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  1. #276
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boissal View Post
    I think big slides can scrub weak layers to the ground whereas smaller ones run on the weak layer which gets re-buried at the next storm. There's also no chance of building a thick enough layer to bridge the weak layers if people insist on flushing slopes 10x per season. I doubt there's a golden rule there, it just pisses me off that half of the avy obs these days are intentional trigers via cornice drops on slopes that were not going to get skied and would have been better off left alone.
    I don't agree with you. I think to trust "bridged" snow results in deaths every time. I'll never trust buried hoar. I say flush it till its gone. Maybe I'm just overly conservative.

  2. #277
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    Quote Originally Posted by brutah View Post
    I don't agree with you. I think to trust "bridged" snow results in deaths every time. I'll never trust buried hoar. I say flush it till its gone. Maybe I'm just not very Avalanche savy.
    FIFY

  3. #278
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    Quote Originally Posted by glademaster View Post
    FIFY
    eh, I don't need to get into a dick measuring contest with one of TGR's saltiest. But thanks for sharing your opinion, I guess.

  4. #279
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    Not trying to sling shit for no good reason, but there is quite a bit of evidence out there to support the notion that bridging can produce a stable snowpack. I also have significant concerns about people triggering slides from ridgelines in a place as crowded as the Wasatch. It's only a matter of time before someone trying to get some sweet Instafuckface footy for #UtAvy kills someone in a drainage below them.

  5. #280
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    Quote Originally Posted by brutah View Post
    I don't agree with you. I think to trust "bridged" snow results in deaths every time. I'll never trust buried hoar. I say flush it till its gone. Maybe I'm just overly conservative.
    But what about if that layer gets loaded with three feet of snow? It will be much more likely to avalanche than if the snowpack were allowed to build, and an avalanche would still be deadly. Storms like that aren't uncommon in the Wasatch.

    Also, when are the buried facets gone? If anything, re-exposing the persistent weak layers is just gonna make them weaker.

  6. #281
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    Quote Originally Posted by glademaster View Post
    I also have significant concerns about people triggering slides from ridgelines in a place as crowded as the Wasatch. It's only a matter of time before someone trying to get some sweet Instafuckface footy for #UtAvy kills someone in a drainage below them.
    Yeah I mean, the monitors on a clear day is one thing, but people knocking things down Silver or Days in a storm... imo you can never be sure there's nobody down there.

  7. #282
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    Quote Originally Posted by mall walker View Post
    Yeah I mean, the monitors on a clear day is one thing, but people knocking things down Silver or Days in a storm... imo you can never be sure there's nobody down there.
    Agreed, there are some places where you have a clear line of sight all the way to the flats, but there are an awful lot where you don't in the Wasatch.

    Silver and Days are two of the places that I'm thinking of, but I suppose my concern is biased as I regularly toured in those drainages from the BCC side while I lived there.

    Anyway, I'll let those of you who still live and ski in those mountains hash it out among yourselves, just wanted to share my $0.02.

  8. #283
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    Quote Originally Posted by glademaster View Post
    Not trying to sling shit for no good reason, but there is quite a bit of evidence out there to support the notion that bridging can produce a stable snowpack.
    slinging shit for no good reason is all you seem to do here.

    here is a graph I pulled from a blog post from andy paradis. there isn't any easy formula to predicting weak layer avalanches. Yes, chances fall significantly past the 3 ft depth, but that 7-10% chance has a very high chance to be deadly.

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    "There are also numerous examples that provide exception to these patterns. The Sheep Creek avalanche in Colorado was human triggered, involved early season facets and had an average crown height of 5 feet. [caught 6, killed 5] Other relatively small, new snow avalanches have proven fatal."

    you can trust "snow bridging" if you like and you'll likely get away with it.

  9. #284
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    Quote Originally Posted by brutah View Post
    I don't agree with you. I think to trust "bridged" snow results in deaths every time. I'll never trust buried hoar. I say flush it till its gone. Maybe I'm just overly conservative.
    Well, I don't particularly trust the bridging story either to be honest. I'm sure there's a sound theory behind it and at some point bridging occurs and isolates the shit layer. The problem is that I have no idea about the required amount of snow required to form said bridge and I'm not interested in rolling the dice so I steer clear of any slope I know has a buried layer of hoars.
    Repeated small slides won't flush the layer they're sliding on anywhere near as well as a big guy which scours its own bed though and that's what I was getting at.

    Re: cornice kicking in the 'Satch, agree with the comments above. It's turning into a competition to see who can drop the biggest monster onto the most loaded slope and trigger a large slide. The problem is that a lot of lazy assholes who can barely make it from Alta central to the top of 2Dogs seem to forget there's more than 1 way to get to the LCC/BCC ridgeline and there's a possibility of someone down in the flats who got up a lot earlier than they did...

  10. #285
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    Quote Originally Posted by brutah View Post
    slinging shit for no good reason is all you seem to do here.
    Yeah, well that's just like, your opinion, man.

  11. #286
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boissal View Post
    Well, I don't particularly trust the bridging story either to be honest. I'm sure there's a sound theory behind it and at some point bridging occurs and isolates the shit layer. The problem is that I have no idea about the required amount of snow required to form said bridge and I'm not interested in rolling the dice so I steer clear of any slope I know has a buried layer of hoars.
    Repeated small slides won't flush the layer they're sliding on anywhere near as well as a big guy which scours its own bed though and that's what I was getting at.

    Re: cornice kicking in the 'Satch, agree with the comments above. It's turning into a competition to see who can drop the biggest monster onto the most loaded slope and trigger a large slide. The problem is that a lot of lazy assholes who can barely make it from Alta central to the top of 2Dogs seem to forget there's more than 1 way to get to the LCC/BCC ridgeline and there's a possibility of someone down in the flats who got up a lot earlier than they did...
    word.

    I agree with this and thanks for articulating what I was trying to say about bridging better than I was able to.

  12. #287
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boissal View Post
    Well, I don't particularly trust the bridging story either to be honest. I'm sure there's a sound theory behind it and at some point bridging occurs and isolates the shit layer. The problem is that I have no idea about the required amount of snow required to form said bridge and I'm not interested in rolling the dice so I steer clear of any slope I know has a buried layer of hoars.
    Repeated small slides won't flush the layer they're sliding on anywhere near as well as a big guy which scours its own bed though and that's what I was getting at.
    From ICAR this year:

    19 of 25 fatalities [last season in the US] involved a persistent weak layer (F, SH, DH). This is a continuing trend, why? Over the many years I have spent in the “avalanche industry” as a backcountry and mechanized ski guide, avalanche educator, and mountain rescuer it is becoming clearer and clearer to me that if we truly want to reduce avalanche fatalities we need to get a better handle on dealing with persistent weak layers. What can we point the finger at?

    - Avalanche education is not focusing on the difficulty of this problem?
    - Backcountry users are over estimating their ability to manage this problem?
    - Avalanche centers are not clearly communicating the dangers with this problem?
    - Or is the reason the human brain? We are not good or not even capable of dealing with high degrees of uncertainty, a high quantity of variables and variations, a long time span of uncertainty – we forget about the buried weak layer, triggering potential, tracking layers over time and space, and we tend to either forget about it, think that it does not apply or will not happen to us, or ignore it on purpose?
    Last edited by sfotex; 12-03-2019 at 10:18 PM.
    When life gives you haters, make haterade.

  13. #288
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    This ^^^.
    Buried weak layers are an intractable problem with way too many influencing factors to be managed with certainty. No amount of education, experience, information from forecasts, etc... has any chance of changing that. It's a game of statistics and unfortunately humans aren't wired to understand probabilities. Very few of of us are willing to accept that we don't know WTF is going on and we're constantly rolling a dice, the only question being how loaded it is.

  14. #289
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    Really good stuff got posted up here today. Insightful.
    Two cents worth:
    Bridging is a real phenomenon. Usually inside ski area boundaries where skier compaction builds a reliable bridge putting a slope to bed for the winter. In the backcountry "bridging" is often confused with supportability which is temporary until the next load is applied.
    Interesting note:
    Almost all avalanches ran ON TOP of the Nov. 20th melt freeze, even though it was mostly so thin that it was hard to imagine it being a bed surface without failing. All those old whores we don't trust are still hanging out in most starting zones that produced class 3's this last cycle.
    At Alta or similar places where moguls are being made from the dirt up gonna be in pretty good shape for the winter on said slopes. But the backcountry? Thin and weak on slopes that slid. Back to Nov. 20th status. These slides didn't do shit for future stability, they just placed more load mid slope.
    Last edited by telefreewasatch; 12-04-2019 at 06:29 AM. Reason: one too many Nattys last night
    Time spent skiing cannot be deducted from one's life.

  15. #290
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    ^^^ Insightful. Always good to hear from an old hand. Thanks.
    Quote Originally Posted by TheDingleberry View Post
    pissing in a sink? fucking rookies. Shit in an oven, then you'll be pro.

  16. #291
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    If you can't figure out bridging, which you really can't, you really can't ski in the high country of Colorado. UT has it easy, PNW, even more so.

    Let's say 100" fall over 6 - 8 weeks on top of a November crust on top of 14" of pure facets.

    It gets in your head. It really does.

    What I do is ECT's down the pack. Like 3. On each layer.

    All it ever does is reinforce what I know. And that sucks. But if there is a 3' bridge, and I tread lightly, and I'm not seeing a reactive in the upper, I'll ski it.

    I don't stomp things, I'm light, but one little pop, and Trump. Hudge. Yer fucked.

    Welcome to my world.

  17. #292
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    I have one simple rule for backcountry skiing. I don’t ski when there is a potentially active persistent weak layer. I can wait it out to ski pow another day, or month or year. Even the most knowledgeable avi guys know they can’t predict how these layers will react. So simple rule for me is stay off them. There’ll always be another opportunity if you don’t die. As time goes by I tend to like what Tabke said years ago. He simply doesn’t ski in terrain that has above moderate potential to slide. I’ll play the game with new storm snow after buried persistent weak layers have become dormant. But I’ve skied so much pow in my time in the wasatch that it certainly isn’t worth dying for one more run. We’re lucky here that the snowpack heals relatively quick as regards persistent weak layers. We get enough snow that it buries (bridges) it. To each their own. But I’ll certainly agree that there are way too many people out there intentionally causing slides in the backcountry. And half the observations on UAC are worthless. Half are wannabe avi guys. You can tell when there’s an avi 2 or 3 class going on as all the students begin to post useless snow pit data. Best piece of advice I’ve ever got was from TFW “keep your head up and look around on the uphill”. Too many people hiking head down trying to go fast, not seeing what’s going on with the snow pack. I’ll leave my rant about the stupidity of skin tracks here in the wasatch for another time.


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  18. #293
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    Welcome to the real world. This is in the San Juans. Add a foot or more on to those basal facets and you've got the central to northern mountains right now. Those October cries of the Hoarz are realz. We joke about it, but everyone who gets out here knowz that it's not a joke.

    Boom.


  19. #294
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    Quote Originally Posted by altacoup View Post
    As time goes by I tend to like what Tabke said years ago. He simply doesn’t ski in terrain that has above moderate potential to slide.
    I’ll leave my rant about the stupidity of skin tracks here in the wasatch for another time.



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    please put in in another thread
    but not the skin track stoke thread
    stokematters
    rantsnotsomuch
    im pretty sure alto has bigger balls than I
    I think I may be more addicted
    and willing and able to enjoy to skiing moderate to lower angled terrain with minimal consequences on days others described as considerable or high

    the oag kimbrow didn't need to avvy NOWcast by starting backcountrty slides on slopes they know will slide and repeat.
    that's not forecasting
    that's avalaunche migation which imo should only be done in the bc to protect roads and inferstructure not shits and giggles or narsisistic needs for likes and followers
    he was real good at FOREcasting avalaunche probabilities

    not social media bullshit which seems to be the uec priority now

    thread needs


    "When the child was a child it waited patiently for the first snow and it still does"- Van "The Man" Morrison
    "I find I have already had my reward, in the doing of the thing" - Buzz Holmstrom
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  20. #295
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    Geez, so glad I can just be a resort touron and not have to worry about this shit, cuz my lack of attention to detail would have surely gotten me killed by now.
    I saw one of those white minks??? at Alta during a powder day some years back. So cool, diving into the snow and popping out 10' away. It seemed very playful.

  21. #296
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    Nice stoke Dibs. Love how they porpoise in the powder.
    My son used to hide for hours above weasel dens in the summer to touch them when they exited.
    He'd be all dressed up in his mountain man stuff and "count coup"
    Weasels / ermine are still his totem...
    Time spent skiing cannot be deducted from one's life.

  22. #297
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    If you were wondering why there's no enforcement in the LCC, it's because all the money already got spent on parking restriction signs by the guardsman gate. There must be 8 or 10 of those fuckers. I guess you can't claim you didn't see them. Looks like there's no parking anywhere on that road from 10pm to 6am, November to May, unless you live up there.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    N facing still not too bad.
    Last edited by mall walker; 12-04-2019 at 09:38 AM. Reason: was going to bitch about the skinner going over lane's leap but fuck it

  23. #298
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    Past the Guardsman gate they've done the reverse and placed back to back signs eliminating parking for the summer months. It sort of makes sense restricting the Crest shuttle junkshow at the top but also ruins things for the handful of cars on a typical day hikers, hunters, big loop riders who mostly used spots lower down.

  24. #299
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    WASATCH STOKE, CONDITIONS, OBSERVATIONS and ASSORTED DRIVAL 19-20

    Hey all, probably a long shot but I never doubt the powers of our community.

    My neighbor's car was stolen out of his driveway in Sandy last night. Late 90s Subaru Outback, charcoal gray with bike racks on the roof and Alta stickers on the back window, both top corners. Also has a hitch ball permanently installed.

    He is a former patroller, some of you probably know him, and adecent guy that has been having a string of bad luck. If you see a car matching this description, probably somewhere it looks like it doesn't quite belong, give the Sandy police a call.

  25. #300
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    Another long shot but a couple of border collies are lost near Beaver Mtn after a ski tour last sunday. I dont think we have any mags up in cache valley but maybe a dog lover here has some time or gear to donate to the cause....

    https://facebook.com/events/s/lost-d...6716764/?ti=as
    Bunny Don't Surf

    Have you seen a one armed man around here?

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