Forecasts, radios, b/c and a couple slides
This post is kind of a mess, bear with me.
Yesterday was an interesting one. Four of us set out to ski one of two peaks in a basin near the Climax mine. We were gonna arrive and scope out what looked best, then give 'er. As we were standing at the base of our eventual selection (the other peak didn't go) we had our sweet line scoped and all, were gearing up to continue and then witnessed a natural that ran right across our ascent path. Doh. Well, they teach you not to ignore "obvious signs", so we heavily discussed further, then opted to go literally to plan C, a much shorter line that we were going to tack on to the end on our way out to the car. Way, way less vert but at least something for our effort. Bummer, but felt good turning around. You know how it feels though, constant second guessing and disappointment balanced with "we did the right thing".
Ironically, the CAIC forecast yesterday was overall favorable, but it was a good lesson in that it's a large, large average of every terrain in a zone. The wind was moving pretty quick though, and it certainly felt much more winter-like than spring.
As we entered the next basin over towards our consolation line we could see two skiers across the basin, ascending to a largely cornice-guarded ridge (there were a couple breaks). We couldn't figure out what their line would be, but they were too far away to talk to...much less report what we had seen. Now, the skies had also clouded up considerably. We were glad we didn't get up on the summit now, on top of the now howling wind up there, so we in essence thanked the slide we saw for that and felt even better about our decision.
As we got close, we changed over to spikes and started booting up. The skiers we saw did the same and got up their side of the basin, on the high ridge and disappeared from view. While we were changing over to ski, we started discussing that we should start carrying radios, why don't we, etc. Anyway, we skied out a short chute in some pretty nice mid-April powder honestly, followed by a long, low angle slog to the cars. Only a couple short minutes after we arrived the other two skiers arrived, and we walked over to see how their day was. They ended up skiing a steep chute off the summit of the same peak, and unfortunately one skier broke off a slab and slid quite a ways. He was fine....phew. Only lost his poles. Could have been way worse. They seemed shaken up a bit, but very open to discuss. Very nice guys, and "owning up" (we saw this morning that they reported their incident). They mentioned that when they saw us they were wondering the same, "Where are they going?" and "Why...do they know something we don't?", as we were coming from an odd approach direction considering our line. We said goodbye, and then last second the skier who slid ran over to ask me if we skied with radios. I told him we didn't, but had just been discussing that. He said they wondered, and mentioned that most come set to a common frequency. We would have loved to tell them what we saw, and it felt like he was saying they wished they could have got the beta we had about the slide that turned us back.
So now I'm gonna up my game and dig my radios out. It feels like the b/c radio game is slowly getting more popular. Hopefully it really catches on and becomes standard enough practice that common channels are understood and utilized.
Anyway, although we didn't ski anything big in retrospect it was one of the best b/c days I can think of for a lot of other reasons. Finally, glad that other party wasn't hurt. Lots to process here; avy forecasts, decisions, radio/gear and all that. One of the better tasting beers I've had at the car after all said and done though.
Anyone have any radio contact stories in situations like this they can share? What should be protocol (other than don't be a jackass, LOL)? Channels used?