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Thread: Red Mtn Pass avalanche fatality
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02-25-2019, 03:34 PM #76
he's impressively consistent.
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03-08-2022, 06:52 PM #77Gel-powered Tech bindings
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This story:
https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoo...h-snow-safety/
... was published over a week ago, but apparently became available from beyond the paywall only more recently.
A few somewhat random disjointed comments, although I’ll leave out the elephant in the room of the ass’t instructor’s terrain selection, since the article has a decent amount of material on that, and I’m struggling to come up with any defense, so sure much else can be said on that based upon the info in the article?
- I like how the color commentary -- in addition to quite literally the colors of the eyes and hair of various people -- includes that a local student is a telemarker living in a converted schoolbus. (Could that be any more stereotypical?)
- This passage strikes me as trying to make some sort of odd point, since if the group’s leader is familiar with the terrain, why do the students also have to be familiar with it? “They were determined to minimize exposure to avalanche terrain, which generally means slopes steeper than 30 degrees, but only Lovell and one of the students had ever been to the basin.”
- Having taken various avalanche training courses as a student (both rec and pro), and having taught at courses both small and large, I am very confused at the notion of a dedicated “safety officer” for the avy course. Now sure, if, say, my skimo races were larger events, I could certainly understand a dedicated Safety Officer. But for any avy safety course, every instructor is essentially an empowered safety officer. (For that matter, individual students should consider themselves all safety officers too.) So what are the duties supposed to be for a course’s single designated safety officer? (Apologies in advance to the leaders for my various AIARE IRC sessions if I wasn’t paying attention to this!) The identified safety officer makes only a cameo appearance in the article, and doesn’t seem to have any role (or any authority) other than reading out loud some excerpts from the CAIC bulletin, [edit] plus a somewhat indirect reference to his apparent role in soliciting tour plans from the instructors.
- The article emphasizes that the safety officer reads only certain portions of the CAIC bulletin to the students. But even if the safety officer had read the bulletin in its entirety, that still strikes me as inadequate. This isn’t, say, the weather forecast for a skimo race (continuing the prior theme), where it’s an ancillary issue. Instead, the local/regional avy bulletin is supposed to be a focus of any avy safety course [edit: I had the level mixed up]: each student should read the bulletin in its entirety, then the group should spend lots of time discussing it, formulating the tour plan around it, etc. Certainly the article might be leaving out elements of what occurred for the course, but if the students never even had the day’s entire bulletin read to them…?
- Nobody in the group seems to have a PLB or any other type of emergency satellite messenger device?
- The plan to carry a radio for communication with the other group and/or the hut doesn’t seem to help that much at first since neither the other group nor the hut has a PLB or any other type of emergency satellite messenger device?
- The BCA lawsuit receives only little mention, which is just as well, given that it sure sounds like a desperate move.
- I find this passage both misleading and unfair: “AIARE has more than 500 freelance instructors operating in 14 states, as well as 30 trainers who qualify instructors, yet the organization struggles to keep pace.” AIARE provides training courses and guidelines for instructors to become “qualified” by AIARE. Such instructors work for independent course providers (or are self-employed). To describe them (us, me…) as “freelance instructors” implies we are working for AIARE as independent contractors, which is definitely not the situation. I also feel that AIARE has if anything been doing a *better* job with instructor continuing education since I first became a qualified instructor in 2006, despite the massive increase in our ranks since then.
- I realize that many guiding companies hire all sorts of freelance guides, and I certainly receive many emails about AIARE course providers looking for instructors to fill gaps. But SAS comes across here more like an instructor venue rather than a cohesive integrated course provider: “At SAS, in response to the increased number of courses, Gober and Barney say they tried to establish clear qualifications for visiting instructors and to hold annual training sessions on how SAS classes should be taught. “We were getting instructors that Doug and Mike and I had never heard of, and we have a couple years in the avalanche world,” Gober says. “It was like, Wait a minute, who are these people coming in? How do we know that they’re teaching courses at the level we want to be teaching?””
- Whoah, now this had to be the ultimate emotionally loaded training course experience: “Two months after the avalanche, in March, four students returned to Silverton to finish the course, including three from Lovell’s group.”
- This TGR thread previously featured some interesting discussion about the relationship of SAS with the other entities – complicated! The article has plenty on that (might help to have an org chart to keep track!), and check this out: “Soon afterward, in early August 2019, Holland sent Barney and Krause an email dissolving the board. He told them he had hired a lawyer and met with the sheriff and claimed that they were not compliant with the bylaws and thus had never been a legitimate board to begin with. Krause, in a reply, questioned the school’s financial practices and whether anything illegal was going on.”
- “On the afternoon of March 6, 2005, Amos Whiting, 28, was the lead instructor of a Level 2 course with Aspen Expeditions.” I remember reading about this at the time, wondering how that possibly could have occurred. Then my AIARE ITC led off with it. The takeaway was improper student vetting: the student from New Mexico could make his telemark turns in only direction. How this wasn’t noticed until the final day was unclear. But the final descent on the final day was down a broad “ridgeline” (which sounded to me more like a “ramp”) splitting two steeper bowls. Stay on the yellow brick road, and you’re fine, so a perfect lesson in terrain selection. But since he couldn’t turn in both directions, he strayed into one of the steeper bowls, where he triggered the slide.
- This sounds emotionally brutal: “It had been an especially tragic winter locally; George had already helped recover five bodies from avalanches.”
Mo' skimo here: NE Rando Race Series
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03-08-2022, 07:04 PM #78Gel-powered Tech bindings
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Correct, in that capacity for that day.
But he now has his IFMGA "pin":
https://amga.com/hire-a-guide/?page=...d=11014&gid=32
... and (at least according to the Outside article) he already had his Alpine & Rock guide cert from AMGA at the time of the course.
Agreed -- in general. A L2 is not just supposed to be the avy equivalent of gator watching, which is often what happens with L1 courses, especially out East in the Presidentials, where our terrain is so binary.
Good quote here from the Outside article:
"When the class split into groups for Saturday’s field session, Reed and Marshall joined Lovell’s party because they wanted experience planning and executing a more complex ski tour. “We didn’t want to skin a half-mile in and sit there and dig a snow pit the entire time,” Reed says."
But this excerpt is very interesting in that regard:
*****
On the morning of January 4, when the class met in Silverton to sign liability waivers, there was discussion about conditions and where the groups would venture in the field. In a statement three days after the accident, obtained via a public-records request, Jasper Thompson wrote: “I asked instructors what terrain they intended to use. Sandy [Kobrock] stated ‘we are not going to travel in avalanche terrain’ in the presence of Zack [sic]. I agreed with the decision and added my concern that under these conditions it is best to not travel in, under or on slopes directly attached to avalanche terrain. The instructors acknowledged.”
In internal logs on January 4 and 5, both Kobrock and Lovell noted heavy recent wind loading on terrain above tree line that faced the same direction as the bowl that slid. Lovell stressed the need for “caution ATL [above tree line] on steep slopes with skiable HS [hard slab],” the same ingredients present in the slide. Under the heading “Closed Terrain,” Kobrock wrote: “[Above] 30 degrees.” Lovell, however, acknowledged that if they ended up skiing the bowl, they would have to descend a “small pocket of 30-35 [degree]” terrain that was “adjacent to larger terrain.”
Of course, none of this meant that they knew an avalanche would occur, but it shows that Lovell left the door open to ski avalanche terrain, something Kobrock had explicitly ruled out. On January 4, according to Jasper Thompson’s written statement, Lovell talked to Jim Donovan—who is also the county emergency manager and captain of its search and rescue team—about where he might take his group. But it’s unclear if Donovan weighed in on Lovell’s final plan. (Both men declined to be interviewed or participate in fact-checking for this article.) Later that morning, Thompson wrote, “I expressed my concern to Sandy that Zack seemed inclined to travel in more complex and bigger terrain due to his growing experience as an AMGA rock, alpine, and ski guide. Sandy was thankful for this information and [said she] would follow up [with] a discussion with Zack.”Mo' skimo here: NE Rando Race Series
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03-08-2022, 09:16 PM #79
My read (could be a leap) is it's not an assertion that everybody needs to be familiar with the terrain, but a way of illustrating that while the group made a tour plan with intent to avoid avalanche terrain (using Caltopo), only Lovell and one other student had been on it, and therefore were the only ones who might've had prior knowledge of slopes included in the plan that were actually steeper than 30deg.
Again, maybe a leap based on my prior knowledge of the incident.
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03-09-2022, 08:08 AM #80
The event is massively sad and unfortunate. Legal proceedings and finger pointing isn't going to change that.
I encourage anyone that take a field avalanche course to be aware of the possibility that the Expert Halo includes your instructor. It is all of our responsibility to keep our entire group safe. Ultimately, whatever situation we are in is a function of our own free will. Please keep that in mind everytime you jump out of your truck and turn on your beacon.
The partners I trust and respect the most are the ones that look me in the eye and say, "Fuck that Foggy! I not comfortable with that plan. I'm turning around and going home the safe way".
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03-09-2022, 06:35 PM #81Gel-powered Tech bindings
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Mo' skimo here: NE Rando Race Series
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03-09-2022, 06:41 PM #82Gel-powered Tech bindings
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Mo' skimo here: NE Rando Race Series
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03-09-2022, 07:34 PM #83
One of the biggest things that I've picked up over the many years of BC in Colorado is the concept of connected terrain. Long time ago I would only be assessing the intended line very carefully, but now, it's a whole different ballgame. It's like defending that gut punch and neglecting that massive left cross.
Is it radix panax notoginseng? - splat
This is like hanging yourself but the rope breaks. - DTM
Dude Listen to mtm. He's a marriage counselor at burning man. - subtle plague
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03-10-2022, 01:46 AM #84
Solid analysis, Jonathan. Thanks for posting.
Probably the only thing I'd add is that much as Aspen Expeditions owner Dick Jackson helped out Whiting after the March, 2005 event, Lowell might now be a "go to" instructor after his experience.
Tough way to learn a lesson for everyone involved (as if that needed to be said).
... ThomLast edited by galibier_numero_un; 03-10-2022 at 02:17 AM.
Galibier Designcrafting technology in service of music
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03-11-2022, 08:32 AM #85Gel-powered Tech bindings
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Reminds me of the old line about the safest airline to fly on is the one that recently had a crash.
(I have no idea if that's true, but something to be said about a mistake causing an institution or individual to rethink protocols. I like how the various Tremper books/editions have conceptual graphs to illustrate this effect.)Mo' skimo here: NE Rando Race Series
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03-12-2022, 08:51 AM #86Hey
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03-12-2022, 09:41 AM #87
Depends why they crashed and what the reaction was. You gotta work hard to relate that to avalanche safety. Aviation safety includes aircraft, maintenance, training, and regulatory factors that translate poorly. Even the human factors are mostly quite different. The culture of safety is important.
Yes, we (every industry that isn't aviation) like to talk CRM and checklists as tools appropriated from aviation, but apart from that, it's an entirely different type of flying altogether.Originally Posted by blurred
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03-14-2022, 12:55 PM #88Gel-powered Tech bindings
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^ Yes, exactly (i.e., for the expanded version above). That's why I described it as the "old line" not as a reliable guideline or statistically proven concept. If an otherwise "safe" airline has a crash, then sure, that line could make sense. But if Whereveristan Air has a crash with one of its ancient Soviet hand-me-down planes flown by one of its many pilots who attended Hollywood Upstairs Pilot School, not a good sign.
Mo' skimo here: NE Rando Race Series
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03-14-2022, 01:59 PM #89
Yup, organizationally, there are so many things to consider.
On an individual basis however, I can only imagine what that guide lives with every day. We have no way of knowing, but I'll bet this factors significantly into his risk tolerance.
I'd love to have seen videos of conversations between Bjarne Salem and Andreas Franson to compare with the discussions he currently has with Cody.
... ThomGalibier Designcrafting technology in service of music
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03-16-2022, 12:20 PM #90Registered User
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Unfortunate event. At the end of the day, any BC skiing in avalanche terrain in Colorado is akin to swimming in a shark factory. Thin snowpack, cold temps, lots of wind, extended dry sunny spells. No thank you. BC users are ALWAYS getting caught off guard there. I appreciate the thoughtful analysis, but it's hindsight. I feel like there is this big myth in the backcountry community that if you can be perfect at decision making and have all the snowpack assessment skills and local knowledge, you will be safe. There is a lot of evidence to the contrary.
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03-16-2022, 02:07 PM #91I feel like there is this big myth in the backcountry community that if you can be perfect at decision making and have all the snowpack assessment skills and local knowledge, you will be safe. There is a lot of evidence to the contrary.
Examine any accident (not just avalanche) and somewhere, someone fucked up.I have been in this State for 30 years and I am willing to admit that I am part of the problem.
"Happiest years of my life were earning < $8.00 and hour, collecting unemployment every spring and fall, no car, no debt and no responsibilities. 1984-1990 Park City UT"
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03-16-2022, 03:10 PM #92
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03-16-2022, 03:17 PM #93Registered User
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Sure, but I don't think a lot of backcountry users avoid avalanche terrain, because that is not as fun. Even then, there have been heli guides who have gotten clients killed on sub 25 degree slopes in just the right avie conditions. I think what I am getting at is that there are so many decisions that go into a tour, and so many variables, that it is impossible to not "fuck up" at some point. The challenging thing about BC travel is you can make a bad decision and not have an accident, or you can make a bad decision and someone can die, it depends to a large extent on variables that are out of one's control. The challenging part is you may even "fuck up" and there are no consequences, so by getting that feedback, BC travellers think they made a good decision because they didn't die, even though they may have taken a risk outside their risk threshold without knowing it. By "safe" I mean not putting yourself in a position where you run a chance of having to phone your partner's spouse and tell them that their kids are now orphans. I know that is a little intense, but after a couple decades of the game, my threshold for risk is pretty low. That's a personal choice and I don't judge others for taking risks, even big ones, because I have been there too.
From personal experience, it is really easy to read articles and accident reports and pinpoint where the mistake was made in hindsight and think, "I won't make that mistake." When in the big picture, the mountain environment is too complex, with too many unknowns, to eliminate situations that don't run a chance of killing you or your partners. Ask anyone who has been doing this for a long time, and most of them will say they know dead skiers or they have had some very close calls where luck prevailed. I think that the average BC user doesn't actually understand how dangerous the sport actually is; even guides and avalanche professionals are caught in slides on average, every three years.
Also, my post was a bit more oriented to Colorado backcountry travel (per the article in Outside and the report from Red Pass). There are a lot of very manicured and posh resorts in CO, but as soon as you step outside the boundaries, you find the worst snowpack in North America. I think I recall in the Outside article the Silverton school was originally just for studying snowpacks that are terrible for recreation, because it is such a shark factory, and not intended to be for teaching BC skiing.
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03-16-2022, 03:31 PM #94
Please describe your decades in "the game", and also tell me how you know the backcountry right outside the posh Colorado resort I ski has the "worst snowpack in North America".
There is so much more in your post that is utter bs, but start there.Is it radix panax notoginseng? - splat
This is like hanging yourself but the rope breaks. - DTM
Dude Listen to mtm. He's a marriage counselor at burning man. - subtle plague
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03-16-2022, 03:53 PM #95
Caught every three years? If you are gonna spout stats like that, you need to be citing a reference, because that sounds quite off to my knowledge and experience.
As for the rest, while we agree that risk comprehension is low, you are really trying to emphasize the idea that people have good luck and bad luck with this matrix in mind. I normally draw it on the board or zoom, but here is an MS Paint just for this thread:
I think we would agree that people have more good luck than bad, but I think people have more fail than bad luck and more wins than good luck. You can go on and on about how you can end up with a case of bad luck, but that is deceiving to write it off as unavoidable. You control the chances of bad luck:
1. Consistently using good practices so they are second nature and then you can actually focus on your processes
2. Reflecting on and honing your decision making process without consideration to outcomes (avoids good luck reinforcing bad processes)
3. Managing risk comprehension and then acceptanceLast edited by Summit; 03-16-2022 at 05:07 PM.
Originally Posted by blurred
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03-16-2022, 04:58 PM #96
I think I will sit this one out and let the folks who actually live in CO share their wealth of knowledge. Funny thing about TGR is you just never know who you may be having a discussion with or their level of knowledge.
I have been in this State for 30 years and I am willing to admit that I am part of the problem.
"Happiest years of my life were earning < $8.00 and hour, collecting unemployment every spring and fall, no car, no debt and no responsibilities. 1984-1990 Park City UT"
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03-16-2022, 08:40 PM #97Registered User
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03-18-2022, 03:01 PM #98Gel-powered Tech bindings
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Agreed, but with the add'l pts that:
- Everyone will inevitably make lots of mistakes (avy or otherwise) eventually, cumulatively, while backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering.
- Although any "accident" (for which I prefer the term "incident") will of course entail someone making a mistake, almost all of such accidents entailed many (many) mistakes, during a single outing (and especially in the planning stage).
- My conclusion is that if you build a sufficiently large safety margin, then the fatalistic attitude expressed earlier in this thread is not applicable.
- However, what is inevitable, is that you will end up knowing people who die in avalanches (and via other ways while backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering), and also stand a "good" chance of coming across dead bodies in the mountains, as well as the ghosts of people you had the chance to dissuade from their mistakes. It takes its toll after awhile (especially if you grew up in a safe childhood far removed from such concerns).
Mo' skimo here: NE Rando Race Series
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03-19-2022, 12:44 PM #99
All excellent points JS, thanks.
I have been in this State for 30 years and I am willing to admit that I am part of the problem.
"Happiest years of my life were earning < $8.00 and hour, collecting unemployment every spring and fall, no car, no debt and no responsibilities. 1984-1990 Park City UT"
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