An honest evaluation of the Romeo-Onufer slide

[powder_prophet]

Park: Skiers chose their fateful path
Rangers say Romeo, Onufer selected a route that took them into an avalanche starting zone.


By Angus M. Thuermer Jr., Jackson Hole, Wyo.
March 21, 2012

The route two skiers chose during an excursion near Ranger Peak on March 7 was a key factor in them getting caught and killed in an avalanche, park rangers said Tuesday.

Steve Romeo and Chris Onufer died after being swept nearly 3,000 vertical feet. The two likely were headed to an unskied south-facing couloir above Waterfalls Canyon in Grand Teton National Park that Romeo had eyed over the years, rangers and a friend of Romeo’s said.

Romeo and Onufer’s ascending ski tracks led to that goal, rangers who investigated the avalanche deaths said. The route they chose took them from the edge of an avalanche path into its starting zone, which was the ideal steepness for slides, rangers said.

“They chose to go up a known avalanche path ascending into an avalanche starting zone,” Jenny Lake Ranger Rich Baerwald said.

The incident should spur backcountry skiers to learn about avalanches and reassess the way they make decisions about taking risks, he said. Skilled skiers and moderate danger can be a deadly combination, rangers said.

Many people who read Romeo’s popular TetonAT ski blog looked to him “as the subject-matter expert,” Ranger Chris Harder said.

While Romeo skied radical terrain with elan, he also posted several videos and wrote stories about getting caught in or nearly missed by avalanches.

“I don’t know if he was taking that to heart,” Harder said. “He had more [encounters] in the last few years than I’ve had in my lifetime,” the 30-year Teton veteran said.

“I feel pretty strongly a lot can be learned by this,” Harder said.

Neither skier told anybody of his exact plans, rangers believe.

“What their ultimate objective for the day was, we will never know,” Harder said.

Piecing together information from the ascent track and from friends Romeo and Onufer talked to before leaving, investigators put together a likely scenario for the accident.

Romeo and his sometimes ski partner Reed Finlay had talked about skiing a couloir west of the avalanche path — on a spur of 10,355-foot Ranger Peak.

“It’s a really nice line, a pencil-thin, straight shot.” Finlay said Tuesday. He and Romeo last saw it together Feb. 4 while on Eagles Rest Peak.

Finlay couldn’t return to the area. His wife, Rebecca, gave birth to firstborn Kershaw on Feb. 29.

The ill-fated skiers were scheduled to depart Colter Bay at 7 a.m., rangers said. Across the lake, the slope the two ascended was “a big avalanche path,” Baerwald said.

“It narrows down from a big basin to gullies chutes and rock bands — it’s hourglass-shaped,” Baerwald said.

Climbing the avalanche path with skins on their skis, Romeo and Onufer initially made the best of hostile country, Baerewald said.

They stuck to the climber’s right, near where cliffs form the edge of the slope.

At an elevation of about 9,700 feet, they made a critical decision.

“They start making their way away from the edge of the avalanche path on into the avalanche track and into the starting zone,” Baerwald said.

Added Harder, “If they were heading to that [pencil-thin] couloir, they probably short-cut over to it.”

An alternative would have been to continue up the right side of the slope, rangers said. This route was less steep and led to a ridge.

“The ridge would have been a safer route,” Baerwald said. Ridge safety is a basic concept, he said.

“The message with regard to route-finding is, it’s super important terrain be considered,” he said.

A rising traverse and switchback brought the pair to a slot between two triangle-shaped cliffs in the middle of the basin. Here the slope steepened to about 40 degrees, the classic angle for slab avalanches, rangers said.

It is likely this is where the two triggered the slide. The crown, up to 3 feet deep, indicated the avalanche entrained snow that had been falling and drifting from five days of storms. In that period, 28 inches fell in parts of the Tetons, the Bridger-Teton National Forest Avalanche Center reported.

Significant wind carried that snowfall to lee slopes, rangers said, including the fateful basin on Ranger Peak’s spur. Southeast facing, its orientation catches drifting snow carried by prevailing winds, they said.

Once the skiers provoked the slide, nothing could have saved them, rangers said. The avalanche ran a linear mile over cliffs and rocks.
It likely propelled them at speeds between 60 and 80 mph, rangers said. It ripped off one skier’s pack, another’s boot, all four skis.

Searchers found the base layers of one ski ripped from its top plate, its climbing skin still attached.

“The ski was completely delaminated, separated,” Harder said. “Speaking to force, that says a lot right there.”

The chaos likely tore Romeo’s helmet off his pack, and it “sustained a lot of damage,” Harder said.

Romeo had an Avalung pack — a device designed to allow avalanche victims to breathe if buried. Its mouthpiece was deployed, but rangers couldn’t tell whether he had it gripped in his teeth during the slide, they said.

Friends of the two have asked whether avalanche airbags could have saved them, rangers said. Airbags are stowed in backpacks and deploy instantly with the pull of a toggle. They help suspend a skier high in flowing snow and help prevent burial.

But neither skier was really buried, rangers said.

“Chris probably could have sat up,” had he been alert or alive, Harder said. “Steve probably could have wrestled an arm out.

The Teton County Coroner ruled the cause of death was blunt-force trauma.

Buffalo Fork Sub-District Ranger Rick Guerrieri said no gear could have helped.

“One piece of equipment wasn’t going to have any effect on injuries,” he said.

Added Harder, “The best tool they had with them, they weren’t using the most. That was their brain.”

Rangers discounted other skiers’ sentiments about the pair being in “the wrong place at the wrong time.” Such phrases are best reserved for victims of meteorite strikes, they said.

“This [event] had factors in it that [include] decision-making,” Harder said of the avalanche. Rangers are uncertain to what extent the pair took into account the snow and winds.

Avalanche forecasts from the center called the chance of a slide moderate. The predictions range only to 10,500 feet.

Search leader Guerrieri would not call the pair’s decisions a mistake.

“Different people are willing to accept different levels of risk,” he said. “I hate second-guessing people.”

Backcountry travelers need to ask themselves what the consequences of taking a risk might be, Harder said. In this instance, had the avalanche been witnessed from across the lake and a rescue mounted within 10 minutes, the outcome would have been the same.

“They died instantly, it’s pretty safe to say,” he said.

Even with working cellphones and helicopters at the ready, an injured skier would be lucky to get from the Tetons to a hospital within three hours, Harder said.

Decision-making is an increasing part of avalanche education, Baerwald said. A study widely cited in recent years indicates that skiers and snowboarders discard caution in the face of social considerations that range from the lure of untracked slopes to a commitment to reach a goal or even familiarity with a slope.

“Taking an avalanche course is critical, even late in the season,” Baerwald said. Education can help skiers understand what an avalanche forecast means and provide other lessons, he said.

“There was some decision making that factored into the accident,” Baerwald said. “Route choice — that’s the one that stands out the most.”

Any thoughts from the collective? I believe now, 3 weeks later, it's time to learn from this event.

RIP guys, you're not forgotten.

[spook]

“He had more [encounters] in the last few years than I’ve had in my lifetime,” the 30-year Teton veteran said.

[icelanticskier]

Any thoughts from the collective? I believe now, 3 weeks later, it's time to learn from this event.

agreed. moderate danger has always scared me. moderate danger on big bad avy paths scares me more. using big bad avy path with moderate danger with 3k of exposure for ridge access just doesn't seem like a good idea to me, never has, never will.

they did what they did cuz they obviously felt good about it, maybe. they fucked up and unfortunately paid the ultimate price. as so many do.

rog

[garyfromterrace]

Here we have low, moderate, considerable, high, extreme. I believe it's the same down there. Not dissing you or anything of the sort icelandic, but I'm usually much more afraid in considerable and rarely go out in high. Of course I'm over simplifying all of this but just wondering about your logic of being afraid of moderate vs. something higher.

[Garbanzo]

The rating for a given day is an overall rating for a geographic area. And that rating would be more or less depending on terrain and location. Moderate + avy path = higher than moderate, maybe even high or extreme. I guess they died knowing full well that they were climbing an avy path and that was a greater risk. By nature they are more prone to slide more often because that's the perfect angles they are at and often get snow funnelled into them.

I'm sure Steve and Onufer knew they were doing something highly dangerous. They might not have thought that it could go big like it did. I agree with the writer that it is not really a 'wrong place, wrong time' kind of thing. More a 'wrong place, right time' thing. They just thought it probably was manageable or wouldn't happen to them. Who knows? The sober truth is they were big risk takers. Even the objectives they sought were risky, even if the ride up was managed safely.

I also agree that it is not good to second guess them. They made decisions that would have kept us all stoked when we saw the video of their epic descent. If they was here today, we wouldn't be writing them letters telling them how much we love them and that we are concerned they are taking too big risks. No, we would be stoked and wish we had done it and lived to tell.

It is a sad reality of ski mountaineering. There is danger - lots of it. Maybe, like the article says, a change of route would have kept them safer on the way up.

One of my favorite video of Steve is his 'Islands of Safety' video. I hope where he is now there are lots of adventures and no more need for islands of safety. Somewhere around 2:50 the skit hits the proverbial fan.

I love how he ends it:

"After a long rest,
and refilling our Camelbacks,
we continue down
into Avalanche Canyon.
Lucky, to be Alive."

RIP Steve and Onufer.

[icelanticskier]

Not dissing you or anything of the sort icelandic, but I'm usually much more afraid in considerable and rarely go out in high. Of course I'm over simplifying all of this but just wondering about your logic of being afraid of moderate vs. something higher.

i tour under all of the above ratings all of the time and pick my poison to suit the day/ratings. to me, cons/high days are pretty obvious and i'm likely not to tickle the beast and stay on low angle slopes. cons/high=not much guesswork. moderate days can be MUCH more tricky and if somethin's gonna go, it's maybe more likely to go big even more so than under cons/high danger ratings. pretty much all of my big destructive ski cuts and unfortunate happenings have occurred during moderate ratings.

i refer to moderate as voodoo magic.

rog

[D(C)]

i tour under all of the above ratings all of the time and pick my poison to suit the day/ratings. to me, cons/high days are pretty obvious and i'm likely not to tickle the beast and stay on low angle slopes. cons/high=not much guesswork. moderate days can be MUCH more tricky and if somethin's gonna go, it's maybe more likely to go big even more so than under cons/high danger ratings. pretty much all of my big destructive ski cuts and unfortunate happenings have occurred during moderate ratings.

i refer to moderate as voodoo magic.

rog

Things rarely drop below moderate in the alpine out here. Low pretty much never happens. To me, moderate means considering larger objectives may be possible but do your homework and use your head. Considerable is where things get trickier and I'll ski lower consequence or lower angle terrain. High for me = no go.

But yeah, considering a bigger line on a moderate day doesn't seem unreasonable.

[Lindahl]

It is likely this is where the two triggered the slide. The crown, up to 3 feet deep, indicated the avalanche entrained snow that had been falling and drifting from five days of storms. In that period, 28 inches fell in parts of the Tetons, the Bridger-Teton National Forest Avalanche Center reported.

Significant wind carried that snowfall to lee slopes, rangers said, including the fateful basin on Ranger Peak’s spur. Southeast facing, its orientation catches drifting snow carried by prevailing winds, they said.

Sounds like they might have been in terrain that I'd consider more than a 'moderate' rating, given the recent weather? How recent was the snowfall, and what was recent wind activity like? I'd be waiting for at least a week of high pressure and a few days of limited winds before getting out after snowfall like that for anything that has a obvious avalanche path. It is an continental snowpack, afterall - you generally should wait quite a bit longer after storms, compared to a maritime snowpack (which CAN stabilize dramatically fast), especially with terrain where winds can create storm-like loading even after the snow stops falling.

It also sounds like they stayed on the edge of the avalanche path for quite some time, before deciding that the snowpack 'seemed' safe and that crossing the path to reach their line became an acceptable risk. It's easy to get the notion that the 'snowpack seems/feels safe' after a few hours of being around it, especially when the danger is lurking 3' or more, down. But who really knows what was going on in their heads.

I'm also curious as to why they both crossed the avalanche path at the same time, instead of one at a time? No safe zones on the other side, false safe zones, etc.? Can anyone post a topo/photo of what the zone looks like?

[garyfromterrace]

i tour under all of the above ratings all of the time and pick my poison to suit the day/ratings. to me, cons/high days are pretty obvious and i'm likely not to tickle the beast and stay on low angle slopes. cons/high=not much guesswork. moderate days can be MUCH more tricky and if somethin's gonna go, it's maybe more likely to go big even more so than under cons/high danger ratings. pretty much all of my big destructive ski cuts and unfortunate happenings have occurred during moderate ratings.

i refer to moderate as voodoo magic.

rog

Thanks rog, that totally explains your POV. Our conditions here are as D(C) states below...

Things rarely drop below moderate in the alpine out here. Low pretty much never happens. To me, moderate means considering larger objectives may be possible but do your homework and use your head. Considerable is where things get trickier and I'll ski lower consequence or lower angle terrain. High for me = no go.

But yeah, considering a bigger line on a moderate day doesn't seem unreasonable.

Agree...

[powder_prophet]

Here's a link to the official report put out by GTNP. Very detailed, very easy to understand, and the best pictures yet released of the slide. I wish I could just post it here, but its in PDF.


http://avalanche.org/pdfs/accidents/...rt_mar2012.pdf



Thanks for the thoughts everyone. I think there are two big lessons to be learned from this event:

1. Route selection is key, both on the way up and the way down. From what I'd seen in the past, Romeo was usually pretty good about that (remember his post about skiing Wimpy's back in January on a High danger day?), but this time they let their guard down. Always, always, always, think about where you are going and if there is a safer way to do things

On a side note, I know Romeo was almost obsessed with skinning for as long as possible. He avoided bootpacking like the plague. Is this a case where booting up the edge of the path to the ridge line would have been the safest option? Hell, maybe not attempting that ascent at all and instead going up the usual route to 10,686 the then traversing across the ridge?



2. These guys were risk takers (like many of us here). They skied big, bold lines in winter snowpacks, and usually scored the goods! But when you put yourself in that kind of risk that often, eventually somethings gotta give.

Personally, I remember the day it happened. It was a good pow day at the Village, the first fully bluebird day after many days of storm and scattered clouds, and for me, that meant staying inbounds and skiing the goods in Casper/Crags, giving it another day or two to set-up. I knew lots of people were getting after it in the BC, but in my humble view, I didn't want to put myself into that situation. But hey, that was RandoSteve. I can't remember how many times I would have great, safe pow days in bounds or on mellow bc lines, and then look at his site and see that he had just skied from 12K in the park. These guys were badasses, but no one's invincible.

[BFD]

probably been discussed here many times. But here is a very good synopsis of the danger ratings.
http://utahavalanchecenter.org/files...cale_final.jpg
They failed to identify the feature of concern properly and now they are deceased.

[Z]

I think hard and fast danger ratings are not good for novices. Moderate danger with the primary concern of small softslabs with little propagation potential is very different than moderate danger with persistent weak layer hardslab concerns.

[LeeLau]

To be honest I don't pay an awful lot of attention to the overall hazard ratings and am not sure that people who ski these kinds of lines do (but I'm just speaking for myself). Thx for the incident report link

[BFD]

To be honest I don't pay an awful lot of attention to the overall hazard ratings and am not sure that people who ski these kinds of lines do (but I'm just speaking for myself). Thx for the incident report link

You may not pay attention to the published report. I am pretty sure you use some sort of rating system. In my personal experience I evaluate conditions and decide what to sky based on that. I have never lived and skied regularly in an area that had a forecast. IMO the rating system in place reflects pretty closely the way I see things. We have had a very stable snowpack this season. The last couple of days we have had gradual warming and picked up around 2' of fresh snow up high. Today things have warmed up to mixed rain in town. I expect any avie to be confined to the new snow and wind loaded areas. As these are the areas I like to ski I have chosen to stay home and work. Based on the new snow warming temps and wind loading I have given conditions a rating that pretty much matches what the pros call considerable.

[LeeLau]

You may not pay attention to the published report. I am pretty sure you use some sort of rating system. In my personal experience I evaluate conditions and decide what to sky based on that. I have never lived and skied regularly in an area that had a forecast. IMO the rating system in place reflects pretty closely the way I see things. We have had a very stable snowpack this season. The last couple of days we have had gradual warming and picked up around 2' of fresh snow up high. Today things have warmed up to mixed rain in town. I expect any avie to be confined to the new snow and wind loaded areas. As these are the areas I like to ski I have chosen to stay home and work. Based on the new snow warming temps and wind loading I have given conditions a rating that pretty much matches what the pros call considerable.

aye correct. I use the published report as one datapoint among many. Sometimes its the go-to source but almost all the times its just one among many points of data. Plus like Alaska, BC is huge and conditions vary from valley to valley let alone region to region

[powder_prophet]

Plus like Alaska, BC is huge and conditions vary from valley to valley let alone region to region

And although the Tetons are on a much smaller scale, the same is true here. The forecast is focused mostly on the southern Tetons, as that is where all weather stations are located, where the tram is, and where the forecasters work and ski (they are all JHMR patrollers). The Northern Range, where this incident occured, is a whole differnet ballgame. From my experience, and to generalize, it is colder and the pack is deeper.

Romeo probably understood the snowpack in Waterfalls Canyon better then the BTNF avy guys (although as has been said before, he wasn't huge on snow science, but at least he had his skis in it throughout the season).

[neck beard]

Thank you for giving this write-up wider attention. Many people, including myself, need to read it.

Personally, I remember the day it happened. It was a good pow day at the Village, the first fully bluebird day after many days of storm

My personal Danger Rating puts that at above Moderate.

I can't remember how many times I would have great, safe pow days in bounds or on mellow bc lines, and then look at his site and see that he had just skied from 12K in the park. These guys were badasses, but no one's invincible.

You sound like me [except for the in-bounds part ]

[powder11]

They made decisions that would have kept us all stoked when we saw the video of their epic descent.

I didn't know these guys at all, so I'm just speculating on how much of an influence the above statement may have had on Steve's willingness to take big risks. Did he do it for the site and all the recognition that go along with that or was the site just a documentation of the types of things he would be doing regardless of whether anyone else ever knew about it? What is the motivation behind taking a well known risk that could very well end your life? Some people just can't help themselves and others are out for the attention/recognition. Who knows what really played into why guys with that much exp would knowingly put themselves into such a dangerous spot, but I see the "check me out" factor influencing a lot of risky decision making these days. Food for thought when you're out there with the camera and what not.

[spook]

I also agree that it is not good to second guess them. They made decisions that would have kept us all stoked when we saw the video of their epic descent. If they was here today, we wouldn't be writing them letters telling them how much we love them and that we are concerned they are taking too big risks. No, we would be stoked and wish we had done it and lived to tell.

are you speaking for their close friends? because if i saw my close friend taking unnecessary, apparently obviously potentially catastrophic risks that belie their expertise, the epic descent wouldn't mean shit to me.

[garyfromterrace]

To be honest I don't pay an awful lot of attention to the overall hazard ratings and am not sure that people who ski these kinds of lines do (but I'm just speaking for myself). Thx for the incident report link

Case in point:
Today a buddy and I went back up to happy valley. CAA suggested low below tree line. We got about 100m off the valley floor before turning our tails and bravely running away. Temps were above 0C all the way from the truck @ 0830. Recent activity was noted on steep slopes of all aspects including big glide cracks running all due to the high temps. The way out of happy valley at the end of the day when temps got even warmer would have been extremely sketch. Moral of story, low doesn't always mean go.

ps, ended up skinning up the ski hill and skiing prayer flags. Shittiest skiing of the year but we had a good BS session and walk.

[Garbanzo]

are you speaking for their close friends? because if i saw my close friend taking unnecessary, apparently obviously potentially catastrophic risks that belie their expertise, the epic descent wouldn't mean shit to me.

I'm not speaking for close friends. Please let me clarify and maybe wax a little philosophic.

What I was trying to say is that I do not know exactly what was going through their minds at the time of the ascent and accident. It is possible that they had data from the snowpack and their ascent that made them feel safe-enough to continue with the route, and safe enough to risk changing the route at the top section. So, I can not say that they made a bad decision. Although, I obviously would say it was a bad decision based on the outcome. If I was a friend, close that is, if I knew they did something stupid, I might share that with them. ... Hindsight is 20/20.

By saying "They made decisions that would have kept us all stoked ... " I don't mean that they made those decisions to keep us all stoked. It was all those successful, risky ascents and descents that I saw on the site that kept me stoked. I enjoyed seeing them (Steve et al.) enjoy themselves at backcountry skiing and epic lines that I can not fathom. I hope they would not have done that for us, taken unreasonable risks, just to feed an audience. I would be saddened to hear that.

What surprises me is that only a few blog posts earlier, Steve was reminiscing about the worthiness of some risk taking on avalanche days and how he did turn around on an objective just because he did not have a good feeling. It does not strike me that he was careless. I was really affected when I heard he passed away because I always saw him as some sort of invincible that had good luck on his side and a lot of skills in ski-mountaineering and would not proceed unless it was a doable objective. Doable does not always equate with sensible.

Steve was very aware of avalanche danger. Just read this post and the comments he makes:
http://www.tetonat.com/2011/11/30/jo...ity-avalanche/

Asks: "Umm, why do you want to “get over” a fear of avalanches? It’s not like an irrational phobia or anything."
Answer: " i guess if there is so much uncertainty and one was too conservative…they might never ski anything interesting."

and in the James Pierre incident post comments he says:
http://www.tetonat.com/2011/11/14/ja...tah-avalanche/

just goes to show the direction backcountry skiing is going and we will all be lucky to be alive in the next 5 years if our attitudes towards backcountry skiing and risk don’t change. time and time again, we escape injury and even death by mere seconds or inches, which makes us feel invincible. we watch movies of dudes slaying huge lines, hucking insane airs and surviving the most epic wrecks and avalanches, that we become numb to the risk and hazard. fat skis, ABS packs, back protectors, avalungs, helmets all stack the odds in our favor, but they also give us a sense of security and confidence that we can survive anything. unfortunately, and in due time, we will all learn that we actually can’t.

It is sad, and yet we did not deny him to chart his destiny doing what he enjoyed. It is not a fail to try and not succeed. He and many others now are pioneering this quite dangerous sport and shit happens. But he speaks the truth to me about this sport.

My comments are more a processing all of this tragedy than a real critique of what they did that day. I hope it doesn't jilt anyone with those thoughts. I know this incident touched a lot of people and it even puts me on edge about taking risks in the back country and others might think I am even anal about being cautious. I don't want to die from an avalanche. I wish to grow old (with some good stories to tell).