of those funny maggot people I see posting on the intraweb.
4.SHRED THE GNAR
5.ride it switch to the road.
well that plan was going along all good and fine with number 1 checked and number two on the schedule for late December. Well going well untill I decided to Thread the needle in deep pow in the trees. Crash boom bang- broken wrist, plans on hold.
For good measure here is me repping the no poles steeze
So 2 months after my accidente con el arbor I had recently gotten out of the hard cast into a brace and could finally ski with poles again. So despite the lack of recent snow and with high hopes I decided to sign up for the mountain madness Avy I course. Damn all this "free" skiing in the backcountry is spensive as hell: Skins - 190 (w/tax cutting), Trekkers - 100, Beacon - Expensive as hell, probe - 40 ~ bucks, shovel ~ 40, course - 220. Luckily I was able to borrow a probe and shovel from spindrift (THANKS MAN) and had my dad buy my beacon.
How did I get my dad to pay for the most expensive part of the setup you might ask? Well it goes some thing like this:1. My dad walks in to marmot in bellvue during his lunch break to ask some questions about this backcountry skiing stuff. 2. Salesman uses the line "when your son is burried under the snow unable to breathe Im sure you'll be thinking of all the money you didnt spend. 3. My dad walks out of the store with a new Mammut beacon and an anarchist pack. Not bad, big thumbs up to which ever salesman had the balls to say that to a customer.
So on to the course which itself was a 3 day affair with a 4 hour lecture friday night in seattle then two full field days at stevens pass. The lecture was very informative and the guides(instructors) were very knowladgeable, I was pleased that I already knew a lot of what was covered in the powerpoints from my time hanging out in the slide zone. I unfortunately do not have any pics of the lecture but it was very good.
So with the lecture ending at 10:00 in ballard, driving home, then having to get all my stuff ready I made it to bed around 1:20. One of the reasons it took me so long to get ready was I couldnt decide what to take.
I had heard that the stud finder would work but I decided on the beacon just to be safe.
Field Day 1:
Do you know how little sleep I got to get here at this time? Where's my goddamn coffee
After downing a tall quad breve I was feeling a little better and the group met over by the brooks chair to get ready to skin up the cat track into the grace lakes area.
My squads all wrekkered up and ready to go
"I'm sorry, I know that as your guide I am supposed to be encouraging and all but your skins suck"
I work with this guy, he is way to happy for this time of the mornign
One of the Instructors
We did a beacon check to make sure nobody had smuggled in a studfinder. Ski patrol swung by and messed up the check with thier beacons while thier dogs confirmed that we were missing our avalanche bacon
After skinning for about 20 mins we stopped and had a talk about the snow pack. You can tell this guy is core, he cut the tails off his seths.
Going down hill with skins on and with trekkers is pretty much the scariest thing ive ever done on skis.
Beacon goes in the bag, bag goes undersnow, backcountry newbs go hunting
I partnered up with this guy. He is an ex guide, full time pnw outdoors guy. he was really good with his beacon but the shear technology difference allowed me to find mine much quicker than he did. He was a better digger/prober though....
I think he said he has had his beacon for 15 years or something
Probing drills,
Next we dug a big hole in the ground.
We learned how to cut a collum and test for stability
whack!
***Huston we have a failure at CTH21, do you copy, over***
my first look at a weak layer, pretty clean shear
"hmmm...I smell surface hoar"
Just saying the word "rutschblock" is super fun, we did not get it to slide btw and we leared that cutting with a cord is easier than cutting with a saw attatched to the end of a probe.
We then skied back. First on breakable crust then on rock hard tread marks. After returning to the base area we had another lecture and slide show.
DAY 2
This time I got five hours of sleep instead of 4.
ITS SNOWING
Getting ready at yodelin
Christin(sp?) skinning
At the top finally, my legs arent use to this skinning stuff yet.
At the top we ate talked and all the students dug a pit and did more tests on them, stability was good. We then skied this powder field.
After we skied down to a flat medow where the old chair used to be we did some multiple burial searches and then one avalanche scenario where we had to rescue buried packs and clothing.
We then skied back to the parking lot in some of the grabiest snow ever. We talked and then parted ways. I took these shots on the way home, I thought they were pretty cool.
http://media.twango.com/m1/original/...d04d6ac9a8.JPG
http://media.twango.com/m1/original/...5acb1128df.JPG
***CAUTION BIG PICS, USE SCALEABLE BROWSER***
Summary: I had a great time and I learned tons. This was one of the best experiences of my life. I learned so much about snow saftey and the backcountry it is increadable but I know that this is a continuing education thing so I hope to be able to meet up with some WA mags for some BC sometime soon! HUGE THANKS to the guides and to spindrift for letting me borrow your stuff. I am buying the exact same shovel and probe, they worked great.
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02-13-2007, 02:18 AM #2
wow what the fuck are those big green skis???
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02-13-2007, 02:24 AM #3
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02-13-2007, 02:32 AM #4Registered User
- Join Date
- Oct 2006
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- Boulder
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This thread was not at all what I expected, thankfully.
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02-13-2007, 03:33 AM #5
Yea, I took a course two weekends ago with 2-czech at Whistler, did the 3 day thing. I had alot of fun taking the course. Looks like we did all the same stuff. I bought myself a pulse this winter and am curious what you thought of it. Searching was a breeze, however I did find that on occasion (once or twice throughout the whole course and we did alot of beacon practice since the snow sucked) it did confuse which was the fastest way to follow the flux line if there was more then one beacon. Other then that it was awesome and in our group rescue practices it was funny to see everyone turn to me to quickly evaluate how many "victims" with beacons I picked up.
I definitely need to practice searching with this beacon more. While the search options weren't confusing, I'd like to get used to it enough that switching/marking/etc... require no thought and I understand it thoroughly.
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02-13-2007, 03:41 AM #6
yeah, saw the title and thought "oh shit." glad to see it wasn't the case.
I did my Avie 1 at Stevens Pass too, but it was in that horrible 04-05 season. Took us awhile to find snow deep enough to dig a pit, but we finally did. overall a pretty fun day. Glad to see you getting edumacated. Now back to homework....Seriously, this can’t turn into yet another ON3P thread....
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02-13-2007, 06:18 AM #7
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02-13-2007, 06:52 AM #8
Way to get your learn on kid. Good TR.
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02-13-2007, 08:24 AM #9
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02-13-2007, 08:32 AM #10
Nice.
Fighting leads to killing, and killing gets to warring. And that was damn near the death of us all.
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02-13-2007, 09:05 AM #11
Your TR was painfully short on info about Kristin
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02-13-2007, 09:31 AM #12
I stopped viewing this TR after seeing this pic. This is all I needed!
Another TR just with pictures of your skis is needed again."Can't vouch for him, though he seems normal via email."
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02-13-2007, 09:32 AM #13
Thanks for the preview of what I will be doing next season!
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02-13-2007, 09:39 AM #14
Money = Well spent!
Nice TR dude.
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02-13-2007, 09:50 AM #15Your mom says hello
- Join Date
- May 2006
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- Trying hard to stay in the present moment
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Nice TR.
Second the motion for more info on Kristin, please include nekked pics.Try to keep two ideas in your head at the same time without blowing your brains out your ass.
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02-13-2007, 10:15 AM #16I call bullshit
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
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- Bay area, cali
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This thread was not at all what I expected, thankfully.
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02-13-2007, 11:16 AM #17
you guys are retarded. But I guess thats to be expected. Kristen (I'm pretty sure thats her name, might be christine) was there as a photographer for mountain madness. She tagged along with the class but took pictures the entire time. She is working in seattle as a professional photog so if you want to hit that up go look for where she works, i think she has a bf though.
She is on the far right.
But back on to the subject of avys, does anybody mind taking me along for some backcountry excursions. I have the worlds heaviest setup but am young dont know any better and have stupid amounts of energy. I'll break trail.Last edited by Phill; 02-13-2007 at 11:59 AM.
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02-13-2007, 11:48 AM #18
One of your guides was Matt Schonwald...great guy and incredible guide. Led Kit Deslauriers (recently became the first woman to ski Everest) up the Mt. Vinson Massif last year...the guy knows his stuff. He lives in La Grave for the better part of the winter, must be headed over soon.
He's your guide with the squinty eyes."I'm on the High-T and all I need is a little gravity to bring me back...back to the fringe"
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02-13-2007, 11:58 AM #19
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02-13-2007, 12:02 PM #20
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02-13-2007, 12:17 PM #21The trumpet scatters its awful sound Over the graves of all lands Summoning all before the throne
Death and mankind shall be stunned When Nature arises To give account before the Judge
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02-13-2007, 01:05 PM #22
She works for Mountain Madness? Your mission, should you choose to accept it or not, is to find out more information for me! hehehehe
backcountry makes my wee wee tingle...
"What was once a mighty river. Now a ghost." Edward Abbey
My Adventures
"Feeling good is good enough."
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02-13-2007, 01:39 PM #23
nice Philllllllll... I have to say I laughed at the studfinder pic! That is one way to save some $$$ - might have gotten nabbed at the beacon test linup though!
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02-13-2007, 04:52 PM #24
Do you know akpm?
This space was moderated.
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02-14-2007, 11:25 AM #25
Nice TR. I was in that class with you. I was the guy that was asking you about your skiis at the end of day 2.
Totally agree, the guys from Mtn Madness were great. Smart, no attitude, eager to teach. I thoroughly recommend them for anyone else out there looking for a Level 1 avy class in the PNW.
Send me a PM if you ever want to go hit it in the Alpental area. Unfortunately, this forecast sucks right now but fingers crossed for another big dump before spring comes.
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