most memorable avy

[Theodore]

I was watching a show about women climbers on K2 and they followed Aracelli Segarra on the expedition. I think it was on the Nat. Geog. channel. Anywho, they have some footage of a HUGE avy. The scale of the whole thing blew my mind.

[AltaPowderDaze]

keep em in mind.

[JR]

I got to stand part way down the face on a ridge that runs off Mt Roberts at Red Mountain in the early 80's when they blasted the cornice and it roared past us on two sides full boar. The air and powder blast were unbelievable. It gave me a lot of respect for the power and speed of an avalanche. It was like having a hellish freight train pass you on both sides. Turned me into a really careful chickenshit, but I'm still alive...........

Getting buried as test carcass for a dog search practice when I was 14 also had a lasting effect on me.

[BFD]

have some time on my hands so here goes. First let me say I have been in a few avalanches and my first thoughts each time was how stupid am I nothing cool about it. Climbing west face of deborah in Alaska Range in May. Dug a snow cave below the bergshrund at what seemed to be a safe distance from the face. Anyway that night it started dumping and the face started shedding into the bergshrund and the seracs at the bottom of the face. Anyway about four in the morning I hear the woompf and came out of my sleeping bag punching for the roof of the cave at the same time as the cave collapsed around us. I was standing with my arms up above my head about1.5 ft from daylight my partner was pinned in his bag directly below me. Had to piss wicked and all he kept saying was don't piss anyway he was stuck in his bag so he didn't have much say in that matter. Luckily his ice ax was next to him. He was able to get it to me and I was able to poke a hole. Than I realized we were going to make it. In order to get out I had to dig the snow in and onto my partner. As soon as I got out of the cave I wished I was back inside. Was in a blizzard with only my socks on my feet. Luckily I sleep with gloves next to my chest so I had some gloves to put on to begin digging my partner out by hand. A volkswagon size piece of serac was sitting almost on top of our cave. Afterwhile he was able to get out of his sleeping bag and began to find things like our shovels and than we began digging for the rest of our stuff. Now I always make sure my shovel and iceax is within reach when sleeping in the snow cave. As a prologue we moved a little and dug another cave spent another night waiting on the weather than decided to start climbing. So we start up on the face wind around a couple of seracs and I get above them onto the face. I look over and the serac I just passed has a crack behind it. I yell for him to run and he does and the thing rolls on by missing him. We than decided enough was enough and got out of there. Lesson learned was camp far away from collection zones at the base of big faces. And in areas of greater snowfall the face doesn't have to be as big. On Saint Elias we cached skies at bergshrund than crossed and climbed about 100ft vertical to ridge. On return after huge snowfall we couldn't even recognize the place one wand was left and it was sticking out of a place we couldn't remember putting it.

[MOHSHSIHd]

was skiing loveland pass mid-may last year, really warm day...maybe 2pm...

we were staying away from anything that would slide cuase we knew something was bound to go that day....


we do a run and ride up in a truck bed with two snowboarders....we got to talking about what runs we were all doing and the two boarders look over to the south side and point to a nice looking strech about 35 degrees or so on a western facing aspect.....gettin beat by bluebird sun all day....

i say "Hey guys, i wouldnt ride that if i were you, it will probably slide"

and they look at eachother, laugh, and jump out of the truck and head towards the line theyt pointed out...


at the bottom of the next run we look up and see the two guys riding in what was probably the WORST spot to be.....a second later the second rider starts a small wet slide and straighlines out of it.....barely made it out...

was only about 15 feet wide and 4-6 inches deep, ran about 50-70 feet...

they thought it was funny...but a wet spring slide that size can easily kill you...

[hucksquaw]

the one that took the life of two buddies of mine. they dropped in behind KT at squaw to get home in the alpine valley, theyd done it before but theres no avy control back there. i was on the mountain and heard they were missing when i got into the race team locker room at the end of the day. the next day they found the slide. that day we lost two badass skiers, potential u.s. ski team hopefulls, and more importantly two awesome guys.

R.I.P. Brendan and Brian. hope the skiings sick where you are!

[homerjay]

http://geosurvey.state.co.us/Avalanc....aspx?tabid=42

If you can spare some time, there's some good reports of avalanche accidents here. Lessons learned, all of them.