Fatal avalanches at MtHigh, 1/25/08

At least two dead in three separate avalanches OB just outside of Mt High on Friday, SAR still on scene. Yes, in SoCal.

http://forums.mammothmountain.com/fo...&enterthread=y

Apparently there are two more still missing from yesterday, hope for the best but it doesn't look good. Google "wrightwood avalanche".

2012 EDIT: AP article

Third avalanche victim found
SNOWBOARDER RESCUED
01/27/2008 01:38:29 AM PST

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Searchers found the body of a third avalanche victim Saturday and rescued a missing snowboarder who spent the night in the snowy San Gabriel Mountains.

The body, discovered Saturday morning, was one of two people reported missing Friday after a trio of avalanches swept out-of-bounds canyons near the Mountain High ski resort. His identity was not immediately released.

The other person, a snowboarder, was found earlier Saturday morning after spending the night on the mountain.

"He walked out" and was in good condition, Los Angeles County sheriff's dispatcher Tracy Meritt said.

The man, who was not identified, was airlifted, examined at a hospital and sent home, sheriff's Deputy Luis Castro said.

Castro officials were "confident that there's no one else that's been missing" and called off search efforts.

Meanwhile, swaths of California braced for another bout of heavy weather as the latest in a series of storms swirled toward the state.

Wintry conditions over the past week have already claimed at least two lives, when two skiers died in separate avalanches. Authorities were on full alert for mudslides and flash floods in areas denuded by last year's wildfires.

The skiers were killed and the two others were missing after three avalanches swept backcountry slopes in the San Gabriel Mountains outside Los Angeles on Friday, authorities said.

Michael McKay, 23, of Wrightwood, was an off-duty ski patroller from the Mountain High resort. He was killed in the first of the three slides.

Rescuers pulled another man from a second avalanche late Friday.

He was declared dead at a nearby hospital a few hours later, Los Angeles Sheriff's Deputy Cory Kennedy said. The San Bernardino County coroner's office identified him as Darin Bodie Coffey, 31, of Wrightwood.



TV star Allport killed by avalanche

TV actor Christopher Allport has been named as the third victim killed by the snowstorms roaring towards Southern California.

Skiing enthusiast Mr Allport, 60, was reported missing after a trio of "freak" avalanches. His body was found near the Mountain High ski resort in Wrightwood.

The veteran character actor had appeared on US shows including ER, Felicity, and Matlock.

He wrote a story that appeared in the Los Angeles Times in 2004 about the pleasures of backcountry skiing.

"Any excursion into the mountains requires awareness," he wrote. "Have fun, but be careful."

Friday's avalanches also killed Michael McKay, 23, an off-duty member of the resort's ski patrol, and Darin Coffey, 31. Both were skiing out of the resort boundaries.

Avalanches are unusual in the San Gabriel Mountains, authorities said, but so was the 3ft or more of new snow that has hit the region in a matter of days this week.

Avalanches were "a freak occurrence" in the local mountains, said Pete Olson, president of Mt Baldy Ski Resorts. "We depend on snow-making, and snow-making doesn't lead to avalanches," he said. "It usually doesn't snow enough to make anything happen up here."

A missing snowboarder was found on Saturday after spending the night on the mountain. Oscar Gonzales, 24, said he got lost when he left the marked ski trails at the resort and sheltered in an old plane fuselage.



Avalanches Near Southern California Ski Resort Prove Fatal

Wrightwood, CA - This week, storms dropped up to four feet of snow in the San Gabriel Mountain Range in the Angeles National Forest north of L.A. The heavy snowfall drew thousands of skiers and snowboarders to local ski resorts, but conditions turned deadly when skiers ventured beyond Mountain High Resort's posted boundaries. Three skiers were killed, including two Mountain High ski patrollers.

Beginning on Friday afternoon, San Bernardino County Fire Department and Antelope Valley Search and Rescue, with the assistance of Mountain High personnel, responded to reports of missing persons and began working to locate them.

Three skiers triggered an avalanche in Government Canyon, located just east of Mountain High's posted boundary, that eventually cost one skier, an off-duty Mountain High ski patroller, his life. The victim, Michael McKay, 23, was located and transported via ambulance to Desert Community Hospital in Victorville, Calif. where he was later pronounced dead. In a separate area known as Sawmill Canyon, also beyond the resort's posted boundary, avalanches took the lives of two other skiers, including Mountain High ski patroller Darren Coffey, 33, and Christopher Allport, 60, a chracter actor from Santa Monica, Calif. Rescuers had been searching for Allport since he was reported missing on Friday, and was found buried under 10 feet of snow on Saturday.

Additionally, Oscar Gonzales Jr., 24, of Westminister, Calif., exited Mountain High's West Resort boundaries and ended up south of the ski area in the San Gabriel River Valley. After spending the night outdoors sleeping in an fuselage of an abandoned small airplane, Gonzales was spotted Saturday morning by the crew of a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office helicopter and rescued.

Up to five feet of snow was reported in some portions of the region, which is bracing for an additional five to seven inches of snow beginning tonight. The snow level is expected to drop from 6,000 feet to 4,000 feet in elevation.

As of 11:30AM Sat, the final outcome (may there be no more caught in slides today and the next few days):

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A series of avalanches in the mountains outside of Los Angeles killed three people, authorities said Saturday, while Southern California braced for more powerful storms that have pounded the area with heavy snow and rain.

A body discovered Saturday morning was one of two people reported missing a day earlier when three avalanches swept backcountry slopes in the San Gabriel Mountain. One snowboarder was found safe on Saturday morning after spending the night on the mountain.

"He walked out" and was in good condition, Los Angeles County sheriff's dispatcher Tracy Meritt said.

Two other skiers were pronounced dead on Friday.

Officials were "confident that there's no one else that's been missing" and called off search efforts, sheriff's Deputy Luis Castro said.

A avalnche watch has been issued for the Wasatch and the Uintas, there are warnings rom the Canadian border on down. Do not add to this number of fatalities! Graet powder is worth living for, not dying for!!

An old thead, but I'm posting my experience here since the MammothMtn forum started fresh this season and the Mt High forum deleted all references to last year's avalanches. Which ticks me off, but I guess it's understandable. Didn't happen in-bounds so it's not their problem, and it's bad publicity. If anything the deaths solidified the resort's position on ducking their ropes; "we recommend against it". But it's National Forest property, and if Mt High did forbid ducking the ropes they could be sued if somebody does it and gets hurt or killed, since the ski area failed to stop them.

Good article (with some pix) here: http://www.sierradescents.com/blog/2...nt-report.html


Anyhow, here's my post from last January, with a few minor revisions:


Topic Title: Avalanches in Wrightwood
Created On: 01/25/2008

I was in Sawmill Canyon today, between the East and West areas. Made my first and only run a few minutes after the first fatal slide (just happened and I didn't know about it) and a few minutes before the second. Later in the day I noticed soft slabs were dropping even inside ski area boundaries, though due to wind stripping they were only 6" or less deep there.

I skied the same slope as Wrightwood slide #2 just minutes before it happened, and let me tell you once I realized how bad things were I was honestly fearing for my life. I should have known better. Having rudimentary avy experience and knowledge, an avalanche beacon, and full avy gear didn't make me feel any better. I knew I screwed up big and shouldn't have been there. Especially alone, what a dumbass.

I dropped into the steep west-facing slope off the side of the East area and expected it to be wind-loaded in the gullies. Being my first run and not sure what I was getting into, I started down staying on top of a large wind-stripped spine, the safest line available with only about 12" of snow covering the rocks. A third of the way down the spine came to an abrupt end and I was forced to cross a loaded gully where I got the first "whumph" sound and medium-sized slab (10 yards by 10 yards) broke away and slid about two inches, the crown running from buried brush just above me to trees on the other side. The gully necked down just below the slab, otherwise the whole chute probably would have cleaned out about 1000 vertical feet to the bottom of the steep v-bottom canyon (terrible terrain trap), taking me with it. The triangular slab actually rippled at the bottom from the compression. I slowly and gingerly backed up and dug a snow test pit at the edge of the slab (above me was a flatter area), all 24"+ of the new snow was sliding on the old, icy hard snow. Very spooky. Too far down to hike back up (though in retrospect I probably should have), and hiking up I'd have to cross some wind-loaded areas. That didn't sound good either. I thought to myself, "it's time to be as absolutely paranoid as possible chosing my way down, otherwise there might not be any be more powder days for me." The Avalung (http://www.telemarktips.com/FirstLook9.html) tube came out of my BD Covert 22 pack and stayed in my mouth for the rest of the decent.

Having nowhere to go but down, I backed away from the loose slab and straightlined down a minor spine as gently as I could and coasted diagonally across the gully (didn't want to turn and put more load on the slope) and up into a super-tight cluster of trees on top of the next spine, where I stopped and chose my next jet to the next safest spot I could see. Continued this gentle traverse routine all the way down, then on my second to last sprint across a danger zone the slope behind me let loose just as I came to a stop against a large tree on top of the next spine. The edge of the slide immediately took me off my feet but my tree was just a yard away, which I hung on to until things stopped moving. (FYI: skis act like parachutes and catch a LOT of moving snow when you're on your side.) The slide was about 30 yards wide by 70 yards long by two-foot deep soft slab, slow moving initially but VERY heavy. It didn't break away at my ski cut, but rather twenty yards above (I could easily have been caught in the middle of the slide), and ran to the bottom of the canyon, where it packed into the gully. Concerned that everything above the crown could still come loose (and there could be skiers kicking the whole mountain down from above) and seeing lots of shooting cracks in the snow ahead of me, I dropped down the slide path bed surface to the bottom of the canyon and headed out. Safely to the parking lot, I started seriously worrying about anyone else up there, and began telling guys coming out of the canyon how %&$#& dangerous it was in there and not to do it again. Sadly some kids weren't too concerned, and I know some headed up to ski it again...

Even as SAR was risking their lives starting up the canyon to search for victim #2, clueless snowboarder kids were still coming out of the canyon. They had no idea how lucky they were, and actually spoke excitedly about seeing slides.

Doesn't seem possible, so many guys just having fun, not even aware what was quietly happening around them.

doesn't sound fun

I must have missed your write up before. I didn't know until the other day you were out at Mt.H that day. Sounds like a really dicey day all around.