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Thread: Avalanche at Alpine Meadows
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01-17-2020, 10:43 PM #26
Fuck fuck fuck. Big vibes to those affected.
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01-17-2020, 10:55 PM #27
I apologize, I was wrong. I can totally see what your fit is about.
Comstock and another person injured in the avalanche were skiing on a very advanced back country slope, according to Sgt. Mike Powers of the Placer County Sheriff's Office. He described the area as "remote."
"If you're skiing back country, be familiar with avalanche conditions, have avalanche beacons and wear the right equipment," Powers said. It is not known whether Comstock and the other skier had the appropriate equipment.
Normal. Unfortunately.
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01-17-2020, 11:00 PM #28
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01-17-2020, 11:15 PM #29
No worries.
I'm just extra touchy about this because no one buries patrollers and customers with the regularity and efficiency of squaw/alpine over the years. That company needs to learn to sit on their hands. With our snowpack, 24 hours does wonders in most cases. It shouldn't be this way. And it has nothing to do with the patrollers themselves. It's pressure to open that comes from...............who knows. But it's palpable. Shit didn't used to open this fast. And with the kind of snow we got, with the wind that accompanied it, there are some spots on that mountain that they should have just written off today. I'm actually suprised this was the only one given what they opened.
Way more uneducated people zooming around the mountains these days, yet management direction has trended in the opposite direction of what that should imply.Besides the comet that killed the dinosaurs nothing has destroyed a species faster than entitled white people.-ajp
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01-17-2020, 11:25 PM #30?
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You are right..
And I know exactly where this happened. It's Spicy any day. For about the first fifty yards. "I might dig into Photo bucket and pull up a picture of what it looks like" There is a little chute there where you could make a mistake and die of trauma on a bright sunny day.
I am real sure this was pretty much where it happened.
Boundary Line
Own your fail. ~Jer~
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01-17-2020, 11:28 PM #31
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01-18-2020, 08:41 AM #32
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01-18-2020, 08:48 AM #33
I've thought about how the unusual snowpack for Tahoe could've contributed, like kidwoo said. If I recall correctly, avy danger was considerable at all elevations yesterday, which seems relatively unusual for a day after a storm (I know this happened in-bounds, but just to give an idea of what the snow conditions were like on that day). It seems like there's a lot of complexity in the snowpack right now that usually isn't there and it'll be something to continue to watch in the next few days/weeks. So sad that this happened.
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01-18-2020, 09:18 AM #34
Yep that line could be at any of a hundred resorts
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01-18-2020, 09:20 AM #35Banned
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01-18-2020, 09:22 AM #36
Yep that line could be at many resorts
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01-18-2020, 10:09 AM #37Rod9301
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Not only this, but often a foot of fresh snow on a firm layer will slide when they open it, and then it stays shitty for a long time.
If they would wait a day or so, the snow would bind and you would have good skiing.
There's the pressure from management to open.
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01-18-2020, 10:40 AM #38
The pressure comes from us. Haven't you ever stood in a huge line at Summit or KT after 9 in a powder morning and listened to people complaining that they have to wait. And listen to reaction in the KT line when patrol comes down and says they're not going to open after all.
As far as shit not opening this fast in the past--go to the bitching about Squaw thread and read all the complaints about them not getting stuff open.
It's always popular to blame the big, bad corporation but sometimes you have to look in the mirror.
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01-18-2020, 10:57 AM #39
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01-18-2020, 10:59 AM #40
That's such a lame excuse. Mountains with way more regularly sketchy snow handle it. What are they going to do NOT sell passes if they go back to waiting a day for the trickier terrain? That clusterfuck on 89 has grown exponentially every year. They control what happens at their mountain, not the entitled peanut gallery bitching and moaning like a bunch of children demanding to be served. It's literally a life or death management decision, not providing more convenient parking or lockers.
Alpine used to sit on stuff longer before the unholy merger. There were days like yesterday when they wouldn't have even opened scott chair, specifically just to get patrol on it, getting things to flush out. I haven't had a pass at either of those places in over 5 years now, and that's one of the (many) reasons.
Keep in mind, there's a good number of accidents at those places that don't make it public either. It was a bit of a rhetorical. I know exactly where the pressure comes from. And alpine inherited it from next door.Besides the comet that killed the dinosaurs nothing has destroyed a species faster than entitled white people.-ajp
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01-18-2020, 11:07 AM #41
Also, to be fair, the bitching about Squaw thread was after the KSL takeover when they fired a bunch of long time lift ops and were also clearly putting lifts on money hold at times that had zero to do with patrol making any kind of safety decision. Not the best example IMO.
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01-18-2020, 11:15 AM #42Registered Jerry
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Thank you OG. This is the the truth.
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01-18-2020, 11:50 AM #43
Corporate run ski areas are not co-ops, managed on a day to day level by their customers.
If I had that much control by just bitching, I'd get that howitzer back on gunner's knob, have "Woohoo Wednesdays" and invite you all to call your targets.
I guess it'll have to wait though. Apparently the whole resort got wiped out.
https://nypost.com/2020/01/17/avalan...-1-skier-dead/Besides the comet that killed the dinosaurs nothing has destroyed a species faster than entitled white people.-ajp
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01-18-2020, 11:51 AM #44
Always blaming the corporation is a heuristic trap.
Ski companies do have an incentive to minimize the risks of skiing; that's why it's impossible to get good statistics on skiing injuries. In this case SVAM came out with a pretty comprehensive press release very quickly.
Riding up a lift on a midweek powder morning when stuff is closed "They're saving it for the tourists this weekend".
Riding up a lift on a weekend powder morning when stuff is closed "They're saving it for the locals."
Hard to understand that the same corporation that gets terrain open too quickly also puts lifts on money hold. Hard to fit both ideas into the same story.
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01-18-2020, 12:07 PM #45
Haha.....jesus christ.
Management regarding how alpine opens on a snow day has changed over the years. I used to work there for crying out loud. If I wasn't hiking something, I was on that hill, long after I got another job too. Skiing on mountains regardless of how you got there ultimately falls on the user to make decisions. But there are certain ways that a ski area can mitigate likelihood. And they used to do a better job of it.
If you're unable to recognize that or just don't know it because you were skiing at squaw, that's fine. Other than having lots of friends that work and regularly ski there, I don't have a dog in this fight anymore. But just saying 'whelp, we bitched a lot so what do you expect this company wholly in charge of their operations to do?' is nonsense. We generally have one of the safer snowfalls in in north america. Yet this happens a little much between those two valleys.Besides the comet that killed the dinosaurs nothing has destroyed a species faster than entitled white people.-ajp
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01-18-2020, 12:25 PM #46
I understand your viewpoint.
The history of both Squaw and AM is rife with avalanches, some expected others not so much.
Patrols do their best with the tools they have available and usually fall into the trap of doing what has always worked before until it doesn't.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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01-18-2020, 01:08 PM #47
I've noticed that the last couple of years Alpine has been getting open faster than Squaw. I was surprised yesterday that everything was open at 9 except for a little bombing in the direction of Gentian. Hard to blame KSL or Alterra when Squaw and Alpine have different experiences.
The last drought year we had a March miracle--Beaver and Estelle filled in nicely but never opened because patrol never thought they were safe, even many days after the last storm. Same corporation.
I'm not saying that there's not pressure on patrol to get stuff open, just that I don't the pressure comes from the corporation. It's hard for me to come up with a reason why it would. The more patrollers they call in early to do snow safety before 9 the more expensive it is. Like you said if it took a couple days to get full open they would still sell more passes than they can handle. If there's been any change in pressure to open over the last few decades it's because of the increased emphasis on free skiing and along with that fat skis. When I started skiing racers were mainstream heroes, skiing was on mainstream broadcast television (the only tv there was). Powder skiing was a sport about as exotic as wing suit skiing is today.
(I wonder if the Gazex have made a difference, especially if they let AM patrol finish controlling the road faster, which means more patrollers available to do the resort.)
Re Bunion's remark--there's a chute at Alpine, very near to yesterday's slide called "Chute That Seldom Slide". But sometimes it does.Last edited by old goat; 01-18-2020 at 01:32 PM.
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01-18-2020, 04:27 PM #48
I think glademaster and kidwoo should hook up. They seem like a match made in heaven.
The pressure from the public is real. People get really antsy and aggro when butts aren’t loading at 9 because of mitigation. Sometimes patrol will open something that seems sketchy and sometimes they’ll wait. Most of the time everything is fine post mitigation but sometimes something bad happens.
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01-18-2020, 05:21 PM #49
OG-
For quite a few decades- The Chute that Seldom Slides, was called - The Chute that Never Slides, until one day it, well you know -slid.
Let's try to stop the circular firing squad of finger pointing, let these guys do their jobs and wait for the report on the incident. The Alpine AC program has been and is still top notch and highly regarded. There has been no change in policy or procedures that I am aware of, the guys keeping records and calling the shots probably have over 25 years each in "the biz" and definitely do not cut corners.
MTT- your photo is a good example of the terrain in the area. The slide area is on the map as "Subway Cirque" and is more of a face than a chute. It's immediately below the rock face lookers right of Promised Land. It had 2 shot holes in it yesterday morning."if you plant ice, you're gonna harvest wind..."
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01-18-2020, 05:27 PM #50
Avalanche at Alpine Meadows
I don’t buy the corporate pressure angle - we’ve seen plenty of “take it or leave it” behavior from them specifically in recent years, especially during the Andy Wirth era. I think patrol just wants to make everyone happy and get stuff open as soon as they can. They’re hardcore skiers, they get it. Unfortunately sometimes shit happens and it’s really sad when it does.
And as per oldgoat’s comment about tourists vs locals and saving snow or not, it’s spot on and I hate when people say that shit. Someone said it to me on the lift at Alpine last Tuesday (I guess they’re saving the top for MLK weekend) and I rolled my eyes because I had zero expectations for patrol to open Summit with the fresh snow and how windy it was (and for the record, we were all skiing 5-12 inches of powder on the same rain crust layer that failed less than 70 hours later). Then just before 1pm they popped Summit and we were very surprised and thankful.
FWIW, they didn’t open Scott chair that day but pretty sure that was due to wind.I ski 135 degree chutes switch to the road.
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