Its Baaaack: EC roll call version 4.0(beta)

[From_the_NEK]

Well back to actual skiing... (in the NEK lowlands)

Got out on the hill behind work again during lunch under a beautiful bluebird sky. This time I made the trek all the way to the top.


Due to a nasty surface crust I tried to stay on the lower angled stuff.



It was real hard to be graceful.



But the snow was deep and if we get a good 6-8 inches these "thicker" tree lines have my name on them.




Put a sock in it, boy, or else you'll be outta here like shit through a goose.

>Edit for Animal House reference<

[JerseyDave]

Hilarious that we can go page after page on the social life of the magic crew but can't get a descent examination of one of the only interesting things to happen to someone who regularly posts his ski reports in here in the last 3 months, after that person invited comments and questions. Suggesting that he skiied that line knowing it would slide is Stupid. It's either stupid to suggest it, or stupid of him to consider that acceptable practice, and I don't think Rog is stupid.

[HankScorpio]

Can everyone just get the sand out of their cooch and concentrate on the rainy skiing and beer drinking this weekend?

I'll be at Magic with Reganized all weekend.

[buttahflake]

put a sweet touring setup together today. f12's mounted on Liberty Morphic 181. fucking light! anyone skiing the Bamboo? skied these a bunch this year, we have it in the demo fleet. wicked impressed with these badboys.

[drewvw]

^ ski pictures yaaaaay

[lynchdogger]

Has anyone considered that maybe he triggered it on purpose? He is a bit of an internet attention whore ;-)

Hey Jong, you're Mom is calling you home for dinnah! STFU! Dumbest thing I've read to date.

[birdman829]

^^^^^ I think it was said in jest, judging by the winky face at the end. Some day we'll all figure out how to reliably express sarcasm over the internetz...Whoever figures out a way deserves a nobel prize or something.

[JerseyDave]

Powder this w/e!

[akokskis]

^^ Dave, that's the wrong kind of powder.
Saturday looks do-able, but sunday, oh man sunday, it looks brutal

[JerseyDave]

http://www.youtube.com/embed/nWAUCVbnDUg

[eug]

Who is around Kmart on Sunday? It might be too wet to stand around and watch kids mogul comp, so I just might have to go skiing...

[Bottleman]

Saturday looks do-able, but sunday, oh man sunday, it looks brutal

Not looking so bad here...

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick...&FcstType=text

[lynchdogger]

^^^^^ I think it was said in jest, judging by the winky face at the end. Some day we'll all figure out how to reliably express sarcasm over the internetz...Whoever figures out a way deserves a nobel prize or something.

Yeah, sorry to all. Wicked sinus infection and a little grumpy.

[SummerSux]

.

That Red Hat superglued to your squash Rog?

[icelanticskier]

Hilarious that we can go page after page on the social life of the magic crew but can't get a descent examination of one of the only interesting things to happen to someone who regularly posts his ski reports in here in the last 3 months, after that person invited comments and questions. Suggesting that he skiied that line knowing it would slide is Stupid. It's either stupid to suggest it, or stupid of him to consider that acceptable practice, and I don't think Rog is stupid.

10 days off and time to play with skis and bikes again. sorry dave, work time means no intertoob time.

so folks at work welcomed me back and asked me how my time off was. my reply, "exciting!"

so much good skiing was had in the 9 days i skied and 50k of earned. got to learn about snow stability and lack there of too.

i chose to ski where i ski cuz i like skiing in steeper open uncrowded avy terrain. i go up no matter what the weather or avy danger cuz i like to be out in it and choose my terrain and travel techniques to suit the day at hand. higher danger days mean less folks running around and i like that. always have. even when i lived in utah, i chose the storm days for solitude and didn't mind paying the price of epic trail breaking. getting out often in all conditions, poking all over at snow and watching the weather and how it affects the conditions is really interesting to me.

yes, some bigger, steeper areas nearby had slid, they do that when avy danger is elevated, they do it a lot and i've seen a lot of it happen. kicked off some big ones with ski cuts myself, let a good one go last friday while skiing the main gully solo while it was snowing 1-2 inches per hour on east winds (key). i skied across the top coming from the snowfields, jumped on a big drift (on purpose) and the whole gut ran. since i was in a treed safe zone, i casually kick turned the other way to a known safer zone and skied boot top blower to the bottom in a safe manner always ready to duck into the trees if i let big enough sluff go. doing this stuff doesn't scare me in the least. infact, resort skiing with a bunch of pivot skidding joeys going way too fast with i-pods on scares the shit out of me.

the mistake i made was feeling fairly confident that a slope that we skied nearby was a good represention of what we'd maybe find in the slope that slapped me. i was wrong. however, we used very safe protocol bay only having one person on the slope (me) we had 2 plans of attack. we went with plan b cuz when i felt the softer than expected snow under my skis, i immediately knew that something bad was gonna happen. i then went with plan b which was to ski hard left onto the safer nub ridge which got me up and out of the gully where most of the fractured snow ran down faster than the snow that pulled me from the side down after it. my partner was still safe up on the ridge wher he was supposed to be. so then i went into survival mode. i never got scared or nervous. i don't tend to react that way when shit hits the fan in general. i take it as a challenge and rode the thing the best i could till i swam out. my buddy skied down to me as i was standing there waiting for him and we grabbed my ski that was sticking out of the snow a few hunded feet above me and my pole that was a hundred feet below me and we skied out of there and skied other areas for the rest of the afternoon.

upon coming out of the snowfields, some friends of mine that i've skied with for eons up there, were climbing the main gully and yelled down, "how was the big ride rog?! glad to see you ski out of there!" they actually saw me drop in and then saw the big cloud of snow smoke over there and just assumed that i'd be dead or alive and they waited till i appeared. no big deal right? i then told them that i was fine and kept an eye on them while they skied the gully that i chose not to go near, they skied it safely and well and i took off to ski other stuff when they were in the clear.

did this experience change anything for me as far as skiing goes up there? yes, i will be less complacent than i'd become with the comfort that i have up there. i now have a better understanding of how a certain type of snow reacted when i caused it to fail. i have a better understanding of how dangerous a slope that i've skied literally hundereds of times and trusted, can bite me in the ass.

does this increase my fear of heading up there in all conditions in the future? no way. if anything i'm even more intrigued to poke around even more and search out all that i can find, safely. taking the ride to me was a wake up call, but didn't work me up in the least.

i went right back up the next day in inclement weather solo and poked my way around up there for hours, skied some great runs in neighboring gullies and had a fun 8 hour day.
was so great to visit the slide the day after to really get a sense at to what went on that i may have missed the day before. i like to see slides, i like to watch how they may have come down and from what triggers. i'm curious and like the high places, it's just what i do and will keep doing it often. more focus and caution will result from my incident, but never an ounce of fear. fear can kill ya, focus can save ya. just my .02

thanx dave for you curiosity.

rog

[buckethead]

put a sweet touring setup together today. f12's mounted on Liberty Morphic 181. fucking light! anyone skiing the Bamboo? skied these a bunch this year, we have it in the demo fleet. wicked impressed with these badboys.

nice.
not that bamboo but ON3p wrens.
after years of twin sheets of metal
finding the bamboo(w/carbon sidewalls)
a very worthy successor.
3 weeks on 'em and my knees feel better
and i feel stronger later in the day.
even forgot the motrin the other day and went last chair w/o (a first in years)

haven't followed the contentious discussion on the slide, but glad you're ok rog.

so you didn't really do it on porpoise did you?

(note the clever use of misspelling to signify jongish sarcasm, while the finger 'stache provides the wink to let you know i meant to do that. )

[roark]

Got out on the hill behind work again during lunch under a beautiful bluebird sky.
...
But the snow was deep and if we get a good 6-8 inches these "thicker" tree lines have my name on them.




Put a sock in it, boy, or else you'll be outta here like shit through a goose.

mmmmmmm, tasty lunch!

[icelanticskier]

That Red Hat superglued to your squash Rog?

ya, i was so engulfed in snow while i was taking the ride, nothing would've come off of me i don't think. even my glasses stayed on. didn't lose a single thing. amazing.

rog

[icelanticskier]

10 days off and time to play with skis and bikes again. sorry dave, work time means no intertoob time.

so folks at work welcomed me back and asked me how my time off was. my reply, "exciting!"

so much good skiing was had in the 9 days i skied and 50k of earned. got to learn about snow stability and lack there of too.

i chose to ski where i ski cuz i like skiing in steeper open uncrowded avy terrain. i go up no matter what the weather or avy danger cuz i like to be out in it and choose my terrain and travel techniques to suit the day at hand. higher danger days mean less folks running around and i like that. always have. even when i lived in utah, i chose the storm days for solitude and didn't mind paying the price of epic trail breaking. getting out often in all conditions, poking all over at snow and watching the weather and how it affects the conditions is really interesting to me.

yes, some bigger, steeper areas nearby had slid, they do that when avy danger is elevated, they do it a lot and i've seen a lot of it happen. kicked off some big ones with ski cuts myself, let a good one go last friday while skiing the main gully solo while it was snowing 1-2 inches per hour on east winds (key). i skied across the top coming from the snowfields, jumped on a big drift (on purpose) and the whole gut ran. since i was in a treed safe zone, i casually kick turned the other way to a known safer zone and skied boot top blower to the bottom in a safe manner always ready to duck into the trees if i let big enough sluff go. doing this stuff doesn't scare me in the least. infact, resort skiing with a bunch of pivot skidding joeys going way too fast with i-pods on scares the shit out of me.

the mistake i made was feeling fairly confident that a slope that we skied nearby was a good represention of what we'd maybe find in the slope that slapped me. i was wrong. however, we used very safe protocol bay only having one person on the slope (me) we had 2 plans of attack. we went with plan b cuz when i felt the softer than expected snow under my skis, i immediately knew that something bad was gonna happen. i then went with plan b which was to ski hard left onto the safer nub ridge which got me up and out of the gully where most of the fractured snow ran down faster than the snow that pulled me from the side down after it. my partner was still safe up on the ridge wher he was supposed to be. so then i went into survival mode. i never got scared or nervous. i don't tend to react that way when shit hits the fan in general. i take it as a challenge and rode the thing the best i could till i swam out. my buddy skied down to me as i was standing there waiting for him and we grabbed my ski that was sticking out of the snow a few hunded feet above me and my pole that was a hundred feet below me and we skied out of there and skied other areas for the rest of the afternoon.

upon coming out of the snowfields, some friends of mine that i've skied with for eons up there, were climbing the main gully and yelled down, "how was the big ride rog?! glad to see you ski out of there!" they actually saw me drop in and then saw the big cloud of snow smoke over there and just assumed that i'd be dead or alive and they waited till i appeared. no big deal right? i then told them that i was fine and kept an eye on them while they skied the gully that i chose not to go near, they skied it safely and well and i took off to ski other stuff when they were in the clear.

did this experience change anything for me as far as skiing goes up there? yes, i will be less complacent than i'd become with the comfort that i have up there. i now have a better understanding of how a certain type of snow reacted when i caused it to fail. i have a better understanding of how dangerous a slope that i've skied literally hundereds of times and trusted, can bite me in the ass.

does this increase my fear of heading up there in all conditions in the future? no way. if anything i'm even more intrigued to poke around even more and search out all that i can find, safely. taking the ride to me was a wake up call, but didn't work me up in the least.

i went right back up the next day in inclement weather solo and poked my way around up there for hours, skied some great runs in neighboring gullies and had a fun 8 hour day.
was so great to visit the slide the day after to really get a sense at to what went on that i may have missed the day before. i like to see slides, i like to watch how they may have come down and from what triggers. i'm curious and like the high places, it's just what i do and will keep doing it often. more focus and caution will result from my incident, but never an ounce of fear. fear can kill ya, focus can save ya. just my .02

thanx dave for you curiosity.

rog

bumping for dave so he knows i care

rog

[buttahflake]

nice.
not that bamboo but ON3p wrens.
after years of twin sheets of metal
finding the bamboo(w/carbon sidewalls)
a very worthy successor.
3 weeks on 'em and my knees feel better
and i feel stronger later in the day.
even forgot the motrin the other day and went last chair w/o (a first in years)

haven't followed the contentious discussion on the slide, but glad you're ok rog.

so you didn't really do it on porpoise did you?

(note the clever use of misspelling to signify jongish sarcasm, while the finger 'stache provides the wink to let you know i meant to do that. )

Yes! no more driving those planks. i got a wicked kind deal on the Liberty's they were one of the demos. only went out like ten days. bamboo is good wood. seriously, shit is light and poppy, yet holds on ice like glue. and grows like grass. check em out. pretty cool factory and made in the US of FKNA! i feel like busting out Daffy's and whatnot

[buckethead]

^^ yea. they hold and charge much like the w105s, but then have a whole set of playfull/poppy and even forgiving features i never experienced before (though axioms are actually pretty poppy) .

i almost went out and bought a tall tee

no can't beat the sustainability aspect of bamboo either.

hmmm. bamboo automobilessome day?

[Jonathan S.]

Armchair quarterbacking does nothing to further your avi awareness.

As others have by now pointed out, incident assessment is a highly valuable form of avalanche safety education (whether in the avalanche courses I teach or just in internet forums like this one).
And I commend Roger for being so forthcoming with his debriefings in multiple posts, as this is one of the most thoroughly documented incidents I have ever reviewed. Even though we might have different perspectives on decision making and risk taking, etc., I think we can all agree that Roger's feedback on the incident has provided an excellent learning opportunity for all of us. So, thanks! (Although Roger, please don't feel compelled to do it again just for our sake...)

[birdman829]

I think we can all agree that Roger's feedback on the incident has provided an excellent learning opportunity for all of us. So, thanks! (Although Roger, please don't feel compelled to do it again just for our sake...)

Ah yes, our very own canary in a coal mine

[akokskis]

Too much work and skiing have kept me from editing photos in a timely fashion this year. Although since I'm skiing a lot, I'm not too concerned.

On that note, here are a few shots from an awesome day I had a few weeks back (yes, that's a link to my site for a few more images) in the amazing VTBC with my non-mag friend, K.

Poppin' off pillows


K lining it up.


Oh baby.


Coming by a sleepy old boulder. (Don't see it?)


More pillowy goodness. Although I don't have pictures of it, to the looker's right of this area is an entire bowl filled with pillows - it's simply amazing!




Although we're not quite at the weekend (aaaaalmost...), I hope everyone has a good one! Stay safe out there.

[crank54]

put a sweet touring setup together today. f12's mounted on Liberty Morphic 181. fucking light! anyone skiing the Bamboo? skied these a bunch this year, we have it in the demo fleet. wicked impressed with these badboys.

Glad to see you finally got some real (durable) bindings on the JJs. It was making me nervous watching you charge on those F12's...