THE OFFICIAL 20/21 TAHOE SKI & SNOWBOARD THREAD. PANDEMIC SCHMANDEMIC!

[bodywhomper]

Instabilities: SH, rain crust with NSF, and the old Dec weakness.

Maybe 1.5” of water weight (not counting wind loading) between Tues morning and Wed afternoon.

I agree, not seeing a lot of obs.

[old goat]

Time to start doing avy control on the roof!!!

https://local.nixle.com/alert/8500340/

[powdork]

Instabilities: SH, rain crust with NSF, and the old Dec weakness.

I would say those are problems rather than instabilities. They are instabilities when things react on them and they weren't. The Dec pwl has been stable for quite a while, and seems to be well bridged. There was one night's worth of surface hoar after the cold storms, not a super big deal. There IS the potential today for a very large slide to entrain the entire snowpack, but not yesterday, and today it's not certain by any means.

[Ottime]

Holy shit. I question parents who allow a kid to play outside for several hours during a snow storm without checking in on him. What happened to the buddy system? Extremely lucky that kid is alive. Worse violation than SAC over calls.

[MTT]

Holy shit. I question parents who allow a kid to play outside for several hours during a snow storm without checking in on him. What happened to the buddy system? Extremely lucky that kid is alive. Worse violation than SAC over calls.

Going outside to play or work in the snow used to be pretty normal. Come home when you're wet and cold or in time for dinner. Added variable school closed for snow

[powdork]

Holy shit. I question parents who allow a kid to play outside for several hours during a snow storm without checking in on him. What happened to the buddy system? Extremely lucky that kid is alive. Worse violation than SAC over calls.

He's 14. I would leave in the morning and come back in the evening at that age. But I would also expect a parent to warn their kids of dangers that exist at their own house. Maybe a recent transplant since they didn't seem even aware to check the debris.

[MTT]

He's 14. I would leave in the morning and come back in the evening at that age. But I would also expect a parent to warn their kids of dangers that exist at their own house. Maybe a recent transplant since they didn't seem even aware to check the debris.

I am sure google has an app that would track your kids every movement an AI that would notify you and the state if they were motionless for x period of time.
We could pass a law making it mandatory for all children under the age of 26

[myles long]

Not google but the Verizon Gizmo does that..the parents app has a little map so can see where the watch is and its tracks: https://www.verizon.com/connected-sm...-gizmowatch-2/

I am sure google has an app that would track your kids every movement an AI that would notify you and the state if they were motionless for x period of time.
We could pass a law making it mandatory for all children under the age of 26

[powdork]

I am sure google has an app that would track your kids every movement an AI that would notify you and the state if they were motionless for x period of time.
We could pass a law making it mandatory for all children under the age of 26

And if you set your phone down? Nevermind. Never happens.

[hercule33]

I am not ok with them using any part of their site to scare people, or for them to decide which users get real info and which get fake.

Who knows, maybe they just did it they could have Jake's to themselves yesterday.

Lol, maybe. But with so many new backcountry folks getting into the sport with the pandemic I don’t blame SAC for erring on the side of caution. More seasoned backcountry skiers may be like WTF with the extreme rating but what would happen if the weather forecast was wrong and Tahoe got 3 feet more snow than expected in some spots. You don’t want novice powder hungry backcountry skiers skiing avy paths because it’s “just” considerable or high.

[MTT]

And if you set your phone down? Nevermind. Never happens.

This would be a one off. But awesome way to catch your daughter in a basement smoking weed and letting the boys pull a train?

[RockChalk]

This would be a one off. But awesome way to catch your daughter in a basement smoking weed and letting the boys pull a train?

Jesus Christ, man.

[old goat]

Teach your kids, but it's hard to do that when you don't know what you don't know. When you grow up in a place that your parents grew up you learn about things to watch out for from your folks and from older kids. About sliding roofs. About when the ice is safe to skate on. about where you might get beat up. But when you have no roots in an area you have to learn that stuff on your own because there's no one who can teach you and lessons get missed.

[Ottime]

^^^^Can't they read a book about it? If you move somewhere, do your fucking homework. Aint that hard.


There are reasons MTT has no kids.

Okay, sure, yeah. Mine is 9, so no idea what a 14 year old might do. Still think it is pretty stupid thing to do - letting your kid play solo during a the epic blizzard. I grew up in upstate NY so never had 3' dumps over night. Still, when we went out in a storm we were expected to be with a sling or friend. Too many stories of kids hitting trees and splitting open skulls (actually knew three incidents and one death (that one from, sigh, tree skiing) on sleds or having forts collapse to be out solo.

I stand firm in the buddy system.

And if they were transplant, even more irresponsible.

And you guys do realize how lucky that kid is to be alive. He was under snow for a while, protected only by his cave. If he had been out of his cave when the snow slid, he'd likely would have been dead by the time they found him.

[MTT]

Hey. What's the snow doing up there? Down here it's snowing lightly but due to temperature the snow is compacting. This morning it looked like a foot. Right now it's about 4 inches deep. I might head up onto the hill above 7000 and play with the touring rig. ?? It's been 3 years. But this snow looks kinda miserable

[bodywhomper]

I would say those are problems rather than instabilities. They are instabilities when things react on them and they weren't. The Dec pwl has been stable for quite a while, and seems to be well bridged. There was one night's worth of surface hoar after the cold storms, not a super big deal. There IS the potential today for a very large slide to entrain the entire snowpack, but not yesterday, and today it's not certain by any means.

you're right, SAC called them, "Multiple layers of concern exist in our current snowpack that have the potential for deeper and larger avalanche activity." Their morning avi forecast was, apparently, considering the wx forecast for the day (as it should), which was over 1.5" of water (not considering wind loading) for the day. Their forecasted was pretty clear that the additonal loading of that day could re-activate the dec weak snow, "The Dec 11 PWL in the lower portion of the snowpack could cause a deep slab avalanche problem if this winter storm performs as forecasted." I am guessing that this was a hotly debated item at SAC before issuing the warning. Maybe i am wrong, but I am guessing that they do an additional analysis after the fact of every high or exteme warning they issue to review if it was appropriate. if you really wanted to dive deeply into this, it would be useful to understand the extreme wet and wind speed forecast throughout the SAC forecast area coming out of the Reno NWS office. it could also be useful to know the delta of forecasting between the Reno NWS office and the Sacramento NWS office. My observation is that the Reno and Sac NWS offices come to different conclusions on the details when apparently reviewing the same forecasting tools.

speaking of behavioral modification, i'm aware of local truckee families not allowing their children to go sledding because of the forecast. i still remember the day in Mammoth in the 90's during a huge storm cycle where several snowplay/sledders were buried by an avi near the twin lakes area (if I remember correctly) and a child was killed. they were out sledding because the ski hill didn't open.

When I was 14 (1989), i'd ski these days alone at the ski hill. Often i'd be falling a lot because that was about the age when I starting figuring out how to ski deeper sierra (or socal) cement, especially on steeper terrain, and throwing my meat off small things. I was diligent about the frequent check-in's with my parents.

[abraham]

Jesus Christ, man.

Yeah seems over a line. But to toss gas on that fire, maybe he has flashbacks to his mom and her Life Alert?

[davjr96]

Hey. What's the snow doing up there? Down here it's snowing lightly but due to temperature the snow is compacting. This morning it looked like a foot. Right now it's about 4 inches deep. I might head up onto the hill above 7000 and play with the touring rig. ?? It's been 3 years. But this snow looks kinda miserable

Still snowing pretty hard at lake level on the north shore. About 26 degrees so a bit warmer than earlier. Not compacting yet but definitely turning upside down. Looks to be about 2-3" inches on the driveway since I cleared it around 11.

[powdork]

Lol, maybe. But with so many new backcountry folks getting into the sport with the pandemic I don’t blame SAC for erring on the side of caution. More seasoned backcountry skiers may be like WTF with the extreme rating but what would happen if the weather forecast was wrong and Tahoe got 3 feet more snow than expected in some spots. You don’t want novice powder hungry backcountry skiers skiing avy paths because it’s “just” considerable or high.

So then what do we do going forward when all these novice bc skiers get experience here under the helicopter tutelage of SAC and they learn that skiing on a HIGH rated day is perfectly safe as long as you're not a newbie. Then they go to Colorado. This is a HIGH day in Colorado. 3/9/19
https://www.tetongravity.com/video/n...300-year-event

In addition to this there were (on the 9th and 10th) 170 avalanche observations, of which 35 were R5, and 60 were R4.

[NWFlow]

This is kind of what I was getting at. The last time I remember legit extreme conditions was January of 2017 and we were all saying how rare it was to go beyond high. They're definitely getting looser with it.

I don't have any skin in the game and have never been to tahoe, but i was perusing avalanche.org and couldn't happen to notice the extreme rating. There's been some good points made over the last couple pages, including that its, anecdotally at least, more common to see extreme danger ratings.

This study was presented at the ISSW in breck 2016:
https://arc.lib.montana.edu/snow-sci...W16_O20.01.pdf

And a lot of the discussion stemming from the presentation was that US forecasters were reluctant to pull the trigger on extreme. Since then, anecdotally at least, it seems that we are more commonly seeing extreme ratings.

I'm not going to second guess the forecast there, but just want to point out that, ideally, forecasts are objectively based on the distribution of the avalanche problem, the likelihood of triggering an avalanche, and the probably destructive size of the avalanches (unless SAC does it differently which i doubt). But this is a hazard, rather than risk, rating and ideally shouldn't involve considerations of "keeping people out of the backcountry."

The issue I see is if you start assigning an extreme rating to any hazardous situation just to keep people out of the backcountry, the whole objective hazard rating essentially loses its meaning. Someone can correct me if i'm wrong, but i believe an extreme rating indicates widespread D4 natural avalanche activity on all aspects and elevations (this is at least what a Level 5 in Europe is). That can happen, but is not very common. I struggle to wrap my head around an extreme rating based on this definition where your avalanche rose is not filled for a persistent problem.

[MTT]

Yeah seems over a line. But to toss gas on that fire, maybe he has flashbacks to his mom and her Life Alert?

Yoes guys are no fun anymore. I didn't even mention that google has the audio and video. And resold it around the world for entertainment.

Building snow forts in the drop area of the roof is very dumb. That is ignorence. How did they think that nice pile of snow got there

[TahoeJ]

The issue I see is if you start assigning an extreme rating to any hazardous situation just to keep people out of the backcountry, the whole objective hazard rating essentially loses its meaning.

Exactly. This is what some of us are saying. The advisory yesterday should have been a toss up between Considerable and High. Extreme was a real head scratcher... and now those who follow closely are going to wonder if they're always erring on the safe side in the future.

Putting aside BC vs. resort snowpack differences... I bet KT-22 has never spun on an "extreme" advisory day before yesterday.

[powdork]

I don't have any skin in the game and have never been to tahoe, but i was perusing avalanche.org and couldn't happen to notice the extreme rating. There's been some good points made over the last couple pages, including that its, anecdotally at least, more common to see extreme danger ratings.

This study was presented at the ISSW in breck 2016:
https://arc.lib.montana.edu/snow-sci...W16_O20.01.pdf

And a lot of the discussion stemming from the presentation was that US forecasters were reluctant to pull the trigger on extreme. Since then, anecdotally at least, it seems that we are more commonly seeing extreme ratings.

I'm not going to second guess the forecast there, but just want to point out that, ideally, forecasts are objectively based on the distribution of the avalanche problem, the likelihood of triggering an avalanche, and the probably destructive size of the avalanches (unless SAC does it differently which i doubt). But this is a hazard, rather than risk, rating and ideally shouldn't involve considerations of "keeping people out of the backcountry."

The issue I see is if you start assigning an extreme rating to any hazardous situation just to keep people out of the backcountry, the whole objective hazard rating essentially loses its meaning. Someone can correct me if i'm wrong, but i believe an extreme rating indicates widespread D4 natural avalanche activity on all aspects and elevations (this is at least what a Level 5 in Europe is). That can happen, but is not very common. I struggle to wrap my head around an extreme rating based on this definition where your avalanche rose is not filled for a persistent problem.

Exactly

[eeyore]

Several avalanches in the Walker canyon, shoved a plow into the river.

[MTT]

Still snowing pretty hard at lake level on the north shore. About 26 degrees so a bit warmer than earlier. Not compacting yet but definitely turning upside down. Looks to be about 2-3" inches on the driveway since I cleared it around 11.

Hum that sounds encouraging. Now that I have legs again I need to get moving. Put on gear. Push all the snow off the Jeep. Drive about 2 miles last part up a snow covered dirt road. And just do it? I'm probably good for a few hundred yards. But gotta start somewhere. I'm still in my jammies