Archive for the '07 Avalanche Avoidance' Category

Worthwhile Avalanche Video

Published on March 7, 2012 in 07 Avalanche Avoidance. 4 Comments Tags: .

One positive aspect of being a GoPro nation is that not only are avalanche accidents being documented as they happen, but often times from a variety of camera angles as well.  This video does an excellent job showing the reality of being buried alive and the horror or realizing that the victim isn’t wearing a beacon.

Avalanche, A Life Saved from Trent Meisenheimer on Vimeo.

I thought one of the more educational moments in this video was that when you first see the victim go down, it doesn’t seem that bad.  The avalanche doesn’t look that large and from a distance you have a fairly good idea of where the victim might be.  All of this suddenly changes when the rescuer arrives on the debris pile and you suddenly lose all sense of where the person might be and simultaneously realize how large and deep the avalanche is. Even with 4-6 fit people digging as fast as they could, they barely saved the victims life and he was “only” buried about 4′ deep.
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10 – The Common Cure

Published on February 27, 2012 in 07 Avalanche Avoidance. 4 Comments Tags: .

The tenth and last of my personal avalanche avoidance theories.

There’s a joke among sailors concerning seasickness that’s usually told as the victim is puking over the railing:

Q:  Do you know the only proven cure for seasickness?
A:  Lie down in the shade of a palm tree.

The point of the joke is that the only guaranteed way to prevent seasickness is to remove yourself from the churning environment, which is the same with avalanches. The punchline for the avalanche version of this joke might be “Sit in the day lodge and drink hot chocolate.” but even day lodges have been hit. If it is steep enough to turn on, in just the perfectly wrong conditions, it is steep enough to avalanche. Avalanches have killed people in some of the most bizarre circumstances imaginable including tiny road cuts, low angle slopes, rock hard snow, roofalanches and everything in-between.  A friend triggered a slide and went for a ride on the last remaining patch of snow in the middle of a talus slope in August.  Entire mogul fields have ripped out. When we triggered the dramatic avalanche in the movie “Steep” I would have called the avalanche danger “Low” or “Below Low” if such a category existed.

A cruel aspect of avalanche accidents is that they are always so obvious in retrospect. After the fact you can measure the angle, find the bed surface, identify the weak layer, see the tracks leading into them and usually get a first hand account from a survivor about exactly what happened. But beforehand, due to spatial variability and test interpretation, you could dig pits to the ground every 100′ and still not be 100% certain. You also wouldn’t get very far. Continue reading ’10 – The Common Cure’

9 – Beyond Bros

Published on February 24, 2012 in 07 Avalanche Avoidance. 2 Comments Tags: .

Part 9 in 10 of my personal avalanche avoidance theories.

Bro’ing down in the mountains with your buddies is a big part of what makes backcountry skiing so fun. There’s an intensity that comes from trusting your friends to rescue you if things go wrong (and vice versa) that leads to strong relationships, which may, or may not extend beyond the mountains. It’s common to exchange dialog along the lines of “I’m okay with skiing this. Are you?” while skiing with your partners, but it actually extends way beyond this circle.

After spending hours on the skin track with a buddy and hearing about his family and friends, the worst place to actually meet them in person for the first time is at his funeral. “Oh, you’re Steve’s mom. He talked about you all the time. It’s great to finally meet you. I’m so sorry.” At that point skiing looks incredibly stupid and you’d do just about anything to turn the clock back. Continue reading ’9 – Beyond Bros’

8 – Redefine Challenge

Published on February 23, 2012 in 07 Avalanche Avoidance. 4 Comments Tags: .

Part 8 in 10 of my personal avalanche avoidance theories…

In 2010 I was involved in a round table discussion where participants were asked to describe the “most challenging thing they had done in their respective sports over the last year.” I went first and it was a no brainer – “Due to a persistently weak snowpack, I skied mellow, low angle terrain all season.” This was a truthful answer that didn’t go over very well and more acceptable answers included skiing the Cosmique Couloir, doing first descents or winning comps.  I wanted a do-over.

Skiing big, exposed, scary lines is incredibly addictive, satisfying and thrilling, but the real crux to doing them is in the timing. Knowing where to go is easy – knowing when to go is much harder. Avoiding steep lines for an entire season took a different mindset, but the challenge aspect of it was made up for by sniffing out long tours where you never got on terrain over 30 degrees. It was a fun challenge, but in a very different way than the standard issue challenge of steep skiing. Continue reading ’8 – Redefine Challenge’

7 – Hedge Fund Skiing

Published on February 22, 2012 in 07 Avalanche Avoidance. 7 Comments

Part 7 of 10 in a series of personal avalanche avoidance theories.

After going on a financial disaster reading bender for the last three years, I started noticing a lot of similarities between investors and skiers:

  • Risk versus Reward
  • Smart people getting whacked
  • Dumb people getting lucky
  • Greed
  • Herd instinct
  • Competition
  • Tons of underlying information available.

Perhaps the biggest similarity is that both financial markets and snowpacks are too complex and too connected to ever be able to forecast them with 100% accuracy. There will always be “one-in-a-million” events in both. Where they do differ is in the end result of getting it wrong – instead of getting bailed out and emerging richer than ever, with avalanches you die. It’s quite unfair. Continue reading ’7 – Hedge Fund Skiing’

6 – Trust Your Instincts

Published on February 21, 2012 in 07 Avalanche Avoidance. 3 Comments Tags: .

Part 6 in 10 of my personal avalanche avoidance theories..

Deciding to ski an avalanche slope based on gut instincts alone is a bad habit to get into, but there is one occasion when you definitely should trust your avalanche instincts: when they are telling you NOT to do it. This is akin to Spiderman’s spidey senses which buzz when danger is imminent, but are more like avalanche senses. If it is a green light day, low danger, nice slope, etc., and something just doesn’t feel right, it is worth listening to. Continue reading ’6 – Trust Your Instincts’

5 – Staying High with Athey

Published on February 17, 2012 in 07 Avalanche Avoidance. 5 Comments Tags: .

Part 5 in 10 of my personal avalanche avoidance theories…

If you’ve spent time skiing in the Wasatch Mountains, you’ve most likely crossed tracks with Bob Athey, aka The Wizard of the Wasatch. Bob has excellent snow science skills and observations, but more than that he is the grand master of avalanche avoidance through terrain management/route finding. After decades of skiing here, he not only knows every little ridge and pass, but he also knows how and when to connect them all up. Like rats supposedly being the only survivors of a nuclear war, when avalanche conditions are high or extreme, Bob is still out scurrying around in the mountains dodging the apocalypse. Continue reading ’5 – Staying High with Athey’

4 – Coombs on “Nibbling”

Published on February 16, 2012 in 07 Avalanche Avoidance. 1 Comment Tags: .

Part 4 of 10 of some of my personal favorite avalanche avoidance techniques.

The late, great Doug Coombs was well known for skiing bold lines, but he also had a lesser known strategy for avalanche avoidance. One day when we were talking about steep skiing and the importance of easing into a new area, he said “I’m a nibbler. I like to nibble around the edges first to get a feel for things.” Continue reading ’4 – Coombs on “Nibbling”’

3 – Dawson on “It Never Gets Better”

Published on February 15, 2012 in 07 Avalanche Avoidance. 0 Comments Tags: .

I triggered avalanches five out of five of my first backcountry trips to Colorado. One of the more insulting ones involved having a car-sized pocket of crusty snow pull out and dump me into the surrounding rocks. The mountainscape was more rocks than snow at the time and it didn’t even seem conceivable that snow could avalanche, but it did. Continue reading ’3 – Dawson on “It Never Gets Better”’

2 – Building a Quiver

Published on February 14, 2012 in 07 Avalanche Avoidance. 3 Comments

Part 2 in a 10 part series of personal avalanche avoidance theories…

Most skiers are familiar with the concept of owning a quiver, or variety of skis.  Quivers often include powder skis, rock skis, fatties, all-around, racing, resort, tele, twin tips, etc..  The idea is to have the correct ski for the ever changing conditions. Continue reading ’2 – Building a Quiver’