Heliskiing fatalities near Nelson, BC

[LeeLau]

as opposed to core shot I'd like to learn something from the accident. Even if it's something we have gone through here in europe quite a few times with guided accidents. guides sometimes feel the need to deliver even in High danger PWL days. which is problematic. We even had low risk high consequence stuff happen on level 2 days with PWLs where the guide did nothing wrong. Which was a freak accident and you still could learn something. Which led me to stay away from any big terrain with PWLs and never ever regroup on a semi safe spot mid slope.

getting caught on a high risk pwl day is NOT a freak accident. no matter how many guides you have with you.

This is a fair question. Also agreed this is Slide Zone.

This is subjective to me, myself and I. I have a pre- disposition to find reasons to ski. Taking that into account there are times when I prefer to remove myself from a situation where there is possibility to be tempted.

Someone else pointed out that, in Southern BC, there is a transition time when snowpack goes from winter to spring considerations.

TO ME, this means I start thinking about low probability high consequences slides. The reason is often ( but not always) that previously buried or dormant persistent weak layers come into play. When there are big state changes, occurring over short periods of time, I stop skiing in the backcountry (or ski gentle slopes) until I feel better about snowpack.

These changes can be strong winds, lots of snowfall, temperature swings etc. But then I have luxury of time constraints and fiscal constraints to wait it out. Alternatively to select something else to do than ski b/"c

Hope this helps

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Ok. Let’s play the game. Two groups skied safely. Got taken out by a slide that ripped to the LZ. Which should have been a safe spot. Sounds like a freak accident. Maybe not if from your armchair that’s a horrible place to gather because every one hundred years a slide rips through there. Skiing should be made illegal. It’s dangerous.

Don’t be a cunt. I and others posted what the avalanche bulletin said for that day. High danger, avoid avalanche terrain, historic slides had been reported in the zone. You seem to be completely ignorant of heuristics. I’m sure they had their reasons for thinking it was safe based on their experience but all signs pointed to a no go situation. Can you not see that or is this you being intentionally obtuse because of your emotions and lack of understanding?

[Dantheman]

@ EK, While I agree, the expert halo tends to make those who wear it believe they can mitigate objective hazard through good terrain choices and selective route finding when nothing could be further from reality.

I would guess this is more Familiarity Trap than Expert Halo. A lot of the PZs we used were lakes and meadows down in the valleys with mature trees around them, but that definitely or likely had start zones above them that were >20* alpha angle. Could easily have been 50-100+ years since those areas had seen a full track slide to the maximum possible runout point. On the days we were skiing that overhead hazard wasn't a concern, but conditions we much different on Monday.

A freak accident is getting hit by a meteor or swallowed by a spontaneous sinkhole in Florida. This was a low probability, high consequence event that in retrospect was entirely predictable, but easy to lose sight of in the moment (missed the forest for the trees, no pun intended). I have no doubt that everything they skied that day was <30*. They likely just failed to consider that this PZ was not the safe place it is under normal conditions. Or maybe they did consider it but it was early enough in day that they thought a W/NW facing slope would not have seen enough warming to go big like this (so far in reports I have not seen the time the slide occurred).

[Bunion 2020]

Thanks DTM for some sort of (I was in that zone and this is what I observed).

Sorry for your loss.

[Dantheman]

Found the time, approx. 12:30 PDT. So, it's certainly possible they considered the overhead hazard here but thought it was too early in the day for it to be a concern. That wouldn't be an unreasonable conclusion since it had cooked the whole prior afternoon without failing.

[Foggy_Goggles]

Does Av Cananda archive forecasts? If so could someone please link that here.

CaliGrown, I'm honestly not sure if you are trying to be argumentative or you have a bit of a knowledge gap. What you posted above sounds right except for the part about freak or low likelihood or choose your term with undefined meaning. I'd just encourage you to think about it though the lense of everything being within our control, our job is to not be surprised and that experience leads many to reconsider how frequently previously thought to be infrequent events happen

[GoldMember]

In N Idaho, not too far from the Kaslo area, conditions changed dramatically from Sunday to Monday. I assume that was true there as well. Friday through Sunday was new snow over existing layers that were comparatively stable. Sunday afternoon was was the start of a significant warming with rain overnight and a resulting upside down snowpack. Im speculating a bit but I suspect the rapid warming occurred there as well. Maybe not rain but definitely warmer. Snowpacks dont like rapid temperature changes. So from DTMs time to the event were likely very different circumstances.

DTM post 53 makes sense to me. Weve seen it happen in a similar manner where PZ is generally safe but theres an occasional outlier.

[californiagrown]

DCaliGrown, I&#39;m honestly not sure if you are trying to be argumentative or you have a bit of a knowledge gap. What you posted above sounds right except for the part about freak or low likelihood or choose your term with undefined meaning. I&#39;d just encourage you to think about it though the lense of everything being within our control, our job is to not be surprised and that experience leads many to reconsider how frequently previously thought to be infrequent events happen

Im not the only one using the term &quot;low probability/liklihood, high consequence&quot;, so not sure why youre picking on me here. But, for the record, i agree that this event was forseeable. And i 100% agree with your outlook being &quot;everything is within your control&quot;, there is cause and effect to what happens, and its our job to be aware of the causes, and effects and make decisions accordingly... such as &quot;if a cornice fails on this bowl there is a chance it climazes per the avi report, and then this staging area at the bottom could be in the slide path&quot;. Darn near every decision in the BC is a decision based on risk tolerance and what you think the odds are of something happening.
From the little information available, to me, this seems like a lower probability accident than the large majority of avalanche reports i read.

[pappag]

<p>

Huh? I think you have to jump to a lot of conclusions to get here unless you have additional non public info. Rest in Peace. Hug the ones you love. It is a dangerous game we play. It is easy to judge. But the consistently excellent decision making required is the hard part.

Doesn&#39;t look like a more detailed report is available just yet. https://avalanche.ca/map?panel=fatal...%2Fclute-creek Below is a link to Monday&#39;s forecast: https://avalanche.ca/forecasts/archi...ng=-116.762173 Terrain and Travel Advice -Only the most simple non-avalanche terrain with no overhead hazard is appropriate at this time. -Avoid avalanche terrain during periods of heavy loading from new snow, wind, or rain. -Storm slab size and sensitivity to triggering will likely increase through the day.Avoid the runout zones of avalanche paths. -Avalanches could run full path.</p>

[GoldMember]

^^ That mirrors the forecast I read for N Idaho during that same time.

[snoboy]

With the risk of straying into expert halo territory, I would remind everyone that the PAB is the PUBLIC Avalanche Bulletin. Operations produce their own Nowcasts and Forecasts that are shared between them and the PAB is distilled from that large lump of data. This can lead to a situation where your local assessment is out of line with the larger region. Where I work this is not an uncommon occurrence, and it is not uncommon to find ourselves off by 1 level of hazard. Not saying this is the case here, but I wonder how people would view this incident if the fine grained hazard rating for this zone was actually at 3/Considerable (not saying it was - I have no insider info on this incident) which says &quot;Under considerable danger, natural avalanches are possible and human-triggered ones are likely. Avalanche conditions are considered dangerous and careful snowpack evaluation, cautious route-finding and conservative decision making is essential. Small avalanches can occur in many areas, large avalanches in specific areas, and very large avalanches in isolated areas&quot;?


I know that my personal reaction every time I read about a serious incident in any activity that I participate in is &quot;Well, I would not have been there/done though/made that choice.&quot; I think we do this in part due to not having all of the information that the people making the choice did, but even more so to protect our own egos and justify our own choices. I know that &quot;WTF, everywhere was 4/High, why would they be doing any guided skiing right now?!&quot; was my first gut reaction to hearing about this incident. After reflection, I had to ask myself truthfully whether I might have made the same choice. I could not say &quot;No.&quot; In fact it reminded me of the best run I had last season, which was in 4/High conditions according to the PAB that day. Maybe I had better information on local conditions, maybe I used the terrain well to manage the snow pack hazard, or maybe I just got lucky.

[Gunder]

This sounds eerily similar to our accident in Japan a few years ago. FWIW this was far from a typical heli skiing group and when we are typically out working we have different terrain available to us than standard heli ski clients. Typically we don’t ski client terrain or runs. We still have a red light green light for runs, but with an acknowledgment of greater risk acceptance. That’s offset by way more experience and training.

So I don’t want to guess what happened until all of the details are out. Leann’s social account of digging out her deceased partner is hard to read to say the least.

A friend who used to guide there sent me this:

“I do not want to release any information before Stellar. What I can say is that the run where the avalanche occurred is a regular run for Stellar (one I’ve skied hundreds of times) and thought previously to have manageable exposure to maximum sz2.0 avalanches. The avalanche yesterday was a sz3.0 natural that flowed through very low incline terrain on its way to impacting the pick up. “

Very similar to our accident that took my crew out at the transition zone where we couldn’t get any farther away from the slope without going up hill.

Even with a shit ton of experience sometimes you get surprised that things can and do go bigger than you can fathom. I’m guessing that’s what happened here.

Remember you can general find safe terrain even on high Avy danger days but you can’t forget about any over head hazards as well.

Personally for me it’s really easy to walk away from a slope / area even if my clients are there as I’ve learned the hard way that you always get spanked if you don’t trust your instincts.

At the end of the day no one is 100% perfect with managing avalanche conditions and all it takes is a single mistake for thing to go very very wrong very quickly.

[Bunion 2020]

2 more solid posts, thanks Snoboy and GG.

[Dantheman]

I know that my personal reaction every time I read about a serious incident in any activity that I participate in is "Well, I would not have been there/done though/made that choice." I think we do this in part due to not having all of the information that the people making the choice did, but even more so to protect our own egos and justify our own choices. I know that "WTF, everywhere was 4/High, why would they be doing any guided skiing right now?!" was my first gut reaction to hearing about this incident. After reflection, I had to ask myself truthfully whether I might have made the same choice. I could not say "No." In fact it reminded me of the best run I had last season, which was in 4/High conditions according to the PAB that day. Maybe I had better information on local conditions, maybe I used the terrain well to manage the snow pack hazard, or maybe I just got lucky.

Everything is obvious in retrospect when the outcome is known. Umbrella sales can tell you when it rained with almost perfect accuracy. In the moment we don't know what we don't know.

[GoldMember]

Good discussion. I find myself agreeing with Snoboy, Gunder, and DTM on a lot of points. Its not an exact science and there are lessons coming from this. Its just sad that education has to come from the loss of lives. Im not speculating any further and await the final report.

[teamdirt]

The LZ location on this one is questionable. I&rsquo;ve seen pics of the incident. For the record- the location of the incident is on the border of 3 different mountain ranges and avalanche forecast zones of which 1 of them , which they were in, was forecasting considerable that day not high. I don&#39;t think the public will see anymore info on this or a investigation results. The heli/cat/ guide industry in Canada covers these commercial incidents up pretty quickly .Condolences to everyone involved or affected.

[bodywhomper]

There’ll be no public report by the province health and safety org due to the incident involving an employee? I understand he was an owner.


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[Foggy_Goggles]

CailGrown, my intent was just to respond to your post constructively not pick on you. But this is about neither you nor me so lets move on.

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful posts. There is a lot of experience and wisdom here. When I was younger, I used to look at incident debreifs and rationalize why that wouldn't be me or my friends. Thirty years in, I've come to realize that was a bit of a cop out and that it could be.

So walking the walk is the hard part. Overly simplified, in retrospect and without knowing anything other that what is publicly available, it seems the LZ was in the runout of an avalanche path. So the learning moment for me is to not underestimate overhead hazard and choose good safe zones/islands of safety. And there is always a bit of hypothetical not knowing all the facts of incident.

[oltrepiave]

Two very wise and balanced posts from Gunder and snoboy. I have also been guilty of that kind of mental cop-out. Over the years I've seen that I kind of resort to using it once accidents start to pile up and friends/close ones who do not engage with all of this at all/have no clue start questioning me. Which also increases the risk of putting that expert halo on.

[goldenboy]

Condolences to friends and family--

Regarding the danger rating, it's worth remembering that like almost everything in the avalanche world, it's far from black and white. It's just some forecasters, probably sleep deprived and chugging coffee at 5am, trying their best to take all the info they have and make a rating and decide what the problems are and where they might be located. I don't know how many places have multiple avalanche forecasts, but I live in one of them (Crested Butte). Twice within the past week, the CBAC and CAIC danger ratings were not the same- a good reminder that it's not a prefect science.

When someone says low probability high consequence, my first thought is scary moderate conditions in a continental snowpack, not considerable or high during a big warmup after a big storm cycle with one or more PWLs in the upper snowpack. It's been interesting to hear those of you who disagree. While I don't agree, I might not disagree quite as much as I did at first.

[californiagrown]

In the spirit of "lets learn something from this tragedy", what should guests do in this situation. The guests here were all VERY experienced skiers/snowboarders, well entrenched in the industry with assumably lots of avalanche saftey knowledge, and knowledge of the risks involved. If you are on a heli trip, know the forecast, and as the day progresses become increasingly uneasy about the warming, do you have any say about what aspects to ski, or about where the regroup points are? Do you have any say about the landing/pickup zones? If you get down to the landing zone, and look around and say this is not fucking safe is it a realistic option to tell the guide you want to move somewhere else... or are you pretty much locked in at that point due to limited places a heli can safely land? There is obviously the opportunity to always sit out the day, or sit out a lap. But what about midslope, or at the bottom? When touring, you have the ultimate freedom to change plans midcourse, or change your transition location... do you realistically have that option when heli/catskiing with a group?

[MagnificentUnicorn]

I’d suggest that everyone read in full the archived forecast for that day if they haven’t. It’s eerily prescient.

I’m not infallible, I’ve skied slopes I probably shouldn’t have in the last month but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about and learn from these accidents.

[subtle plague]

We all make questionable decisions.
And I dont think it is about that.

During our Powderguide meeting two weeks ago we heard an interesting lecture from an freerider who also is/was at the SLF called "beyond Munter". He said that when it's good you can usually never get the reduction method below 1 no matter what you do. And then he talked about what then. For example terrain management etc. and whether it's worth it. For example stable base loads of fresh (workable danger), smaller terrain features and a good run out zone --> go (not a general but a higher risk go).
lower risk, but big terrain and terrain trap and pwl --> stop despite the reduction method says yes.

Here the question is whether the experts really considered the special conditions because they've skied it hundreds of times.
question 1: Did they factor in the special conditions (for example further run paths in that level 4) or were they soothed by their experience?
question 2: was it worth it?: In retrospect of course not, but was the skiing that great in those special level 4 conditions that taking extra precaution in those bad conditions did seem such a let down?

considering the level fixation of us mere Euros: I know that the American terrain to forecast is so much larger and weather forecast/data so muc more unreliable than in switzerland that you have to make your own forecast sometimes, so i can't comment on how often i would put my forecast above the official one. In the alps that rarely happens and usually it's that i thought i was actually more dangerous than predicted. (example: more snow than predicted and we heard natural releases in the fog while skiing the trees, came back and thought well that does not sound like level 3 and they updated it to 4 for the next day)

[Bunion 2020]

@CG, fair points. When touring you are not burning dollars at a prodigious rate. Also and forgive my not knowing, was this group out trying to get Footage or just out for the incredible fun that Heliskiing can be?

[XXX-er]

considering the level fixation of us mere Euros: I know that the American terrain to forecast is so much larger and weather forecast/data so muc more unreliable than in switzerland that you have to make your own forecast sometimes, so i can&#39;t comment on how often i would put my forecast above the official one. In the alps that rarely happens and usually it&#39;s that i thought i was actually more dangerous than predicted. (example: more snow than predicted and we heard natural releases in the fog while skiing the trees, came back and thought well that does not sound like level 3 and they updated it to 4 for the next day)






A Canadian guide up here once told told me there is a lot of finger crossing with euro guides ( Canadian for x yer fingers as a good luck omen and hope nuthin happens ) cuz there is great forcasting in the alps whereas up here especialy in the north west BC there might not be any forcasting which has since changed in the last few years with avcan having crews on snow machine riding &quot; further and longer than anyone should &quot; as the AVCAN guy told me