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02-15-2021, 08:05 AM #101Registered User
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One thing that I also wonder about is people knowing the risks, accepting them, and determining it to be "worth it". After watching so many people with tons of experience drop in to Saddle Peak (as an example) on higher hazard days knowing full well the risks, I do wonder how much this plays in to a good percentage of experienced user decisions in the backcountry. And this is something -- personal acceptance of high risk -- that more data, better forecasts, etc is not going to "fix".
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02-15-2021, 08:41 AM #102
Over the last ten years or so I've really found the decision to call it and walk away to be one of the most rewarding and satisfying moves there is. Weighing risk vs. reward and being completely honest with yourself is probably a lot easier to do when you have lots of years under your belt I imagine. I'm at the point where I don't ever feel like I have to ski something, it's just not that big of a deal anymore. As far as skiing right now in the Rockies it's not like you are going to shred the line of a lifetime anyways, farming mellow pow turns is fine and all but it sure AF ain't worth dying for.
dirtbag, not a dentist
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02-15-2021, 08:58 AM #103Rod9301
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02-15-2021, 09:03 AM #104
25 degree powder doesn't excite me at all, and knowing that, I've chosen not to ski much bc at all this season, maybe 5 days at most. If I go out, there's a decent chance I'll be lured on to something I shouldn't ski, so I just don't go. For me, the steeps at the ski area are way more fun, even if they're hardpack.
With a PWL like the one this year, it's a good year to find other things to do- whether that's riding the lifts, nordorking, fatbiking, powsurfing, ice climbing, or whatever. I hiked into the Black Canyon and ice skated on perfect glass on Morrow Point reservoir this season- and that was every bit as exciting and fun as skiing pow.
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02-15-2021, 09:37 AM #105
Yeah, but you go steep terrain at your ski area! Joking aside, it took me quite a while to get away from the "I'm a backcountry skier, I go backcountry skiing damn it!" mindset. So when I look at it from the perspective of someone that only has weekends off, maybe doesn't have a ski pass, lives in the city and has no other outlet for getting outside in nature and having fun with their friends, I understand the challenge.
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02-15-2021, 09:38 AM #106
I don’t think they really “accept” the risk. They think they can manage it because they’ve gotten away with it many times. I’m not sure they really appreciate the consequences which would be a big part of accepting the risk.
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02-15-2021, 09:48 AM #107
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02-15-2021, 10:00 AM #108
There is the "died doing what they loved" fatalist crowd. There is the "thought they are being conservative but weren't" crowd. Also, the "no fucking idea what they are doing crowd. There is the "got L2 and an airbag, awesome with companion rescue" crowd.
The constant is the PWL, unsurvivable avalanches and shit decision making.
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02-15-2021, 12:41 PM #109
Make mogul skiing rad again........2021.
Seriously, pow skiing is easy. Moguls determine who can actually ski and you can't hide behind a curtain of blower.dirtbag, not a dentist
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02-15-2021, 01:18 PM #110
Combining about 6 different threads.....I'd kill for a midweek walk on tram Snowbird windbuff day. The last time I was on vacation was about a year ago riding the tram making bad jokes about getting back from China and just not quite feeling right...ooops.
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02-15-2021, 02:51 PM #111
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02-15-2021, 03:02 PM #112
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02-15-2021, 03:21 PM #113
For winter BC, I embrace the up and exploration, and then view mellow downhill as a bit of gravy. Take a hiking-like approach. At least till things safen up in spring
I like digging pits just to learn more but don’t trust myself to let the results talk me into something. Too many stories of avies just around the corner from some stable pit. Especially with PWLs that are so sensitive to variable snow depths
Of course the trick is staying true to that approach. The more you go out, the more opportunities to F up
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02-16-2021, 10:38 AM #114Registered User
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My take has always been to remove the danger ratings, and focus on a detailed forecast write up. I know the ratings are good to provide a relative sense of the danger, but I just feel having say a "Moderate" with a PWL is a recipe for disaster. Personally that's the one I struggle with the most.
Odd year in the Canadian Rockies. Usually the pack is touchy and you're tip toeing around, but this year has been "relatively" stable. In some areas there is no PWL even listed in the forecasts, which is almost unheard of.
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02-18-2021, 11:35 AM #115Registered User
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02-18-2021, 05:37 PM #116
I’ve tried over the years to choose BC partners based on this principle...if at the end of a tour someone says ‘glad we had that discussion on the ridge and decided not to ski Line A as we’d hoped’ that’s a sign of someone who is less likely to fall into heuristic traps.
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02-18-2021, 06:10 PM #117
On a different note...how comfortable are we as a society with the idea that if someone ignores a highly prescriptive avy center statement that essentially says ‘only a dumbass with a death wish would ski zones A, B, and C today’ the resulting discussions are essentially arguments fir/against a Libertarian view?
Regarding terminology — PWL and other common synonyms don’t sound particularly alarming to non Avy geeks, from what I’ve seen over the years anyway. Almost a euphemism. If instead a ‘Lurking Killer Layer That Will Fuck You Up if you trigger it remains on all W, N, E aspects and even some S aspects’, some more might pay attention.
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02-19-2021, 03:52 PM #118Registered User
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Not sure if it was posted earlier but here's an interesting read:
https://utahavalanchecenter.org/blog/15914
Hardesty advocates for putting an "X" after Moderate (Moderate X) to portray the heightened consequences of unmanageable PWL/deep slab instabilities separately from manageable instabilities such as storm slab/wind slab/etc. similar to the climbing rating system (5.9 vs. 5.9x).
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02-19-2021, 06:03 PM #119Registered User
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Blogging at www.kootenayskier.wordpress.com
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02-19-2021, 07:14 PM #120
The CAIC put on a great webinar yesterday, and the whole thing is well worth a listen, but the last presentation (by Brian Lazar) did a great job of breaking down how they, as forecasters, arrive at their danger rating. He also did a really good job explaining how difficult it is to fit every possible avalanche scenario into one of five neatly defined little levels, and how that doesn't always work super well.
The recording is here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/ll..._-eDaiINatT86r
I tend to think that the forecasters get it right more often than not, especially within the confines of how they need to define things. I also agree that the 5 level danger scale alone doesn't sufficiently capture the difference between manageable and unmanageable problems. That info is there, but it requires digging a little deeper than the danger rating. The X idea is kind of interesting, but not really intuitive to anyone that's not a rock climber, and even then it's a little awkward - you're applying a danger rating to a danger rating?
No answers here, but I do wonder if it would be worthwhile to more clearly convey things like:
-the danger scale is not linear
-situations such as "considerable bordering on high"
-perhaps weighting the potential destructive size of avalanches more heavily in the overall danger rating
I'm pretty confident that there are a lot of people a lot smarter than me working on this problem!
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