TR & Avi Report - Wedgemount Lake, Rethel Couloir - Feb 16-17, 2013

[AngryBeard]

Disclaimer - this TR gets super wordy – there are definitely places where my decision making will be judged but I’m sharing as its got a bunch of info about the avi conditions from this past weekend and I think there is a lesson for all.

The avi forecast for the Sea to Sky Area was moderate-low-low and Whistler/Blackcomb was low-low-low, so our group headed to the Wedgemount Lake area to chase after the great North facing couloirs in the area.

The forecast for Saturday was garbage so we chose to take the summer trail (opposed to descending from Blackcomb) as we were certain we could navigate to the hut in any visibility. We were skins on and on our way from the parking lot (just off the highway, road up to trailhead requires tracks or 4 wheel drive with serious tires). The trail was certainly a slog and not a whole lot of fun but it wasn’t actually as bad as we’d expected. Travel through the forest was a pain but the trail wasn’t iced up and generally the snow stuck really well allowing us to do silly steep skinning as required. At the top of the scree chute just before the lake there was some challenging skinning as we fought with dust on crust.

Splitz, Hummus and I made it to the hut in about 4hrs; 45 minutes later Neuro showed up with the three from his car group. Visibility had been in and out all day but when there was a break we split in different directions.

Myself, Hummus and Splitz headed towards Rethel Couloir. Plan was to boot pack up the couloir with hopes of topping out. As we neared the couloir we lost our little bit of visibility but confident in the conditions we proceeded in very low vis. On the boot pack we noticed significant wind loading and were excited about the high quality of skiing awaiting us. Large amounts of sluff were coming down the couloir as snow was blown into it from the top and the cliffs on both sides however the sluff was not enough to pose a serious concern. While leading the bootpack you could notice small ~20cm deep slabs breaking off between your legs and dropping onto the bootpack behind you. Splitz decided to drop early (~2/3 of the way up the couloir) siting concerns about his energy and mentioning that he wasn't entirely confident in the snowpack.

Hummus pushed on while I watched Splitz drop in. By the time I began up again I could barely follow Hummus because sluff had filled his boot-pack so I had to re-punch the boot-pack. The amount of sluff increased making it necessary to climb on the side of the couloir instead of right up the middle where the sluff was being funneled. By this point the grade of the couloir was approaching 50 degrees.

Hummus reached the top while I was still about 50m back. We had hoped to take the commonly utilized ramp to get around the massive cornice (ramp is to climbers right of the cornice). However, the grade increased and the ramp was covered in sugary snow with rock underneath. Hummus began building a launch platform while I finished the climb. The launch platform was just below the cornice with about 55 degree grade. The launch pad was pretty impressive, even though it was only about 2’ wide, our heads were in line with the slope above it which gives an indication of the steepness at this point.

Hummus’s photos:

Hummus look back at me climbing the last section


Cornice – not insignificant


Hummus standing on our launching platform – notice the slope behind his right shoulder


Even a bit of blue sky at the top


Hummus dropped in and skied the first section of the couloir with a lot of flow and aggression; I was impressed by the way he attacked the couloir and managed his sluff. I glanced away as he was just leaving my sight and then I heard him yell up and looked down to see he was still at the edge of my sight. He told me to be careful as a slab had just let go that he skied out of. Several minutes later I had my gear ready to go and dropped in. The snow quality felt good with no major problems just lots of fast running sluff. As soon as I got to the point where he had yelled up everything changed. Suddenly the couloir was stripped down to crust although soft spots could be found on the sides. I skied the remainder of the couloir scared that Hummus would not be standing when I got to the bottom. I dabbled in the soft snow at the sides but generally stayed to the stripped couloir.

I got to the bottom to find Hummus a bit spooked but in good shape. The avalanche triggered just above him but he was at the edge of it and skied out of it. Visibility was low so he was unaware of the extent of the slide until he skied it. From where the ~20-30cm slab broke off the entire couloir slid to the bottom (~400m from release to bottom of debris field). As a result of vis we never got a great view of the damage but from skiing it I can say that the slab did propagate outwards as the couloir widened around rock features on the way down. The debris field went almost all the way to the lake. I would say this was a class 2 avalanche.
This is the closest I've been to a serious avalanche incident and feel extraordinarily lucky that no one in my party was hurt or killed; had Hummus been caught in the slide he would have been in for a very long ride – with the way the debris spread out over the fan of the couloir I doubt he could have been fully buried but a 400m ride a 40-50 degree couloir certainly would have left him in bad shape. I can’t help but play out the narrowly avoided scenario of skiing down to find him severely injured and feeling helpless and I wouldn’t be able to do much but dig through his pack to pull out his personal located beacon and call for help.

In hindsight there were several clear indicators that we ignored. These factors were:
- during our final approach up to the hut we noticed dust on crust where the dust was not bonding to the crust at all making for difficult skinning conditions
- significant wind loading in the couloir
- small slabs breaking off between our legs as we hiked
- poor visibility (limiting ability to asses hazard and increasing the consequence of an incident)

We’d been the first 7 to arrive at the hut and assumed no one else would want to subject themselves to that punishment. By the time we were back from afternoon skiing another party of three had arrived and two more arrived after dark (although one of them slept outside). This all lead to a very uncomfortable and cramped night (6 ppl sleeping upstairs which is 2x 4’x8’ sheets of plywood is tight).

The plan for the next day had been to ski other slopes on similar aspects (Wedge NW and Parkhurst N Couloir) however we scrapped these plans as a result of our incident and went in search of other aspects.

Visibility was great and Neuro joined us today in hopes of finding some interesting lines. We set off, leaving the hut at about 8:15 thinking that we’d take a look at Eureka couloir to see if its more westerly aspect could inspire confidence. We ended up on the South Arm of Weart looking down an appetizing East face which lead to Eureka. We cut off a cornice and dropped it on the slope to test its stability (ie. Backcountry bomb). The slope seemed stable and we dropped in for a couple great steep Super-G turns.

Photos from Neuro:

Hummus and I cutting off the cornice


Splitz drops in


Hummus drops in


We skied the upper, steep part of the face and stopped having decided that getting to Eureka would mean committing to a very late return. We skinned back up the face we skied and headed to a mellow South facing couloir that we’d scoped earlier between Weart and Lesser Weart.

By early afternoon we found ourselves climbing the large mellow South facing couloir between Weart and Lesser Weart. As we skinned up 35 degree slopes on the fan we encountered graupel at the surface but continued climbing as it was only on the surface. After climbing another 75m we decided to dig a quick pit, the group was located in two group of two separated by about 40m. I was in the lower group. I pulled out my shovel and quickly determined that a pit was not required to tell the slope was not safe. From the top down there was about 10" of consolidated new (or wind transferred) snow followed by a 1.5" hard ice layer and then absolute sugar for a significant depth. Simply striking the shovel through the layers and pulling it away revealed the layers as the sugar poured out from under the snow.

Neuro’s photos:

You can see the sugar so light as it’s flying from me swinging my hand through it


Very clear three layers – new/wind transported snow - ice crust - sugar

[AngryBeard]

Apparently I'm over the character limit - last little bit of the post here

The entire group put on skis and left the area as quickly possible. At this point a cloud rolled in and we ended up standing around for about 45min waiting for a break in the weather. We skied down to the hut and were followed shortly thereafter by the rest of the group. We were skis on and on our way out by 4. The ski out was terrible but manageable. Splitz, Hummus and I went ahead and were out in 1.5hrs; the rest of the group took 3.5hrs to navigate the steep, tree bombed, crusted and often narrow trail.

This weekend has had a pretty major effect on me and the rest of my group. This season has been great for my primary group as we’ve taken advantage of stable conditions to tick off quite a few decent sized lines in BC. We’ve skied a lot of aggressive terrain and put in questionable skin tracks and bootpacks bolstered by good avi forecasts and lack of new snow. This weekend we had very desirable avalanche forecasts (3x low at Blackcomb which is right next to where we were skiing and mod-low-low in the sea-to-sky) but we found some of the least stable terrain we’ve seen this year. This weekend was very humbling as far as revealing flaws in how we asses terrain. The biggest single lesson I’ve gotten out of this weekend is the need to treat the avi forecast as a single tool in assessing terrain but to not rely on it at all. Beyond that though, I have realized that a more conservative approach is required than the one that I have built up this season and identified how much further I’ve got to go before I can confidently make some decisions required to play in these awesome mountains. On that note, one thing about most books and courses about navigating avalanche terrain is that they target the average meadow skipping backcountry skier, does anyone have any resources that specifically address decision making on steep terrain.
Hope that everyone gets a bit out of this trip report. It is super long in the tooth but I had a lot on my mind that I wanted to get down and wanted to offer up a trip report that everyone could learn from

[Kire2008]

Sounds like you guys had plenty of observations that should have made you think about the stability of the slope. Did you guys not dig any pits or check stability of that first couloir?

Blindly trusting an avi report is bad practice. Your friend and you are very fortunate that you did not get caught in that first avalanche, I think that would have ended with death not partial burial.

Great pictures.

[time2clmb]

In hindsight there were several clear indicators that we ignored. These factors were:
- during our final approach up to the hut we noticed dust on crust where the dust was not bonding to the crust at all making for difficult skinning conditions
- significant wind loading in the couloir
- small slabs breaking off between our legs as we hiked
- poor visibility (limiting ability to asses hazard and increasing the consequence of an incident)

Another factor that your not including here is the human factor. The one guy according to you cited stability concerns and turned around, yet you let him do this on his own and continued up. Not good partnership. Thanks for the canid report...alot can be learned from people posting this type of trip report up.

[eknomf]

Thanks for posting this - The best course of action is usually clear in hindsight but can be much less obvious in the moment. I think most people who have been at it a while have had close calls in the backcountry and one of the best ways to avoid them is to learn from other people's experiences.

-Ryan G.

[shafty85]

Definitely informative. Fortunate this wound up only being a learning lesson rather than something worse. Partnership responsibility, as t2c commented about, is what struck me most - even more so than ignoring/being oblivious to such obvious data (sluff coming down on you, slabs breaking away underneath you???) a member of the party turned around due to the danger they felt was present and you still went onward? Sounds like complacency regarding safety was a huge factor here ('It's been safe all season - it'll continue to be safe?).

Fortunately it all worked out in the end and I'm sure it'll be a valuable lesson to all of us.

What specific sort of training are you searching for regarding 'steep' terrain that you feel you don't have from the 'average meadow' training?

[AngryBeard]

Another factor that your not including here is the human factor. The one guy according to you cited stability concerns and turned around, yet you let him do this on his own and continued up. Not good partnership. Thanks for the canid report...alot can be learned from people posting this type of trip report up.

Yes, this was certainly a huge error. Splitz is a pretty understated guy and didn't loudly voice objections to the snowpack he said being low on energy as the main reason for bailing. He hasn't been on many big boot packs this year so Hummus and I figured that he just wasn't comfortable with the exposure. Like everything in my report it's very easy to identify a laundry list of errors in hindsight but when caught up in the moment we easily overlooked all of these.

[AngryBeard]

What specific sort of training are you searching for regarding 'steep' terrain that you feel you don't have from the 'average meadow' training?

Take a couloir that is 38 degrees +, add that you're in a gully terrain trap, sometimes you've got exposure and then you've got an overhead cornice.... lots of people on here are skiing this terrain but I don't know a book that is going to say that's a good idea no matter how stable the snow is.

Thinking I might book a trip next fall with Golden Alpine Holidays or something and ask to have a guide who's able and willing to give the trip an instructional feel on making decisions about skiing steep terrain, how to manage sluff, etc...

[gramboh]

Thanks for sharing your trip and lessons learned. As a relative newbie who is not yet getting into that type of terrain (but wants to eventually), it's helpful to read the thought process (and of course hindsight is 20/20). Even from my limited experience, I know the feeling that goes through your mind when you see low/low/low in Jan/Feb, especially if you do not see any evidence of activity around you. I wonder if it was good vis if you might have seen other evidence that would have turned you around? At this point, I pretty much avoid going in the alpine in bad vis as I fear not being able to see clues, assess cornices etc.

[Kire2008]

Couloirs can be really protected. This isolated snow pack needs the same attention to detail an open slope needs. Digging a few pits while your climbing up can give you an idea of how the snow pack is changing. Which you never mentioned on your way up the slope.

You need to be more on your game and paying attention, you have no outs in a couloir. The information from the "average meadow" books still applies. Observations are key.

[shafty85]

Couloirs can be really protected. This isolated snow pack needs the same attention to detail an open slope needs. Digging a few pits while your climbing up can give you an idea of how the snow pack is changing. Which you never mentioned on your way up the slope.

You need to be more on your game and paying attention, you have no outs in a couloir. The information from the "average meadow" books still applies. Observations are key.

This.

Assessing, travelling and skiing in steeper and more exposed terrain requires the same skills you (hopefully) learned in the 'average meadow skipping' course(s), but stepped up a notch - way more focus, attention to detail and a solid gameplan (with everyone on the same page) is required. You should be collecting and processing data wherever you are skinning/travelling - it all forms the larger picture for you of what is going on in the snow.

Sounds like what you want/need is more experience with people who know what they are doing and have been in more exposed areas before and can share their experience and knowledge with you.

[Tectonically_Neglected]

Could I add one more human factor, without coming across as an armchair smartass...

- having a goal and sticking to it i.e. wanting to top out and ski from the top

Thanks for sharing your story and glad you learned from it. In end we all make mistakes. Luckily you were allowed to make one without dire consequences and turned it around into a learning experience. That's turning a bad into a good.

Good on you.

[DyingToLiveToSki]

You guys need to keep getting out there and killing it. Just keep this experience in your brain so you will be able to recognize similar (or worse) conditions in the future.

Getting out into manageable terrain when conditions are considerable and ski cutting pillows and small slopes will also help you dial your read on snow and unstable slope geometry.

Big faces give exposure to large amounts of snow ripping, couloirs are funnels for avalanches and have looming cornices. I don't think there is a book on it you just need to be constantly assessing what level of risk you are comfortable with and think about the variables of what is going to happen if shit hits the fan before you start booting up.

[lynchdogger]

Another factor that your not including here is the human factor. The one guy according to you cited stability concerns and turned around, yet you let him do this on his own and continued up. Not good partnership. Thanks for the canid report...alot can be learned from people posting this type of trip report up.

Agree here. One for all. All for one. Human error and focus on objective disregarding observed conditions screaming at you to go home is not good. But you know that. Thanks for sharing all of this. A good taste of humble pie is a good thing. The objective will be there for another day but at times so hard but absolutely necessary to know when to bail. Conservative decision making will allow you to live to ski snother day.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using TGR Forums

[yellowstoner]

Thanks for posting this up - I know when I see a low avi report I sometimes need to check myself and keep myself honest about what I'm doing out in the backcountry...especially sidecountry. This is a hell of a reality check for sure.

[LeeLau]

" On that note, one thing about most books and courses about navigating avalanche terrain is that they target the average meadow skipping backcountry skier, does anyone have any resources that specifically address decision making on steep terrain."

Nope/

You guys have done a lot in a small amount of time. Don't mistake luck for skill. Don't take that as a criticism btw. Just try to keep learning and keep beating yourself up with the learning. Don't be afraid to meadowskip. Meadowskippers don't get the radgnar TGR points but it can still be fun. N Rethel is not be fucked with.

[t.odd]

You guys have done a lot in a small amount of time. Don't mistake luck for skill. Don't take that as a criticism btw. Just try to keep learning and keep beating yourself up with the learning. Don't be afraid to meadowskip. Meadowskippers don't get the radgnar TGR points but it can still be fun. N Rethel is not be fucked with.

that's kind of my impression too, from my comfy armchair....I'll admit to being surprised at how fast you guys seemingly started getting after some rowdy lines, but who am I to judge, I'm a fucking pussy in the backcountry and generally stick to meadowskipping!

[AngryBeard]

You guys have nailed it - this year has been a tonne of fun wandering around in super stable conditions ticking boxes but we got complacent. I'm really glad about what happened to be honest, great and very stunning reality check for us without anyone getting hurt or worse. I'm sure others are in the same boat and from the comments above am glad I posted this one up as it sure hurt the old ego a bit.

Re my comments earlier about assessing terrain while steep skiing. I agree completely that the tools are the same but the go/no go line is harder to find as by nature of it you're exposing yourself to more risk than most resources recommend.

[steventy]

Thanks for posting this.

[sparkletarte.]

Good for posting. Reading it I was whoa-ing as you carried on. Even in low consequence terrain, I wouldn't ditch a partner and let them go solo in that kind of situation.

Sounds like the guided learning trip would be an awesome idea.

I've backed away from one ski... not that I'm going after supergnar stuff. It was super windy and low vis, we were on the ridge almost at the top, when someone said I don't know about this. The other 2 of us where immediately, yeah wtf are we doing. So we backed down to the trees.

[LeeLau]

Re my comments earlier about assessing terrain while steep skiing. I agree completely that the tools are the same but the go/no go line is harder to find as by nature of it you're exposing yourself to more risk than most resources recommend.

Do a clinic with someone experienced. Keith Reid with Extremely Canadian who's the head of the ACMG comes to mind. Super focused and will be a hell of a learning experience. Want me to ask him and make introductions?

[butterscotch]

Good discussion in this thread. I, too, was surpised that you continued after a partner bailed and you were kicking off small slabs. [/armchair]

One thought:

Our local avi guys recommend digging small hand pits along the way. Not as a replacement to a full on snow pit, but just something that allows you to assess multiple points in the snowpack quickly, although not in extensive detail. Could be a useful technique in a couloir.

[Shorty_J]

...you just need to be constantly assessing what level of risk you are comfortable with and think about the variables of what is going to happen if shit hits the fan before you start booting up.

This... 100%.

I don't think there's a book on it because to a certain degree, you're always putting yourself at a certain amount of risk when skiing lines like that. There are factors you can asses and learn from, and there are factors that will most likely surprise you at some point, no matter how much you know. Learn what you can when you're out there, but first and foremost, decide what level of risk you're willing to accept and go from there.

[shirk]

I was surprised your crew didn't get spooked on your Joffre mission dropping in at dark and kicking off slabs on your partners below.

Set up a Ski Mountaineering course with Whistler Alpine Guides Bureau.

As for a book on ski mountaineering get a copy of Jimmy Oden's Free Skiing. Either online or Escape Route should still have a copy.

[Slaag Master]

yay!!! feed the stoke!!!!!