https://www.avalanche.state.co.us/ca...=784&accfm=rep
Dog Team on site. Doesn't sound good.
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https://www.avalanche.state.co.us/ca...=784&accfm=rep
Dog Team on site. Doesn't sound good.
Ugh.
fkna. +vibes to all affected. this is getting old.
From the CAIC
Quote:
A snowmobiler is missing after an avalanche near Ruby Mountain southeast of Rand on Tuesday February 16, 2021. Other members of the rider's group searched for him before calling the Jackson County Sheriff's Office for help. Jackson County Search and Rescue reached the site last night, but could not find the missing rider. Jackson County will continue the search today with the help of other search and rescue volunteers and avalanche dogs. We will post updates when more information is available.
The avalanche was on a northeast facing slope above 11,000 ft. Early reports describe the riders traveling across the slope more than once before the avalanche. Slopes at all elevations and all aspects are dangerous today. Avalanches are breaking much wider than people are used to. You can trigger avalanches from low-angle terrain below steep slopes. Two people lost their lives in avalanches on Sunday and now a third is missing. Please stick to slopes less than 30 degrees and avoid traveling under steeper slopes. Places you've traveled in previous years may not be safe today, or the rest of the winter.
Did they find the sled but not the rider?
Or
I was watching a YouTube testing this year's artic cat sled designed to move around in deep snow on steep terrain.
I think we are going to see more and more of this
Between the proliferation of sleds like this and Snowbikes I am surprised we are not seeing a lot more this year.
I don't want to get into the game of quantifying "a lot more" but I can think of 4 motorized fatalities including 2 close to my house in 3 days. Snowbikes and snowmobiles do keep improving but I'll argue that easy to ride powder sleds that are capable of traveling into avalanche terrain the first day you get on them have existed since about 2012. Highmarking has been popular for a long time before that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bunion 2020
Snowmobile sales are up they year and there are a long of new users. I have no idea whether people are coming to the sport with any background in avalanche safety. My hunch is a bit of both.
Ehh, the skill level requirement is going lower and lower. And the equipment is getting better allowing the skilled to get into more extreme terrain.Quote:
Originally Posted by Foggy_Goggles
I am not the expert But watched this the other day and first thing I thought of when I saw what an Alpha trax can do. Some boys are going to die in avalanches.
https://youtu.be/Gj9cgzY41Gw
I'm not in the mood for a pedantic argument about the hypothetical trend of avalanche relating to the advancement in snowmobile technology. Instead, here is a video from 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuU-vnh5M9s
I was curious so I quickly graphed motorized avalanche fatalities in the US by avalanche year. This is from publicly available data on CAIC's website here (you can download an Excel file).
https://avalanche.state.co.us/accide...and-reporting/
Attachment 363450
I didn't generate a similar graph for skiers/snowboarders, but there are roughly an equal number of skier/rider fatalities (285 from 1950-2020) as motorized (279 from 1950-2020) and the motorized data really tracks pretty well with the overall trend by year.
Attachment 363451
@adrenalated could you send me those with some text in the email? I have a focus in April TAR on teaching terrain use to sledder, and this information/ set of statistics would be helpful. Is it broken into timbersleds vs regular sleds at all?Quote:
Originally Posted by adrenalated
Sent from my SM-A600A using Tapatalk
As a sled newb - I am amazed that more aren't involved.
a) they really can go just about anywhere,
b) they really can go just about anywhere with a rider with very limited skill
c) they get you to that anywhere really, really quickly
d) they get you to many more of those anywhere's in a single day.
When you are skinning up, you may have hours to make route choices. You may choose this feature over that feature. As you move you may hear, feel and see things as they unfold. If you don't like what you see hear feel you just stop instantly, turn around instantly.
On the sled you (I do anyway) - feel far more disconnected. Both senses and by the very fact that where skiing I may play on one slope with one aspect all day on a sled I am likely to see many or all aspects on many slopes.
I have a whole new respect for those that do it a lot and haven't made a mistake (or gotten caught by one) yet.
The saving grace seems to be all the really good fun you can have in basically a flat meadow.
Here's a coroner's report from 2007 - 2018 for all winter activity deaths. FWIW, here in the snowmobile mecca of the North Thompson (think McBride, Valemount, Blue River), numbers of fatalities are trending down, and more and more sledders have training and I can't remember a time in the last decade where I ran into another sledder that didn't have avy gear. In contrast, the last backcountry skier incident (non-guided/heli) that we responded to in our SAR zone was the death of a local doctor in 2010.
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/bi...r-activity.pdf
Preliminary report is up...3/4 of a mile wide. Wow
https://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/a...=784&accfm=rep
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKcTf13QkYc&feature=emb_title
Dogs continue to impress me. People, not so much.
Sad,. Probably had 20 grand invested in gear but not another 400 for a beacon.
I find it best in these type of situations to not just straight make shit up.Quote:
Originally Posted by MTT
https://www.avalanche.state.co.us/ca...=784&accfm=rep
No beacon per the report. It looks humans were unable to locate him and a dog team was successful. The tragedy continues to stack up. Condolences to all impacted, directly or indirectly.
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I'm gonna let it go. Why not just be a bit nicer to each other.Quote:
Originally Posted by Foggy_Goggles
The fact that he was off his sled also gave me pause. Having a great day stops and stand's on the side of a mountain taking it all in. And then Fuck? Three quarters of a mile of mountain breaks and comedown on you
Fatality in avalanche southeast of Alpine, WY
*sigh*
https://buckrail.com/fatality-in-ava...DUXTKu8SZZhb9g