http://www.summitdaily.com/article/2...73204119622341
SUMMIT COUNTY - Hoping to avert additional serious accidents in the slide-prone early spring snowpack, avalanche experts recently converged on Loveland Pass .
The experts wanted to send a safety message directly at the growing number of skiers and snowboarders who seek their powder bliss in the local backcountry but who don't have the necessary avalanche gear.
Sparked by Shelly Grail, the U.S. Forest Service snow ranger for the Dillon district, the collaborative effort included representatives from the Summit County Avalanche Office, an adjunct to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center; the Arapahoe Basin ski patrol; and Backcountry Access, the Boulder-based purveyor of avalanche transceivers and other rescue and safety gear.
Altogether, Grail said they contacted about 150 skiers and snowboarders during the day, discovering that only about 40 were equipped with avalanche transceivers, the two-way beacons that help locate buried avalanche victims.
That's not a good ratio, considering that 91 people have been caught in slides around the pass between 1962 and 2003, including five fatal accidents.
"A lot of people didn't even have packs on," Grail said, explaining that the drive-by lure of the terrain at Loveland Pass appears to attract numerous casual backcountry enthusiasts - and not all of them have the training or experience that helps ensure safe travel in avalanche terrain, she said.
On a day when the parking area atop the 11,990-foot pass was jammed from early until late, Grail said she was amazed at the number of laps made by some of the riders.
"The energy was great out there," she said. "But it would be great to see more preparation. It was surprising to see how many people said that they have beacons, but weren't wearing them."
There's a widespread perception that much of the terrain around the pass is relatively safe, so beacons aren't needed. But that could end up being a fatal miscalculation. As recently as 1991, a trio of hikers triggered a large avalanche from near the bottom of a slide path near the CDOT maintenance station, leaving one victim fatally covered by six feet of chokingly dense debris.
Wearing a beacon offers the best chance for a rescue, enabling searchers to hone in on the transmitting signal and then dig down to free a buried victim. The odds of survival diminish rapidly with burial time. After 30 minutes under the snow, most slide victims suffocate. Shovels and probe poles are the other rescue necessities.
There is potential for serious accidents at Loveland Pass, said Brad Sawtell, a Breckenridge-based forecaster with the CAIC.
Sawtell said that a buried weak layer can give way even after the upper layers have been compacted by skiers and boarders. And Sawtell said that while CDOT does blast some of the major slide paths at the pass - including the Professor above the A-Basin parking lot and the Seven Sisters on the east side of the pass - much of the area is not subject to avalanche control work.
Dozens of slides, both triggered and natural releases, are witnessed every winter, Sawtell said.
"Loveland Pass has been on my radar screen the last couple years," Sawtell said. "I do get nervous (at the prospect of avalanche accidents), which is a shame because the terrain is just so awesome up there."
