In-bounds slide at Taos? Kachina Peak

[teleee]

Ever since the inbounds slide that killed Heather at the Bird I have been beeping both inbounds and outside resort boundaries. On in the car off at the bar is what I say.

Same here, that made me a believer.

[snowaddict91]

I also beep inbounds, generally considerable danger or higher. As mentioned, hasty beacon search is standard practice at pretty much every resort afaik. I recently picked up a vest for sidecountry missions. Its comfortable enough that its probably worth wearing inbounds honestly.

[Peruvian]

Wrong frequency, unless you have the special pieps that you can switch to 456

Word. I’ve got a DSP so didn’t think of other brands/frequencies.

[Norseman]

Vibes to the 26 year old Mass skiier that passed. And to his friends & family ++++++++++

.

[bodywhomper]

Condolences to the family and friends.

[grskier]

When I lived Arroyo Seco and skied Taos daily back in the early to late 90s I'd always wear a beacon during and immediately after big snow events. I would access all the lift-accessed hike to terrain pretty regularly. There were many a day when I'd be in a remote area and trigger small to medium sized sluffs that sometimes stepped down simply because no other skiers had been in that area and they were micro-terrain features that may have eluded a hand charge or ski cut.
.

This^^^

Taos has a lot of nooks to get into.

[Bunion 2020]

Batteries are cheap, good habits are not easy to develop.

I have been on enough post control incidents in bounds that when I ski I just put my beacon on every day and take it off at the end of every day.

[pow_pow~]

one of the people has died in hospital.

99% of tourists that ski inbounds in resort wouldn't know what a beacon is, and to be honest they shouldn't have to. Seeing how big and how much snow was in this slide I definitely think ski patrol have some answering to do, management needs to stop pushing to open everything immediately after a storm.

[summit]

Very sad... so strange how small the ski world is too... 2 degrees of separation.

Because I paid for my beacon and batteries are cheap, I ski with my beacon.

[Soups]

one of the people has died in hospital.

99% of tourists that ski inbounds in resort wouldn't know what a beacon is, and to be honest they shouldn't have to. Seeing how big and how much snow was in this slide I definitely think ski patrol have some answering to do, management needs to stop pushing to open everything immediately after a storm.

Really jong, this is what you post?

[cat in january]

Australian

[BFD]

showed up at Wolfcreek today and Montezuma bowl ripped to the ground. Biggest crown I have seen since coming here. It went during control work but it has been open. pretty sobering following the Taos avie. I beep and carry gear its wolfcreek but it also has alot of small paths that can take you into a tree.

[SumJongGuy]

oh yeah, I don't foresee any problems with this at all. forgot your beacon? "it's ok I have my phone, hang on lemme just close snapchat cuz otherwise it'll drain my battery," phone frozen, plugging in a delicate your-life-depends-on-it piece of hardware to the same jack that collects lint on your pocket, needing reception somehow for the app to run because the developer insists on delivering ads mid-search (click the balloon to reveal how far away your victim is buried!), surely this can all be ironed out.

Not meant to replace a REAL beacon for BC or high risk terrain skiing.. Just something that would send a signal (heck, even the find my phone shit would be better than nothing) when the ski tracking app is running that could be detected to increase odds of finding regular tourists caught in an inbounds event like this. Don't let that asshole on the Bridger Bowl lift with nothing but a cell phone.. DUH!

[boltonoutlaw]

one of the people has died in hospital.

99% of tourists that ski inbounds in resort wouldn't know what a beacon is, and to be honest they shouldn't have to. Seeing how big and how much snow was in this slide I definitely think ski patrol have some answering to do, management needs to stop pushing to open everything immediately after a storm.

TBH it is the customers that apply pressure with unreasonable expectations.

[SkaFreak]

TBH it is the customers that apply pressure with unreasonable expectations.

I wouldn't be shocked if management pushed for this opening, particularly since the first day they spun the Kachina Lift was when they were hosting the Mountain Collective (post on both Taos and Mountain Collective Facebook pages about this). I've heard rumors that in the past the new management has sometimes put a little pressure to open things, particularly when they have big business visitors or buddies of Bacon. Still wouldn't blame the patrollers. I've been lucky enough to make turns with quite a few of them as well as a few beers and have nothing but respect for the job they have in front of them on that mountain.

[pow_pow~]

Really jong, this is what you post?

I have been a patroller in the past and stand by what I said.

TBH it is the customers that apply pressure with unreasonable expectations.

and it is the responsibility of patrollers to stand their ground and say its not ready. these days with so much social media, management and the marketers see it as a race to get everything open first

[ACH]

Very sad... so strange how small the ski world is too... 2 degrees of separation.

Because I paid for my beacon and batteries are cheap, I ski with my beacon.

yeah...

Condolences to loved ones and friends.
Sad for sure.

[iamTRuTH]

showed up at Wolfcreek today and Montezuma bowl ripped to the ground. Biggest crown I have seen since coming here. It went during control work but it has been open. pretty sobering following the Taos avie. I beep and carry gear its wolfcreek but it also has alot of small paths that can take you into a tree.

Up here today also. The slide crown was massive.

[Sky_Shoe]

This in-bounds avalanche situation is indeed a real bummer.

The NM bc is pretty sketch right now, but this inbounds shit is freaking me out.

Skied Lake Peak solo Sunday and Today. The more aggressive terrain, right now no thanks. It is manifestly true that a JONG could get in big trouble in no time. But I felt well within my comfort zone the whole way. Weird to have to break trail out on the Winsor, added to me being late to pick up the kids. Some big whoomphs on the ridge on Heavens Hill admiring the shark infested east facing terrain.

[summit]

yeah...

Condolences to loved ones and friends.
Sad for sure.

indeed
tears shed
hugs given
tequila poured to honor memories

[galibier_numero_un]

You need a beacon to get on Slushmans

Yeah, I knew that. It was clumsy language on my part. I corrected my post. I've been wearing a beacon inbounds for about 10 years - when it's likely that I'll ski in avy terrain, and it dawned on me that patrollers might assume no one wears beacons inbounds. It's great to know that I wasn't fooling myself.

I'll still may pick up a Recco belt, 'coz I'm thinking of going away from suspenders ;-) The day I'm stupid and forget to take my beacon, I might end up grateful.

... Thom

[Bunion 2020]

I have been a patroller in the past and stand by what I said.

Quote Originally Posted by boltonoutlaw View Post
TBH it is the customers that apply pressure with unreasonable expectations.

and it is the responsibility of patrollers to stand their ground and say its not ready. these days with so much social media, management and the marketers see it as a race to get everything open first

Both sides of this are somewhat correct.

Probably the most hazardous time to ski in bounds avalanche terrain is in the initial day to week that terrain is 1st opened and especially shortly after a significant loading event.

In my experiences there is some pressure from the guests and management. When I was pushed by either I had the suspect habit of telling them to fuck off, probably why I worked at 5 different areas over 30+ years.

Most of the pressure is internally from the patrol themselves.

They are usually good at what they do and believe they can mitigate the hazards using the same methods that have worked in the past. Where that goes astray is that they are dealing with extremely short return periods and what may work for 5-10 or 20 years may not line up the same way twice for a snow safety directors entire career.

Once terrain is open and heavily skied they can relax a bit and deal with new snow hazard rather than deeper instability.

That is one of the reasons the Highlands bootpacking program has been as successful as it has so far. They get on the snow early and trample it to the point that it no longer resembles what naturally occurs. When I was managing the Headwaters terrain we were on it as soon as you could access it, it is too steep to effectively bootpack the entire area so we ski packed as much as possible and opened it to skiing as soon as people could safely navigate even though they would probably damage equipment.

Every area and patrol has different comfort levels when it comes to dealing with their terrain. Not MMQBing but this incident can be attributed to a bunch of factors such as newer lift accessed terrain, patrol and management turnover, human factors and just plain bad luck.

The Slushmans Chair was rarely open its 1st season and that terrain was managed carefully, as time on target has increased so has that comfort level. Bridger still manages all their avalanche terrain conservatively and that is their cultural way of doing things.

At some point these types of incidents could cause the entire ski area forecasting programs to change their approach. That is a sorry state of affairs because when you look at the actual numbers, skiing in mitigated avalanche terrain is a lot safer than skiing green/blue trails.

/rant

[Meadow Skipper]

^Good one Nb. Food for thought.

[Fritz]

Are any resorts using this lidar technology to analyze inbounds snowpack? Seems like it would be a logical application. Not sure about the cost/benefit however. https://www.researchgate.net/profile...88a7bf1368.pdf

[Bunion 2020]

^^^ That is just starting to become available and there is a lot of expense involved but short answer is Yes.