Video - Tahoe Skier Burial

[icelanticskier]

yeah, you're right. i ddn't really understand how a dozen people at tunnel creek could all make the same mistakes, either.

POW FEVER. many of us have caught it. some more lucky than others.

even tho the man caught took inexperienced folk out to echo, the "experienced" man himself was the danger, the trigger. skied it wrong as i was saying earlier. many of us have made the same mistake. good on him for the whole breakdown.

this scenario is no more of a shitshow than the tunnel creek incident, all told. no one died on echo, either.

rog

[ShadyNasty]

shouldn't the second guy who was already there have been digging, too?

i don't have a beacon, so i don't know long it should take to give someone else access to it, but i guess she shouldn't have been expecting to give it up? but boss man immediately told her to give it up, so if that was the expectation, why not just give it to him beforehand?

I saw this a couple weeks ago when FOBP posted it to facebook. My assumption about the beacon was that they had given it to her because she was the only woman or least experienced (which is why she wouldn't have done the search herself).

Does anyone with more Tahoe knowledge know where this took place? Was this resort side-country or a backcountry tour? My theory about groups riding backcountry without beacons is that they only will do it if they have a good bootpack access.
I think that touring gear is a good obstacle to this, because as I was told at 18, get a beacon and learn how to use it before you get an AT set-up. Touring gear seems like an investment to the point where people who have it usually know that they need gear.

I will say that in a practice scenario this year, I did something about as dumb as leave my gloves behind, I left my pack. I had taken it off to wait my turn while someone buried a beacon for me, then when they said go I forgot to put it back on. Felt pretty dumb pin-pointing the beacon quickly enough only to realize I had no shovel or probe.

Slow is Fast, Fast is Slow. Best advice anyone has ever given me.

[ShadyNasty]

POW FEVER. many of us have caught it. some more lucky than others.

even tho the man caught took inexperienced folk out to echo, the "experienced" man himself was the danger, the trigger. skied it wrong as i was saying earlier. many of us have made the same mistake. good on him for the whole breakdown.

this scenario is no more of a shitshow than the tunnel creek incident, all told. no one died on echo, either.

rog

I don't see how anyone can be deemed experienced and knowledgeable if they take newbs w/o gear into avy terrain.

I don't think it is a fair comparison to Tunnel Creek either, that was tragic, this was dumb and lucky

[ShadyNasty]

The fact these buffoons allowed the video to see the light of day may be more of an indication of their complete ignorance. The more I think about that retard that just stood there thinking about god knows what, the more pissed off I get.

I am a pretty judgmental person, as many people here will attest, but that is harsh. I like Spook's comment that he realized how the man was panicking quietly when he left his gloves. But panicking quietly is a helluva lot better than doing it out loud. I'll pass judgement on people for triggering a slope I would not have ski'd, but since I have only been through practice scenarios, I'm not going to call the guy out for loosing his nerves, just his ignorance. I can't imagine how intense that situation must have been for someone who had never even practiced for it (don't think I've ever been quite so unprepared, but almost)

[ShadyNasty]

Insane video. Are these people Mormons? I didn't hear one single swear word?!

I would have at least said an 'oh shit' or 'fuck' somewhere.

haha just saw this. "Fuck" is w/o a doubt the first word out of my mouth if I see something go. I have literally dropped the avalung out of my mouth to say it

[summit]

There are some interesting thoughts and a mea culpa from the guy who was buried, "anon," 4th post on this page:

http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewt...02889&start=30

[UrMomsKneePads]

There are some interesting thoughts and a mea culpa from the guy who was buried, "anon," 4th post on this page:

http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewt...02889&start=30

Thanks for posting the link. After reading his thoughts and reflection, I'd ski with the guy any day. He made some bad decisions that day, and almost paid with his life. He has the mental fortitude to reflect objectively and honestly and see his mistakes. It takes a thick skin to endure the commentary he has subjected himself to, in the hope that others will learn from his mistakes.

Party on, Anon, wishing you years of deep powder safe turns!

[icelanticskier]

I don't think it is a fair comparison to Tunnel Creek either, that was tragic, this was dumb and lucky

tragic? yes. people died. experienced people died that shoulda known better. red flags all over the place with a considerable rating yet none of the experienced folks that day paid it any mind. dumb? um, ya. got any insight on your thinking?

rog

[ShadyNasty]

tragic? yes. people died. experienced people died that shoulda known better. red flags all over the place with a considerable rating yet none of the experienced folks that day paid it any mind. dumb? um, ya. got any insight on your thinking?

rog

just saying they were dumb would be an incredible and awful over-simplification of what happened at Tunnel Creek, human factor/ego is infinitely more complicated than this

Do you ever ski out West? I've always wondered

[ShadyNasty]

There are some interesting thoughts and a mea culpa from the guy who was buried, "anon," 4th post on this page:

http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewt...02889&start=30

thx & Sorry, they have inflight wifi now and i forgot a book (i only read on planes since graduating, on principle & usually about snow)=whole flight in slide zone

so he assumed responsibility for rescuing the woman and all the men were assuming the risk that they would be buried without hope? The problem is he made those guys waay more comfortable than they should have felt merely by his being there and seeming savy

and the gopro dude new absolutely nothing, interesting

[icelanticskier]

just saying they were dumb would be an incredible and awful over-simplification of what happened at Tunnel Creek, human factor/ego is infinitely more complicated than this

life or death=pretty simple. making things more complicated than they need to be is a human flaw, among countless other things. imo.

Do you ever ski out West? I've always wondered

i have spent months at a time skiing daily in the bc in maritime, intermountain, and continental snowpacks. maritime is my preference. the latter 2 raised my blood pressure a bit.

now you know

rog

[Shorty_J]

Wow! The only thing they did right was ski the slope one at a time.

Honestly, I kind of wish they were more panicked than they were.

I was actually swearing at my computer while wearing headphones and not trying wake my wife... that was just a travesty.

[Shorty_J]

at first i thought he was actually calm, but when he ditched his gloves i realized he was panicking quietly.

I could not agree more with this.

[SchralphMacchio]

Does anyone with more Tahoe knowledge know where this took place? Was this resort side-country or a backcountry tour?

No where near the sidecountry. Not a huge approach, but pretty much no one does it on shoes - you'd want skins to ski across the meadow and through the burn area, or however they accessed it. Dad (the buried subject) seemed to be pretty familiar with the area.

Other recent conditions:
Something like 7 feet of new snow between 12/21 and 12/26 (this incident took place on 12/29) in about four distinct waves
Strong windload events during each storm wave - the 12/23 layer was a 1-finger hard windslab, and two layers fell on top of that
There were massive visible crowns not too far from the incident location, believed to be from 12/27 (first sunny day after the cycle)
Advisory for 12/29 was Moderate above and below treeline



Also, I mentioned Tunnel Creek/Stevens Pass because of the emotional complacency when with a group of very close friends or family, and in familiar terrain, that can lead to a breakdown in decision-making process, ignoring of red flags, and breakdown in safety protocol. When looking at that specific mechanism (not the incident as a whole, just that mechanism and mistake) then I do see a fair comparison. Mainly to rebut the idea that as an armchair critic, you could say that "if I were there I woulda done x y z and never even been there ..." Would you have really? If you were with your best friends or family you love to spend time with? In terrain you think you know really well? It's not so straightforward when you're actually there.

That's a lot of thread drift to get into the details of Tunnel Creek so we can bump that thread from Feb 19 of last year if you want to go into it in more detail. I think it's a bit extreme to equate this incident with 'dumb luck' and the other one as a 'tragedy' just because of the difference in outcome (fatalities) or gear preparedness. Mistakes were made in the decision making process of each incident, prior to entering the slope and also while the group was on slope, and it's my opinion that the group dynamics and terrain familiarity had a strong part to play in those decisions & actions.

I let emotion make the decision and allowed the party to continue above tree line to the summit. This decision required descending the slope directly above the ridge terminus. A slope that I knew was prone to sliding under the right circumstances, and having kept abreast of conditions, I knew conditions were conducive to an an avalanche...

The several turns in untracked snow on a 45 degree slope were just too tempting. My intentions were to ski to skier's left of the large rocks where the slide released from, then veer hard to skier's right and meet the party on the ridge. I knew that the slope was convex. I knew that there was a rock band below my intended route. My thoughts were, "I've skied this line before. It's only a few turns." I made a very bad decision.

And to be clear again. I make complacency mistakes all the time also. My philosophy is to keep my safety margins high enough so that when I make a mistake, it doesn't push me or the group beyond the boundary and into a suddenly dangerous situation.

[bodywhomper]

for the newcomers to this thread, as an fyi, there is a low angle protected route to ascend and descend echo peak. It is a wide ridge. it can be a fun descent. The group is standing on the skier-left edge of this ridge at the start of the vid.

I am not sure what descent route this group was going to take, but the ascent ridge is what I would descend if I were taking gearless newbs out on a day like that.

[jrflanders]

I'm getting back into backcountry skiing after many years off and have a trip to Ostrander hut. Many of my group are total novices but are renting beacons, probes and shovels. You can be sure as shit that this video will be playing through my mind the whole weekend and my risk assessment will be much different...thanks for posting this.

What's amazing is how that victim got so fucking lucky...reading the SAC analysis actually makes the video worse. The buried guy was the group leader, picked a fun looking but really bad line KNOWING that his support team had almost zero rescue experience. The 'boss man' was a novice but handled his shit relatively well.