Results 951 to 975 of 2451
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01-08-2021, 12:20 PM #951
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01-08-2021, 01:44 PM #952
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01-08-2021, 02:30 PM #953
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01-08-2021, 03:07 PM #954
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01-08-2021, 03:25 PM #955
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01-08-2021, 03:46 PM #956
Nah, it'll track north and draw up a long pineapple
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01-08-2021, 05:28 PM #957
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01-08-2021, 07:39 PM #958wickstad
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01-08-2021, 08:50 PM #959
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01-08-2021, 10:02 PM #960wickstad
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01-08-2021, 11:58 PM #961Registered User
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According to the NWAC post it was on the arm: https://nwac.us/avalanche-forecast/#/west-slopes-north
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01-09-2021, 06:20 PM #962
Beautiful day today. Stuck with the kid at West, nice chalky grippy groomers though.
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01-09-2021, 08:12 PM #963
Today was mediocre....north facing goodness.
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01-09-2021, 08:51 PM #964wickstad
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01-10-2021, 01:12 AM #965
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01-10-2021, 08:17 PM #966
For clarification, they only bomb the arm when there is significant potential for a slide to come in bounds. Hemispheres does get "controlled" with the avalauncher every control day, but thats pretty much just a pea shooter... So Its still basically best to treat it as uncontrolled terrain. The slide on the beast "first knob on arm" in the pic referenced earlier was also from an avalauncher and that is a quite small charg to trigger such a deep layer.
They typically use 50lb bags for the Heli bombing, but it was most likely too cold when they did it for it to be effective. I've seen them do it a handful of times over the last 20+ years. Sometimes it is quite effective, other times no results and a weather event ends up bringing it all down anyways. I am willing to bet if it was 5+ degrees warmer at the time it would have been more effective. It will be interesting to see what this weeks pineapple express brings down. I did a few pits yesterday and while there is no way a skier could trigger that layer, a temp spike and or heavy loading most likely would. There is also a layer thats a bit more reactive around a meter down, that if triggered could potentially trigger the much deeper PWL.
Of note there was a very large slide that occurred some time towards the end of the last storm cycle where the entire slope above the artist point road pulled out ~3 feet deep and ran over the road and took out the lower slope as well. Thats not exactly the steepest terrain and doesn't slide very often and certainly not that deep or wide. It also ran on a slope that had previously slid, so it reloaded and still went on the same layer.... very strange for this area.Last edited by Gunder; 01-10-2021 at 09:36 PM.
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01-10-2021, 09:15 PM #967wickstad
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01-10-2021, 09:30 PM #968
Yes, the night of March 17, 2012 It went so big, it took out all of the old growth trees at the return to ski area from the arm. There was debris all the way to the base of 8. That area is now known as Herb's berm as Herb built a massive earth berm there the following summer to help protect the base of chair 8. See attached images. FYI the one of the fracture is from when we finally got the vis to see it after another several feet of snow had fallen on it. The last pic is looking at the area of rumble gulley where you normally return to the ski area. Thats normally a deep ravine.
I damn near died that day, as we where skiing some very thick old growth trees in another area, heard a slide come down, and by the time we got to the creek drainage for our exit, a massive slide had come down off of the backside of Mt. Herman / Stoneman area and punched out 200+ feet of old growth and buried the creek bed 40+ feet deep and that was damn close to a mile away from the slope. I've seen some damn big slides, but never fathomed anything going that big and traveling that far into the flats. It significantly widened that slide path by serval hundred feet too.
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01-11-2021, 01:32 PM #969
Do we really have a PWL at the moment? NWAC hasn't been talking about anything like a PWL in the NW part of the state. I'd characterize our snowpack as generally well-bonded with a couple interfaces (pretty far down) from rain-on-snow events 1/1 and sometime mid December. It seems like there's the possibility of getting a slide on these deep layers with monstruous loading like we've had (especially significant rain-on-snow, like is happening today/tomorrow, or maybe come spring when water percolates down). I'm just not sure I'd characterize it as a PWL, as I haven't heard of facets or other persistent snow forms at the interface.
That slide on the arm was deep but it'd been snowing like mad + S winds, NWAC characterized that slab as a windslab and that makes sense to me.
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01-11-2021, 03:21 PM #970
I have been able to get results on that ice layer as well as a layer above it in every pit I have dug since it initially formed (including on SW slopes that face directly into the wind). I have also seen several slopes slide, reload and slide again on that same layer. From past experiences in dealing with such a deep layer, I like to treat it as a classic low probability high consequence scenario. There was enough weird activity and in areas that are unusual, for me and the crews I ski / work with to treat it as such. Clearly the ski area thought the same and invested the funds in a Heli bombing operation as well. You won't find me near any big terrain until we get a solid rain to the top event. (hopefully tonight). NWAC is a great resource, but as with every avalanche forecast its only one tool in the bag and I always put more weight on first hand experience and what I find in the pits I dig and the activity that I have seen in the area.
Thats just my option on the situation, you may have higher confidence than me in the current snow pack. I have just seen enough massive slides around Baker over the years in similar situations, to give the current snow pack a fair amount of respect and caution.
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01-12-2021, 12:28 AM #971Registered User
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Sounds like this has an obvious answer, but why would rain on the snowpack get rid of the PWL?
Only scenario I could think of is if the rain water percolates all the way down to the PWL and then freezes when the temps drop again; but would that happen if the PWL is buried a few feet down in the snowpack?
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01-12-2021, 01:54 AM #972Do I detect a lot of anger flowing around this place? Kind of like a pubescent volatility, some angst, a lot of I'm-sixteen-and-angry-at-my-father syndrome?
fuck that noise.
gmen.
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01-12-2021, 09:42 AM #973
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01-12-2021, 10:10 AM #974
Interesting thoughts from you all, it makes for good reading and thinking. There definitely was a bit of clear and cold weather immediately after the New Year's rain event (good boot top pow skiing on 1/2) which I could see forming near crust faceted snow. Then again, we've had a ton of snow on top of that, and fairly moist snow at that, so I'm not sure how much faceted snow survived or not. I haven't dug any deep pits to look at those layers myself, as I've been traveling in such a way that I feel comfortable just evaluating the surface layers of the snowpack.
I like your approach, Gunder, of thinking of low probability & high consequence events especially when given the evidence from the bomb results on the arm. Being newer to the Baker zone, I haven't gone out the arm yet. I was thinking of heading up the White Salmon glacier on Saturday, but decided it would be too risky to be up in that complex terrain with many possible convexities and trigger points so soon after massive snowfall.
I guess no matter what (whether or not we want to call it a PWL or just a possible sliding surface), when we get such large amounts of snow stacking up so fast, it's best to take a conservative approach as the snowpack adjusts to the added load. And luckily, burying such a crust layer deep enough (many meters down) should lead to a favorable situation for rounding over time due to reduced temp gradients.Last edited by kamtron; 01-12-2021 at 10:31 AM.
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01-12-2021, 11:04 AM #975
Good post, schralp knows his shit.
Common sense. So rare today in America it's almost like having a superpower.
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