Avalanche death on resort in Nevada

[SkiingBear]

Just got off the phone with my buddy on the patrol there. He said that the Las Vegas media is having their way with this story. Here's what I've learned from him:

1) The slide came down an established slide path. The path had considerable growth in it and is not known to slide often. Probably one of those paths that goes this big once every 50-100 years. He said that they've seen almost 120" of snowfall in the last week. This at a resort that gets an average of 100" annually.

2) The patrol has roughly 60 probes (his estimate) on hand. He laughed when I told him the rumor that the patrol went to Home Depot for probes.

3) The patrol had been doing control work earlier that day on the other side of the mountain where slides are more common.

4) He claims that patrol was on scene in roughly 5 minutes, not the 15 minutes reported by the witnesses.

Again, these are his thoughts, not official releases by the resort. I'll try to get as much info as I can; however, I have to be careful not to post anything that will get him in trouble.

[Viva]

wow, unbelievable story.

did the kid NOT have the safety bar down, and then tried to grab for it? kinda sounds that way, maybe he would have had better luck with it down?

I was there 3 or 4 years ago and I don't recall safety bars. This is an old-school operation. Can anyone here e-mail MrPowder? He could probably share a wealth of details on what happened there.

[skiguide]

I was there 3 or 4 years ago and I don't recall safety bars. This is an old-school operation. Can anyone here e-mail MrPowder? He could probably share a wealth of details on what happened there.

yea, hard to tell in that pic if the chair did have a safety bar, it does look old school double, but some of them have 'em, and it was sort of implied from the witness statement in the article when it said:

The unidentified person tried to grasp a bar designed to secure skiers to the lift, but the snow carried him away.

but based on what SkiingBear found out too, i wouldn't doubt the media is wrong on the accounts of it too.

[Telenater]

Can anyone here e-mail MrPowder?

I left a message on his cell phone voicemail this morning (no cell service at the mountain). When he gets back to me, I'll pass along whatever he gives me permission to pass on.

[Phatstix]

Contrary to popular belief - an avalanche can happen even on well skied terrain. Nobody is ever 100% sure it won't happen - yes, even after bombs or people have skied the crap out of it. So, next time you go b/c and somebody says, "We don't have to dig a pit, look at all the tracks!" remember this. FYI.
Also, I'm sure the ski patrols out there have a better sense of when snow will slide than 90% of the people on here. Just because they are in a small Nevada resort doesn't mean they are morons.
Peace out-

[SkiingBear]

Talking to my buddy right now. If you look closely at the right side of the pic you can see one patroller in a red coat with a white cross (third from right). The skier on far right appears to be holding something...probes.

The snowmobile that was reported to arrive at the scene and then leave immediately was probably there to survey the scene. The two patrollers in the pic were stationed at the top of the lift. The lift shutting down slowed the patrols response to the scene.

Addressing the patrols readiness for slides. They do perform control work. They keep probes on hand. Many of the patrollers wear beacons when conditions warrant.

As to the Home Depot reference, it would take roughly 3 hours to drive there from the resort and return.

As I stated in an earlier post, the path that this slide came down was an established, if rarely slid, path. This area is a popular out-of-bounds skiing/boarding area. They are looking into whether it was natural or caused by people. No info on that yet, should find out more later.

They suspect that he was not "pulled" from the chair by the snow. Rather he was blown out of the chair by the compression wave preceding the actual snow.

edit: No, there was not a safety bar on the chair. The Las Vegas newpaper that the orignal post linked to was apparently trying to sensationalize the whole event.

More to follow as I get the details.

[Foggy_Goggles]

Wow. That's pretty freaky. RIP.

[Big Tim]

Word is that the "Director of Ski Patrol" was off that day. It ripped about 300ft from the summit. They shoot as high as they can. But they don't have the ability to shoot nearly that high. That chair at Charleston follows along a 25 degree pitch. 20 ft past the chair is OB and goes up 2000ft at 40+ degrees. Sad day for friends and family and a harsh change of events for what was proving to be an epic season in Vegas.


Thoughts and prayers.......BT

[Telenater]

I talked to Mr. P. He's doing as well as can be expected, but was reluctant to give any info that would go on the interenet.

Basically, what he said is that most of the news reports are full of shit and that most of the people that are quoted in the news article appear to have seen the event hung out for a couple minutes and run to the newsies with tales of resort horror and their own deeds.

[cj001f]

Basically, what he said is that most of the news reports are full of shit and that most of the people that are quoted in the news article appear to have seen the event hung out for a couple minutes and run to the newsies with tales of resort horror and their own deeds.

In short: The Media acting like the morons they are.

[slim]

The media can eat a bag of dicks.

[Red Baron]

Yeah!

[Endlessseason]

RB, I'm sure he meant present company excluded, of course.

[slim]

RB isn't exactly media... the guy is a scientist not a sensationalist.

[MrPowder]

At this point all I can really say is that we are still trying to put all the events in order that occured just before durriung and after this event.
I'd also like to point out that everyone who helped out durring the rescue/recovery effort did an outstanding job. Most people on the line (mostly volunteers who stoped to help) probed for 4-6 hours in 33 degree f downpour of rain and olny left when forced to by metro SAR (for their own helth) and came right back out once cleared by medical staff refused to give up even after the team moved tward recovery mode. All of the people who helped the effort desirve to be comended for their effort and commitment to finding Brett.
My thanks go to everyone involved in the effort to find the victom and to those who tried to ensure that no others were missing.

I'll get more into snowpack and conditions as well as sercumstances as I am able to release it.

Thanks you all for your concern, MrPowder

PRAY FOR SNOW

What acctualy happened with the home depot: Some concern was made about that avalability of probes to the new rescuers (mostly Metro SAR who are not outfitted with probes due to the lack of common use) before it was known that people would be pulled off the search for line changes(thus freeing up the equiptment in use). It was acctually another agency which purchased the conduit along with connectoer which would allow for probing in deeper deposition zones.

an of course in as a respectful a way as possible this is for those who critisize without all the facts

[schuss]

slides can happen anywhere really. Shame about the kid. At killington you could see where a 5 foot slide went off on a not-so-steep trail. We laughed, but with 78-100 inches of snow, I'm sure it would be a real danger.

[Cornholio]

an of course in as a respectful a way as possible this is for those who critisize without all the facts

Atta boy, MrP.

Thanks for sharing what you can. I'm sure we'd all be interested to learn what there is to learn from this whenever you're ready to talk about it.

[splat]

What is the proper name for the place - Mount Charleston, Lee Canyon, or Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort? That article never makes it clear.

[FigureEleven]

There is a good write up on TTips.

http://www.telemarktips.com/TeleNews.htm

1/11-- A 13 year-old snowborder was killed in an avalanche at the Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort on Mt. Charleston in Nevada last Sunday. Allen Brett Hutchison, a Las Vegas eight-grader, died after being swept off a chair lift by a wall of snow witnesses estimated to be as high as 20 feet. The avalanche began high up the mountain in a huge, uncontrolled cirque, with numerous side chutes feeding into it. Sources on the scene told Telemarktips that the entire cirque ripped out, including all of the adjacent chutes with the exception of just one. The monster slide then travelled down the mountain and 400 feet up over the top of ridge before reaching the top of the lift the victim was riding. There the wall of snow took out a patrol shack and swept down through the trees, eventually doglegging toward the lift where other riders watched in horror as Hutchison was swept off and engulfed in the maelstrom of cascading snow. Some of the witnesses were said to have jumped off the lift to begin searching for the young snowborder and eventually nearly 100 resort employees, guests and rescue personnel were involved in the search which lasted well into the night.
Some of the searchers reportedly refused to come down off the mountain, even as local authorities ordered them to seek shelter from the cold. Several were treated for hypothermia, including one man said to have stayed out so long his body core temperature had dropped to just 95 degrees F. The victim was found late Sunday night nearly 7 hours after the accident. Sources report that rescuers first found the teen's snowboard--with both of the victim's boots still in the bindings--before a search dog located the body approximately 30 yards away.

On Monday afternoon, Brian Strait, general manager of the Lee Canyon area ski resort, confirmed that area employees had used 4 hand charges and shot 8 explosive rounds from a cannon onto a regularly controlled slope near the cirque on Sunday morning. Sources tell us that the control work resulted in a minimal sluff and that the cirque itself showed no sign of an impending release. Describing the avalanche Strait told the press, "The magnitude, the amount of snow and the amount of snow that was released at one time was unique to that chute in the 40 years of the resort," Strait said. "The magnitude, the amount of snow and the amount of snow that was released at one time was unique to that chute in the 40 years of the resort."

Mt. Charleston, as has most of the south western U.S. coastal and mountain area, has been getting dumped on by epic El Nino triggered storms for weeks. Santiago Peak not far from theTelemarktips World Headquarters in California (and on the storm track leading into the Mt. Charleston region) received 23.9 inches of rain in a 48 hour period over the weekend, while snow surveyors in the Sierra report that as much 19 feet of snow has fallen in that range since Christmas.

Operated on federal land under permit, the Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort will remain closed for at least another day or two while the Forest Service investigates the accident. In the U.S., inbounds avalanche deaths among paying customers in an open to the public area are extremely rare. In fact, records show this may be only the second guest fatality of its kind in as many as 35 years.

[Jumper Bones]

Splat - it's the latter, Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard.

The mountain peak is named Mount Charleston, and the canyon within which the area is located is Lee Canyon. It also used to go by that name.

Went to high school in Vegas. Skied there a couple times.

[sickbird]

Pretty scary.
In a related story...
I skiied Solitude last friday (7th?). While traversing out Honeycomb, I happened to glance up to see a cloud of snow coming down off of the Fantasy Ridge area. Being in-bounds, I was caught by surprise. I stopped, backed up a little and watched as this small avalanche(?) picked up speed and hit the snowboarder in front of me, knocking him clear off the traverse and into the bowl below. Luckily, he was OK and able to recover his board, which had been knocked out his hands. When I came around for another lap, the gate was closed. With this much snow in such a short time, I guess you never know.
Peace.

[TOLOCOMan]

Am I the only one that can't believe nobody skiing that run got caught in that? What amazing good fortune.

[Will]

More info from TTips, apparently there was another avy there today.
----------------------------


# 1/11-- The unstable snowpack on Mt. Charleston above the Las Vegas (NV) Ski and Snowboard Resort, site of last Sunday's freak avalanche accident in which a teenager was swept off a chairlift, continues. This afternoon, sources on the scene told Telemarktips that another avalanche swept down off the mountain today, burying a "shack" and the "top two towers" of another lift at the currently closed ski area. Further details remain sketchy, but this second major slide was said to have originated in the area above the resort that is normally subject to avalanche control by ski area personnel. The lift involved is reportedly not the same chair on which Sunday's accident occurred, but rather is the other main lift accessing terrain of the upper part of the resort. The events of the past couple of days on Mt. Charleston highlight the extreme avalanche danger in many parts of the western U.S. at the moment. Be careful out there.

[ak_powder_monkey]

Yikes, poor kid probably didn't know what hit him. Most of our patrollers wear beacons all the time. I have my probe and shovel always just in case we have to find someone. I don't have a beacon yet but once I get one it stays on me inbounds and out always, especially at alyeska where and inbounds avy is a real possibility and if I'm first on scene I want to be able to do something and not just sit there

[splat]

Blast from the past.