Massive avy in bounds Mount Hood Meadows

[aim1photo]

I'll post some video and pics later tonight, this was huge.

[sock i]

turned the run out to heather chair quite interesting

[My Pet Powder Goat]

Here is the only article i've found so far, good pic on it too.


http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index...shes_down.html

[aim1photo]

um ya, guess who took it. heres some more.

[aim1photo]

heres a link to some video. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15mZhooH3Dw"]YouTube- Avalanche Mount hood meadows[/ame]

[homemadesalsa]

Hey Matt you still online? I would love a hi-res shot of the runout (the one in the Oregon Live article) to put into the April issue of The Avalanche Review. Can trade you a comp subscription for a year. Pop me a PM, ok?

[BFD]

nice shots, looks like that drainage may see some flooding also.

[aim1photo]

it might during what they call glacial outburst but, regular avy activity keeps it scoured clean of vegetation. It is rated as the most dangerous type of area for avalanche.

I think the real thing to take away from this is that we should trust patrol when they keep this zone closed. They take a notorious amount of crap from people for keeping it roped after storm cycles but, obviously there is potential for catastrophe here. I think everyone who has sweated them in the past should take a moment and thank them for keeping a perfect record of no deaths in that area. In fact the only avy death at the resort was a pro patroller that was crushed beneath the cascade chair about ten years ago. I'm sorry I can't do him the respect of remembering his name after a long weekend but he was killed ski cutting with two other patrolers.
Odly enough this was the weekend of the safety fair here. Serves as a good reminder I suppose.

[BFD]

I was thinking that is a fairly active looking cutbank in the first photo.

[aim1photo]

well you know we had that "glacial outburst" a couple years ago and it was like a giant flash flood, it took out the highway and stacked boulders on the bridge. Washed away a lot of stuff but, it was somewhat atypical.

[Sessiøn]

Wow, after reading the story i get the magnitude about how heavy that release was and how far it traveled. Crazy shit!
Agreed that Meadows gets shit for keeping the canyon closed. I would say most the people that complain are the ones you'll see side slipping down when the ropes drop.

[10% Groomed]

So it sounds to me like this was out of patrol's hands. It slid outside of the permit area and ran into the canyon. Scary thought, but this was only a couple hours away from threatening lives. What if that sucker had released at noon today?

I know this is a potentially inflammatory topic to bring up. I'm not picking on patrol. I'm simply curious. What else could have been done? Anything? Nothing?

I'm not suggesting for a second that the permit area be expanded, but does control work do any good if you have a giant piano dangling from the 10th story above you?

[aim1photo]

I totaly agree with your point, however that piano could be only a floor or two up if they didn't do what they do.

[kaya]

saw this on the way up there today- really interesting shape to the slide. It was amazing that it ran so deep into the canyon. Everything was really slabby at Meadows this morning.

This is outside of patrol responsibility I would think.

[Sessiøn]

This and the climbing deaths are a stark reminder of what a dangerous mountain Hood can be.

[QuikR12]

Damn! Massive is an accurate description... I was found some instability over the top of blue chair, breaking off a small slab a foot or more deep, but holy smokes... this one is huge. So, avy experts... was this more caused by glacial movement or was that just the trigger of really unstable snow? how deep was the layer that initially failed, if there's a way to know? more beta is wanted...

[::: :::]

slid a mile and was 30ft deep at the runout!

i was in heather sunday with no avy gear (not that it would help with this slide)

wow

[powski3]

Whoaaaaa. How high up do they shoot that new Howitzer? Pretty wild, and pretty lucky it happened at 7pm.

[QuikR12]

slid a mile and was 30ft deep at the runout!

i was in heather sunday with no avy gear (not that it would help with this slide)

wow

Your RECCO reflector would have saved you

[LightRanger]

I'm waiting for photos of the crown line.

[powski3]

Wow I originally misread and thought it was Monday not Sunday. So it went about 4 hours after I skied through there all day. I was wearing a beacon but woulda been toast if that freight train hit me.

[inthemtns]

How big was the crown?

[::: :::]

How big was the crown?

no idea. i'm intrigued to know more about it too

[RambleOn]

kinda off topic. but did they ever find those other two climbers?

[bdb3011]

Here's a very general overview for y'all:

Crown - 1 to 4 feet. 3/4 of a mile wide.

Track - Avalanche ran for 2.7 miles. Coming to rest 200 yards or so from the bottom of the Heather Chair.

Deposition - Anwhere from 15 to 30 feet Deep in places. ( Estimate )

Hard Slab - Class 4 relative to Path - Destructive force 4

A biggin for sure!