PNW 2022/2023 Season - It's Triple Dip La Niña Time!

[Norseman]

Jesus Christ. A beacon to ride a chairlift? Only an American could think of something so stupid.

Not my idea, Freedom Fighter. That's how it works at Silverton and Bridger, maybe elsewhere.

[2FUNKY]

One person is not a crowd…..
I’m going skiing and hunting for these colowayed milfs! Laterz.


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[MagnificentUnicorn]

I made it up.

You know, matching kit from an expensive brand in this year's trending colors. Perfect fit. Nice ass evident even through the goretex. One hairsprayed lock stylishly "escaping" the hat/helmet.

I saw this woman at White Pass, or was it Stevens. Might have been Alta?


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[altasnob]

FWIW, i see more beacons worn at xtal than anywhere in OR despite AS’s “youcanttellmewhattodo” whinnying

Stevens, Alpy, and Crystal are full of up tight tech bros who moved out here from the East, via a stop in Colorado, and think wearing a full pack everywhere negates their jongness.

Hood is full of stoner snowboarders who don't give a fuck. You have to go to Baker to find a Hood-like scene in Washington.

[californiagrown]

I made it up.

You know, matching kit from an expensive brand in this year's trending colors. Perfect fit. Nice ass evident even through the goretex. One hairsprayed lock stylishly "escaping" the hat/helmet.

Are they milfs, or are they cougars? I feel like what you are describing is an impossible amount of time spent on appearance to be possible when one has kids. Cougars on the other hand must do what it takes to catch their prey...


Stoked for the "home" mountain to open up tomorrow. Im in the worst shape ive been in going into a ski season probably ever so looking forward to the impending beat down.

[Northway]

Beacon beep to load Campbell chair. No beep, ski down to Foreskin Queen where you can let your jacket flap freely.

With a sign at the loading ramp that says, "Are you prepared to dig out Little Johnny when you sluff him into the flats? At least we can find his beeping corpse. Wear your shit."

I dunno man, maybe it's not feasible at a place like Mt Dweebus due to layout and moron quotient. But it works elsewhere.

I don't like to wear a fat pack, either. Black Vest Club!

Might as well just make gear a requirement for lift served skiing.

Which chair do you draw the line at for gear? REX and Northway/Short north have more immersion deaths (two in recent memory, RIP) than chair six or southback (none, when open). Northways terrain is way more complex and difficult for patrol to mitigate than southback, and in my opinion more similar to alpental back bowls in that way.

My frame of reference is:
Crystal, life long
Bridger, 7 years pre slaschman, many ridge laps with gear.
Infrequent trips to Alpental and Baker, but great skiing on the arm and high T with folks who know it well.

The difference is Crystal manages southback as lift served, with no lift. Their avy mitigation is phenomenal. With the added measure that it usually is settling over time as it is the last thing to open, usually a day following the storm. Alpental terrain is so much more complex, and mitigated so lightly in comparison, plus that scary as fuck overhead hazard on the high T that there’s really no comparison between the two.

I like the way southback is controlled, I like solo laps out there. I take my own racer kids out there. Brain damage is their favorite. I take them when it is chalky good steep skiing. They rip.

I wouldn’t cry over a gear requirement. But I hope they don’t put one in place and keep doing the great patrol work they do.

My ass also looks good in goretex but I don’t have enough hair for the stylish lock.

[Norseman]

Might as well just make gear a requirement for lift served skiing.

Which chair do you draw the line at for gear? REX and Northway/Short north have more immersion deaths (two in recent memory, RIP) than chair six or southback (none, when open). Northways terrain is way more complex and difficult for patrol to mitigate than southback, and in my opinion more similar to alpental back bowls in that way.

My frame of reference is:
Crystal, life long
Bridger, 7 years pre slaschman, many ridge laps with gear.
Infrequent trips to Alpental and Baker, but great skiing on the arm and high T with folks who know it well.

The difference is Crystal manages southback as lift served, with no lift. Their avy mitigation is phenomenal. With the added measure that it usually is settling over time as it is the last thing to open, usually a day following the storm. Alpental terrain is so much more complex, and mitigated so lightly in comparison, plus that scary as fuck overhead hazard on the high T that there’s really no comparison between the two.

I like the way southback is controlled, I like solo laps out there. I take my own racer kids out there. Brain damage is their favorite. I take them when it is chalky good steep skiing. They rip.

I wouldn’t cry over a gear requirement. But I hope they don’t put one in place and keep doing the great patrol work they do.

My ass also looks good in goretex but I don’t have enough hair for the stylish lock.

I know, it's not feasible to gatekeep all the avalanche terrain at xtal with gear requirements 'cause it's spread throughout the place. Beep-on at ch6 is about the only such measure one could enact as it's a chokepoint, so it's the only one I proposed. And of course patrol is excellent, I don't mean to detract from their efforts.

Just spitballin here about a persistent discomfort with the actions of the clientele, I don't actually have any good solutions. Nor do I even ski there anymore.

[The AD]

Are there actually enough snow immersion incidents at Crystal to warrant this?

[Northway]

Are there actually enough snow immersion incidents at Crystal to warrant this?

There has been a couple, treewell incidents, but no more or less than other ski areas with significant snowfall.

In the cases I’m aware of gear wouldn’t have helped, but would have provided closure sooner.

A partner in sight may have been something that could have helped.

[Buke]

^^^ Bro, you are so hardcore.

The gear in the pack isn’t for helping yourself, it’s for helping out somebody else


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Decades ago, Sorrybro & I were skiing the backside of Stevens on a huge midweek powder day. The details are a little blurry but as I recall, visibility wasn't awesome, the fresh powder was at least 2' deep if not deeper and all that snow made for somewhat challenging skiing.

It was our first or second run through the trees and as we pulled up to regroup we heard something below us. It sounded like someone yelling for help. We hurriedly skied down to find a woman sideways/head angled down in a tree well grasping to the tree trunk. Her skis were still attached to her feet and she was completely stuck. She would have been in a bad way pretty quick if no one found her.

Sorrybro and I were both pretty wet behind the ears with regard to backcountry rescue skills but we had worn our packs and beacons in-bounds that day on account of how much new snow there was. We quickly took our shovels out and very awkwardly went to work figuring out how to dig/pull her out of the tree well.

She thanked us profusely, claimed we had saved her life (maybe we had), and with a bewildered look, after realizing that we weren't ski patrollers, asked if we always carried shovels when we skied. We politely told her that we most certainly did on big powder days for exactly this reason. Thankfully, that's the only time I've ever been involved in any sort of "rescue" but I'm really glad that I was prepared that day and it drove home the importance of basic preparedness.

All that to say, if ski areas have authority to enforce a rope line, I have no issue with them requiring a baseline level of gear to access avy terrain from the lift.

[Bobcat Sig]

On deep days, out of bounds, and even sidecountry, this mantra should hold true anywhere; on at the car, off at the bar. This, refers to an avalanche transceiver and with it, recovery gear. It doesn't matter where.

And Meadows full of stoned snowboarders? lolwut no.

[altasnob]

Sorrybro and I were both pretty wet behind the ears with regard to backcountry rescue skills but we had worn our packs and beacons in-bounds that day on account of how much new snow there was. We quickly took our shovels out and very awkwardly went to work figuring out how to dig/pull her out of the tree well.
.

You know you can dig people out of tree wells with your skis, snowboards, and even your hands.

[The AD]

You know you can dig people out of tree wells with your skis, snowboards, and even your hands.

[eyeroll emoticon]

[altasnob]

And Meadows full of stoned snowboarders? lolwut no.

Admittedly, I haven't skied Hood in more than 15 years. Maybe it's gotten more preppy, and tech bro, just as Portland has. But Hood and Baker, being the birthplace of snowboarding, always seemed to have a large snowboard presence. And snowboarders always have more of a skater, fuck it, attitude than skiers.

[altasnob]

[eyeroll emoticon]

I'm sorry, you don't need a shovel to extract someone from a treewell. I've done it myself. It's not like being burried in a slide where the snow has set up solid and person is 5 feet down. The snow around tree wells on the days when someone is actually able to get stuck in them will be light and fluffy.

[The AD]

Yes, and I can build a bookcase with a handsaw, but I'd prefer not to.

[Norseman]

[TripleT]

Haven’t seen it in years, but on big southback snow days I recall patrol camping at the throne hike and requiring avy gear and partners for like the first hour or so. Seemed reasonable to me.

FWIW - not sure it should always be required but agree that the current system allows plenty of folks who don’t know what they are doing or getting into to wade out there pretty darn easy

[XavierD]

Y’all, we’re like three days into a high pressure system.

[Northway]

Man, I’m all for not requiring gear in Southback, as it’s in-bounds avy controlled terrain. But the stuff altasnob is spewing is just irresponsible. That’s what you want some Jong to read? My ski is good enough?

Altasnob, you should also go back and edit your post to danko recommending he hike Three-Way. Three-Way peak is beyond the avy control boundary and is true back country.

[AK47bp]

I'm sorry, you don't need a shovel to extract someone from a treewell. I've done it myself. It's not like being burried in a slide where the snow has set up solid and person is 5 feet down. The snow around tree wells on the days when someone is actually able to get stuck in them will be light and fluffy.

Stop being a fucking asshole.



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[Bobcat Sig]

Admittedly, I haven't skied Hood in more than 15 years. Maybe it's gotten more preppy, and tech bro, just as Portland has. But Hood and Baker, being the birthplace of snowboarding, always seemed to have a large snowboard presence. And snowboarders always have more of a skater, fuck it, attitude than skiers.

And there we have it.

Anywhere in the west is going to have a higher percentage of boarders; Baker, Crystal, Hood, Mammoth, Tahoe. They just are.

[The AD]

altasnob taking the contrarian view on absolutely every topic gets a bit tedious.

[Huskier]

altasnob taking the contrarian view on absolutely every topic gets a bit tedious.

Gotta admit I often find myself holding my tongue on this one The pedantry gets old as well.

[skiSilent_skiDeep]

I'm sorry, you don't need a shovel to extract someone from a treewell. I've done it myself. It's not like being burried in a slide where the snow has set up solid and person is 5 feet down. The snow around tree wells on the days when someone is actually able to get stuck in them will be light and fluffy.

decades ago in my youth i spent many weekends xc skiin around paradise-rainier. one day after my family settled into an afternoon tailgate session i headed out for more lowangle action. about five minutes after the Walkman batteries died and to my surprise i heard a faint muffled yell/noise. i investigated and found a snowshoer head first in a treewell. person was in near suffocation mode, the treewell was deep, distance to nearest help (parking lot) was time cost prohibitive, so i took off their homemade pvc showshoe, wrapped my jacket around it and dug this person out. quite positive this person would have been a statistic if i had to rely on hands only or my skinny skis for extraction. in hindsight the extraction would have been a lot less stressful if id applied any method that resembles the T-shovel treewell extraction technique as opposed to youthful brute force and panic.