TOP SNOWFALL

powdork · #**3651** 02-28-2010, 12:12 AM

big ups to ma nature today for providing the the excellent conditions and lighting (sometimes). thx ma

tahoetrash might have a few pics too.
the video is here

If at first you don\\\'t succeed, keep not succeeding (POV) - Teton Gravity Research Forums

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SchralphMacchio · #**3652** 02-28-2010, 02:14 PM

Spats and mcski, thanks for the advice. Moving the bike discussion to this thread:

Bike accident question - Teton Gravity Research Forums

JRock, if you can figure out how to post those pics, I'd like to see em. You can always email them to yourself from the phone and then upload to TGR from there.

JrockSF · #**3653** 02-28-2010, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SchralphMacchio

Spats and mcski, thanks for the advice. Moving the bike discussion to this thread:
Bike accident question - Teton Gravity Research Forums

JRock, if you can figure out how to post those pics, I'd like to see em. You can always email them to yourself from the phone and then upload to TGR from there.

schralp,

all I has is my phone for the innerwebz.

Shoot me an email and I'll reply with the pic.

Jrocksf35atyahoodotcom

ja_surf · #**3654** 02-28-2010, 04:10 PM

Just talked to my buddy next door, they skied Ralston today. They set off an Avy that ripped at least 100 yards wide and like 3 feet deep in the bowl above the lake. The guy who triggered it was ripping at mach 10 on Spatula's and hit the lake so hard his knees jammed right into his face. Left a big debree field on the lake, he was one lucky dude. The whole thing was filmed, can't wait to check it out.

kidwoo · #**3655** 02-28-2010, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ja_surf

Just talked to my buddy next door, they skied Ralston today. They set off an Avy that ripped at least 100 yards wide and like 3 feet deep in the bowl above the lake. The guy who triggered it was ripping at mach 10 on Spatula's and hit the lake so hard his knees jammed right into his face. Left a big debree field on the lake, he was one lucky dude. The whole thing was filmed, can't wait to check it out.

Open bowls were not the place to be after 10am today.

Glad he's relatively all right.

LightRanger · #**3656** 02-28-2010, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ja_surf

Just talked to my buddy next door, they skied Ralston today. They set off an Avy that ripped at least 100 yards wide and like 3 feet deep in the bowl above the lake. The guy who triggered it was ripping at mach 10 on Spatula's and hit the lake so hard his knees jammed right into his face. Left a big debree field on the lake, he was one lucky dude. The whole thing was filmed, can't wait to check it out.

Any way it could get posted in here? I'd be interested to see it, and I'm sure others would as well.

ja_surf · #**3657** 02-28-2010, 04:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kidwoo

Open bowls were not the place to be after 10am today.

Glad he's relatively all right.

This was early, they skinned up Ralston in the Dark and were on top at daybreak.

Sure the video will be posted up within a few days somewhere.

kidwoo · #**3658** 02-28-2010, 05:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ja_surf

This was early, they skinned up Ralston in the Dark and were on top at daybreak.

Sure the video will be posted up within a few days somewhere.

Dayum. We called it quits around 9:30 and thought we were being good.

BGnight · #**3659** 02-28-2010, 05:42 PM

Hmmm, makes me rethink doing b.c. tomorrow.

First person on Estelle this morning in the fog w/ sun on top. Drop in and botch my line. Hit a rock, get sent sideways on my board then the whole thing sloughs on me and starts carrying me down blind toeside. Finally recover and was able to do some slough jibbing on the way down. I don't know why I always like to try riding moving snow. Probably not smart. But anyway, it woke me up. I'd take the SAC advisory w/ a grain of caution.
This new heavy snow seems to like moving still.

Here's a nice little incident yesterday on Echo:
http://www.sierraavalanchecenter.org/node/504

frorider · #**3660** 02-28-2010, 06:03 PM

the cold temps last night up high dried out the snow a bit. as good as kirkwood was yesterday, we got better quality powder just south of town today. found no instability issues. some highly backlit shots:

BGnight · #**3661** 02-28-2010, 07:41 PM

Anyone down for Tallac tomorrow? Can't seem to find a partner.....well, I'm going anyway, but if anyone wants to go.....

or if anyone wants to let me tag along on their adventure shoot me a PM.
(I'll film you w/ my gopro!)

Dhelihiker · #**3662** 02-28-2010, 09:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ja_surf

Just talked to my buddy next door, they skied Ralston today. They set off an Avy that ripped at least 100 yards wide and like 3 feet deep in the bowl above the lake. The guy who triggered it was ripping at mach 10 on Spatula's and hit the lake so hard his knees jammed right into his face. Left a big debree field on the lake, he was one lucky dude. The whole thing was filmed, can't wait to check it out.

Wow, I always wondered if an avy would break he ice of a lake and cause a huge ice/water tsunami destroying nearby villages.

I guess not

Seriously though, Im glad everything worked out. Sounds scary

SchralphMacchio · #**3663** 02-28-2010, 11:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ja_surf

Just talked to my buddy next door, they skied Ralston today. They set off an Avy that ripped at least 100 yards wide and like 3 feet deep in the bowl above the lake. The guy who triggered it was ripping at mach 10 on Spatula's and hit the lake so hard his knees jammed right into his face. Left a big debree field on the lake, he was one lucky dude. The whole thing was filmed, can't wait to check it out.

The one you are describing sounds a bit undersold, if it's this one:

Photo is by David Reichel and here is his writeup and photos on sb.com after coming onto the scene shortly after the incident. Please have a look, that's some serious business.
http://splitboard.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=61654#p61654

EDIT: okay here are more obs on the SAC site
http://www.sierraavalanchecenter.org/node/513

Gonna be a good writeup tomorrow I'm sure. Glad your buddy got lucky! Going through something like that would convert me to believing in Jesus, or Zeus or whatever.

powdork · #**3664** 02-28-2010, 11:42 PM

wow

skier666 · #**3665** 02-28-2010, 11:44 PM

More avalanche news.....

Thunderbowl at Kirkwood...we noticed this as we headed out to the Spur at around 10am. I'm pretty sure it was natural as the day before should have avoided traffic due to gates being closed due to the storm.

wow.

SchralphMacchio · #**3666** 02-28-2010, 11:50 PM

Thanks for posting those 6er, glad no one got hurt anywhere. This is a good free lesson in perking up my antenna around rapid windslab heating.

powdork · #**3667** 03-01-2010, 12:07 AM

damn. that chute right center was much more filled in in previous weeks and the air at the bottom looked pretty straightforward.

now i think i'm gonna skip it.

213 · #**3668** 03-01-2010, 01:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BGnight

I'd take the SAC advisory w/ a grain of caution.
]

While I fully support their mission, to be quite frank, their advisories and the philosophy behind them scare me...but this is a debate for beers and closed doors. Long story short, follow BG's lead and bump up the safety meter!

Study the photos posted on their site, an glean sum mothaphukin knowledge!

(Most notably, the presence of high spatial variability within the snowpack.)

See the trigger point? Shallow weakness that propagates along the general instability. Convexity acts in this case as bonus gasoline to further get shit to pop. Now add the (yes, simplified) physics of high speeds->lots of acceleration in a turn->lots of force applied to the snowpack. F=ma. In a turn, v^2/Rt, a=dv/dt . Make v large for constant Rt, dv/dt will become large (2*v) which will boost your acceleration term because m is constant.

Thus forces get quite large.

Another key item, the past few storms have had a lot of convective forcing, hence the graupel. Watch the radar during storms NOT ONLY for where is gittin da kine chronic, but for cellular or banded structures. This means either blobs of yellows/oranges or long thin bands of dark dark greens/yellows, which means convection is kickin into gear and you are getting high rates of precip in highly variable areas that is can be independent of terrain as well as producing rimed snow (aka graupel!) which acts as a wonderful generator of instability...(think ball bearings)

...ESPECIALLY on the hard bed surface which was established prior to the precip event. SNOTEL at Echo Summit (elev 7600ish) was reading up to 40F on the 26th (so going 1000ft moist adiabatically gives us about 37F at avalanche elevation, probably a few degrees cooler given N aspect and from site pic looks like Echo is on south side of peak) so the slide area probably had a high of at least a few degrees above freezing to create the pencil hard layer that the graupel landed on, did not adhere to, then got buried as more snow fell.

Moderate? You be the judge.

But it is your life or that of your friends.

Knowledge is power.

powdork · #**3669** 03-01-2010, 01:35 AM

plus, the home page simply stated moderate, but the advisory was low, with pockets of moderate.

speaking of watching the radar, i've been thinking about a project that uses a cron to grab each radar image as it comes out and then make them available as a loop to look back on at any later date. if you remember back when we were all worried about the Oct. 19 layer; that storm didn't hit everywhere and it would have been very useful to be able to look back and see where it did hit.

gimpy · #**3670** 03-01-2010, 01:36 AM

damn, for a jersey reppin gnarslaying gangster u sure seem to sound pretty edumacated

before leaving town for a few days i ended up going out for a lap w/ the entire bc population of s lake atop luther. skiing was great and it seems erring on the side of caution was the proper move. was kinda bumming i was gonna miss out on the bluebird sunday after the storm but i prolly woulda been somewhere i shouldnt have been as well. yikes!!!! def a wakeup call for our complacency as its been almost exactly a year since i last had one.

powdork · #**3671** 03-01-2010, 01:40 AM

^^^
does this mean you have a computer again?

gimpy · #**3672** 03-01-2010, 01:47 AM

nope. outta town using the wifeys. if i have to call a t and fucking t again i'm really gonna pull the trigger this time.

powdork · #**3673** 03-01-2010, 02:13 AM

on the last pic of the ralston avie on the sac site, you can see the very top of the crown exactly reaches his traverse track. makes me wonder if it all cracked when he passed there and then released when he got shallow near the rocks.