A bit touchy, eh.

[panchosdad]

Just back from a week at Vista Lodge in the Selkirks. One of the outgoing skiers said "It's a bit touchy, eh".



First afternoon, after the heli flight in. Noodled around on low angle south facing slopes for a bit, got impressive collapses and reactive pits. Went around to some NE faces, and things seemed different, no collapses. Layer on a windcrust was non reactive at the top of this slope, so we thought we'd give it a try on this small slope. I was the second skier, it popped at a spot where I was literally 1' away from the first skier's track. Slow moving enough that I never would have known it slid except for my partner yelling at me. Went back up and did an ECT on the crown where it was deepest (60cm), and got no results.



A few minutes later, we got to this rollover. First skier ski cut it and most of the small slope slid. The next 3 skiers each knocked out a little more.



After a few successful days our courage was building back up, and we headed down valley for these slopes. Dug full pits a couple times, and did numerous hand shears on the way up. Looking for surface hoar that we had found occasionally in other places. In only one hand shear did we find any. Did two runs on the lookers left side, great skiing. Third run we traversed over the ridge to the right and skied from a slightly lower col. A hand shear in this vicinity did reveal a reactive SH layer, but we were at the lowest angle spot on the ridge and it was 5pm. Decided to go ahead and ski it. When we got to the bottom, we could see that while traversing the ridge we had remote triggered a D2 slide that took out some of our tracks from our second run.

This probably was more avalanche activity than I've first hand encountered than in my previous 35 years of backcountry skiing. Maybe for many of you it's no big deal, but it meant enough to me to post. Flame away, or add your insights.

[plugboots]

Well that would definitely be enough information for me to stay on less than 25° slopes, and butt wiggle for the rest of the week.

[cmcrawfo]

its interesting that you kept skiing. If I was out touring and consistently produced realworld results in moderate terrain, despite not being able to produce result in test pits, I would have probably called it day.

[GeezerSteve]

Well that would definitely be enough information for me to stay on less than 25° slopes, and butt wiggle for the rest of the week.

yup. another reason to have a fat fishscale meadow skipper setup

[cmcrawfo]

yup. another reason to have a fat fishscale meadow skipper setup

Or maybe just use that money to pay a guide ... and have them insulate you from poor decisions?

[Mofro261]

Or just stay home and insulate yourself from the entire world- it's all sorts of dangerous outside.

[panchosdad]

Or just stay home and insulate yourself from the entire world- it's all sorts of dangerous outside.

And yet we had a great trip, skied a bunch of great (and bigger and steeper) lines without issue, and got home safely. Probably closer to the line on some occasions than I would have liked was more what I was getting at. Maybe next time I'll take your advice, but probably not.

[GoldMember]

Or just stay home and insulate yourself from the entire world- it's all sorts of dangerous outside.

and die of a heart attack while sitting on the couch, eating potato chips, watching just one more, brain-dead reality tv show.

[cmcrawfo]

Or just stay home and insulate yourself from the entire world- it's all sorts of dangerous outside.

We all have different levels of risk acceptance... OP stated this seemed like a lot of avy activity... personally find it interesting to consider the level of risk guides choose to expose guests to, and question the motivations behind it. This is a particularity interesting discussion in the context Canadian guide liability (or lack there of).

You are clearly more gnarly or pro-bro than me, because as I said.. If I was touring and encountered conditions as the OP described I would probably call it a day.

[2FUNKY]

and die of a heart attack while sitting on the couch, eating potato chips, watching just one more, brain-dead reality tv show.

In which case you also died doing what you loved......

[cmcrawfo]

when you dig out out a dead body from a low grade slide, in a "low risk" area , and have to call you buddies wife and tell her the news.... she is super comforted in the fact that he died doing something he loved. and everyone else thinks you made an awesome decision not staying home that day eating chips.

[Mofro261]

And yet we had a great trip, skied a bunch of great (and bigger and steeper) lines without issue, and got home safely. Probably closer to the line on some occasions than I would have liked was more what I was getting at. Maybe next time I'll take your advice, but probably not.

Sorry, my glib advice wasn't directed for you, in a very similar situation earlier this year we did the same. On the hut trip in January we flew into what was calling for high danger on all aspects and all elevations. We were unguided, and a minority few members on our party felt that NO SKIING AT ALL was the only option and more or less painted our meadow skipping as reckless behavior. There were several reported slides relatively close in the general area in the Selkirks , but we never got anything moving the whole week and were able to step up into bigger terrain as well.

I think it's important to get out into mellow terrain during times of instability and observe how the snow reacts on more benign features (like those first 2 pics).

[Dantheman]

And yet we had a great trip, skied a bunch of great (and bigger and steeper) lines without issue, and got home safely. Probably closer to the line on some occasions than I would have liked was more what I was getting at. Maybe next time I'll take your advice, but probably not.

People get away with shit that they shouldn't every day, doesn't make it a good idea. That you made it home safely this time doesn't mean shit. An attitude like that in the face of all those red flags is going to get you killed.

[Dantheman]

There were several reported slides relatively close in the general area in the Selkirks , but we never got anything moving the whole week and were able to step up into bigger terrain as well.

I think it's important to get out into mellow terrain during times of instability and observe how the snow reacts on more benign features (like those first 2 pics).

I agree with the latter statement, but don't agree with the reasoning in the former. I don't know exactly what kind of instabilities you were dealing with or what exactly you mean by "bigger terrain," but persistent instabilities often won't give you any obvious feedback (whoompfing, remotes, etc.). No skiing at all is an overreaction, but ignoring the larger context of the snowpack is a great way to confirmation bias yourself into a bad situation.

[GoldMember]

We all have different levels of risk acceptance... OP stated this seemed like a lot of avy activity... personally find it interesting to consider the level of risk guides choose to expose guests to, and question the motivations behind it. This is a particularity interesting discussion in the context Canadian guide liability (or lack there of).

You are clearly more gnarly or pro-bro than me, because as I said.. If I was touring and encountered conditions as the OP described I would probably call it a day.

In which case you also died doing what you loved......

Sorry guys, just being a smart-ass playing off Mofro's post. I've turned around in conditions of lesser concern than the OP's. Realizing my knowledge wasn't deep enough to take some risk on a leeward slope (after a CTE of 3), I went back down the ridge our group came up. A few of our group decided to ski the leeward slope and did so without incident but, in my opinion, they just got lucky. As for my comment, it was in poor form.

[cravenmorhead]

Third run we traversed over the ridge to the right and skied from a slightly lower col. A hand shear in this vicinity did reveal a reactive SH layer, but we were at the lowest angle spot on the ridge and it was 5pm. Decided to go ahead and ski it. When we got to the bottom, we could see that while traversing the ridge we had remote triggered a D2 slide that took out some of our tracks from our second run.

Pretty classic heuristic trap. "We're on the mellowest point of the ridge and it's 5pm. If we bail on this line we'd have to traverse to an entirely separate ridge." Lucky to avoid the consequences of a remotely triggered D2.

[mtnjam]

Nice pics of that terrain up there panchosdad. I don't remember seeing that terrain when we stayed at Vista, but I do remember we went up Col of the Wild into Colpitti Basin, toured around back there and then back to Vista again. Hasta La Vista were some great runs, but we never did get into anything too steep. We skied below Vista a few runs a few down to the lake/meadow and a few in pillow land, we went further down valley and skied one really shitty slope with WAY too big of a group in a treed slidepath that was completely a junkshow and shredded by the 4th skier, which many of us expressed displeasure in to our lead guide Wayne. The tailgunner guide, Andrew was in agreement with the group. Interesting guide philosophy up there. We asked our guides why they wouldn't take us up to the alpine and said visibility was the issue so we continued to ski the crusty trees.
That's my experience.

Looks like you all had great visibility and not so stable conditions.

[panchosdad]

Pretty classic heuristic trap. "We're on the mellowest point of the ridge and it's 5pm. If we bail on this line we'd have to traverse to an entirely separate ridge." Lucky to avoid the consequences of a remotely triggered D2.

Exactly.

[panchosdad]

We all have different levels of risk acceptance... OP stated this seemed like a lot of avy activity... personally find it interesting to consider the level of risk guides choose to expose guests to, and question the motivations behind it. This is a particularity interesting discussion in the context Canadian guide liability (or lack there of).

You are clearly more gnarly or pro-bro than me, because as I said.. If I was touring and encountered conditions as the OP described I would probably call it a day.

No guide for us.

[panchosdad]

People get away with shit that they shouldn't every day, doesn't make it a good idea. That you made it home safely this time doesn't mean shit. An attitude like that in the face of all those red flags is going to get you killed.

Sorry if my post came across glibly. We took the conditions very seriously, but still tried to get good skiing. Always a tricky proposition. In general the conditions were considered "Moderate" the later part of the week, which was probably the right hazard level. Moderate doesn't mean no hazard, obviously. We had a copy of the latest Avalanche Review on the table in the hut, with the cover of "Are We Good, or Just Lucky". It certainly was a theme for the week.

My point of posting all this was to try to generate good discussion. In classic TGR form most comments have been more in the flame mode, but thanks to those who have tried to respond with reasonable and thoughtful comments.

[panchosdad]

I agree with the latter statement, but don't agree with the reasoning in the former. I don't know exactly what kind of instabilities you were dealing with or what exactly you mean by "bigger terrain," but persistent instabilities often won't give you any obvious feedback (whoompfing, remotes, etc.). No skiing at all is an overreaction, but ignoring the larger context of the snowpack is a great way to confirmation bias yourself into a bad situation.

This is exactly the case. Early in the week we were treating things as if we had a PWL. As conditions moderated and we had good success skiing steeper terrain (with exhaustive testing like dropping big cornices and digging frequently) we lost this caution. That was a obviously a mistake, imo.

[panchosdad]

I think it's important to get out into mellow terrain during times of instability and observe how the snow reacts on more benign features (like those first 2 pics).

Yes, this was a big part of our thinking.

[LeeLau]

Sorry, my glib advice wasn't directed for you, in a very similar situation earlier this year we did the same. On the hut trip in January we flew into what was calling for high danger on all aspects and all elevations. We were unguided, and a minority few members on our party felt that NO SKIING AT ALL was the only option and more or less painted our meadow skipping as reckless behavior. There were several reported slides relatively close in the general area in the Selkirks , but we never got anything moving the whole week and were able to step up into bigger terrain as well.

I think it's important to get out into mellow terrain during times of instability and observe how the snow reacts on more benign features (like those first 2 pics).

We all have different levels of risk acceptance... OP stated this seemed like a lot of avy activity... personally find it interesting to consider the level of risk guides choose to expose guests to, and question the motivations behind it. This is a particularity interesting discussion in the context Canadian guide liability (or lack there of).

You are clearly more gnarly or pro-bro than me, because as I said.. If I was touring and encountered conditions as the OP described I would probably call it a day.

Just so Mofro doesn't get put on the spot I was on the trip to Valkyr with them.

The Interior forecast had a SPAW calling out a buried PWL (surface hoar if I recall) potentially triggered by new incoming snow. I pointed out to many in the group that this interior forecast was very regional and that most of the observations were from the Monashees and that the forecast was Monasee-biased. I also had the advantage of Infoex so knew that the obs were all from regions of bigger snowpacks and based on more forecasted snowload. Valkyr is east of the Monashees, had less snowpack (almost a factor of 40%) and much less forecasted snowload.

Day 1 and Day 2 we bum-wiggled and toured lots of various aspects but on mellow ground. I established my own baseline of knowledge. I saw zero signs of PWLs. The snowpack only being 180cms approx I had pretty good knowledge having had a chance to look at various aspects by then. I also had the benefit of obs from all the other groups including Mofro.

At this point it's worth addressing your point about different levels of risk acceptance. I'll ignore the part about being more gnarly or bro-pro as it doesn't really help. Suffice it to say that on day 1 I was with a group that had similar risk acceptance to myself (Mofro, Zbo, adimmen and myself). On Day 2 I was with a group where half the group was significantly more conservative than myself or Shar. Their risk acceptance was of course their own personal decision but partially also because some of the conservative group weren't good skiers and had limited experience in the Interior snowpack.

On Day 3 Shar, I and someone else re-joined Mofro, Zbo and adimmen's group and skied the aspect and area they had worked over on day 2. I found their approach to be the same as mine which can be boiled down to --- terrain is always the answer. We skied steep slopes in small sections from anchor to anchor and built confidence throughout the day by making many observations throughout the day rather then the IMO overreliance on spatially variable Avalanche Canada forecasts of the day 2 very conservative skiers.

I'll make the followon observations

- I found the day 2 conservative skier we skied with attitude of armchair QB'ing other group's decisions to be annoying. She projected her conservatism onto other group's judgments as a justification to virtue-signal her own conservatism without taking other group's data-collection into account. That IMO is ego intruding into decision-making. I did not ski with her thereafter. Nice person but we have different philosophies.

- I deal with PWLs and binary outcome snowpack decisions such as low probability - high consequence decisions either by removing myself and my own flawed propensity to always want to ski by simply staying home or going biking. In a hut situation I would almost certainly do what Mofro did ie use terrain to manage the risk. I can't speak to what Panchosdad did because I have no idea what steeper slopes they skied (ie planar, big faces, pillows, steeps to anchor to anchor?)

Anyhow, perhaps a futile effort to get back on track

[swissiphic]

"...A hand shear in this vicinity did reveal a reactive SH layer, but we were at the lowest angle spot on the ridge and it was 5pm. Decided to go ahead and ski it...."

Just curious about environmental factors through your week. What was the weather/cloud cover day by day and what was the range of temps...was there a rise in temps on the afternoon of the day of the larger avy? Any chance a tipping point was reached due to solar input on what appears to be a westnorthwestish (?) facing start zone? No flame or inuendo intended at all here, just looking for facts to add to the personal mental archive of 'factors that might tickle pwls' such as this one.

IME these buried surface hoar layers within skier triggerable depths are just so damn scary 'cause, all other factors remaining the same, I've seen numerous instances over the decades where seemingly innocuous minor rises in temps or direct bursts of intense solar awaken sleeping giants..and remote triggers, skier triggered or natural avies occur....and other times where nothing happens...spooky stuff.

[panchosdad]

"...A hand shear in this vicinity did reveal a reactive SH layer, but we were at the lowest angle spot on the ridge and it was 5pm. Decided to go ahead and ski it...."

Just curious about environmental factors through your week. What was the weather/cloud cover day by day and what was the range of temps...was there a rise in temps on the afternoon of the day of the larger avy? Any chance a tipping point was reached due to solar input on what appears to be a westnorthwestish (?) facing start zone? No flame or inuendo intended at all here, just looking for facts to add to the personal mental archive of 'factors that might tickle pwls' such as this one.

IME these buried surface hoar layers within skier triggerable depths are just so damn scary 'cause, all other factors remaining the same, I've seen numerous instances over the decades where seemingly innocuous minor rises in temps or direct bursts of intense solar awaken sleeping giants..and remote triggers, skier triggered or natural avies occur....and other times where nothing happens...spooky stuff.

Good questions. Temps were very steady, never above -1C. Aspect was close to due north. Skies were mixed through the week, partially overcast this day. I don't think warming played a role.