Sad news, 2 caught, 1 killed near West Lost Lake in northern Flat Tops Wilderness Area west of Toponas, CO. Not many details so far.
http://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/ac...=631&accfm=rep
http://www.steamboattoday.com/news/2...ffs-reservoir/
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Sad news, 2 caught, 1 killed near West Lost Lake in northern Flat Tops Wilderness Area west of Toponas, CO. Not many details so far.
http://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/ac...=631&accfm=rep
http://www.steamboattoday.com/news/2...ffs-reservoir/
That buried surface hoar layer is so bad
Yeah, not much detail yet. Though in the photo of Searle, it looks like he's wearing a Float airbag.
Were they in the Wilderness Area?
Yeah it appears that way. Anything over 9500' is wilderness in the flat tops.Quote:
Originally Posted by AaronWright
I think you meant 10,500', but even that isn't accurate - Sheriff's Reservoir, in the news report, is at the edge of the wilderness boundary at 9,700' with a road and a developed campground, and there are peaks over 10,500' nearby that aren't in the wilderness area.Quote:
Originally Posted by simple
However, West Lost Lake as mentioned in the CAIC report is definitely in the wilderness area.
Edit: Steamboat Pilot posted this as the accident location on Facebook. This is absolutely inside the wilderness area.
Attachment 200017
Read couple miles south of Vaughn Lake from other sources?
But yeah, lots of thinking they were in wilderness?
West Lost Lake is a few miles south of Vaughn Lake, so that would make sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by capulin overdrive
I know that area well. Definitely designated wilderness. Not to be crass, but cowboy up:
http://www.vaildaily.com/news/friend...lanche-victim/
"U.S. Forest Service and Search and Rescue officials confirmed Wednesday that Christensen and Searle had been riding in a wilderness area, where motorized vehicles are prohibited."
CAIC Final Report is up: http://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/ac...inv&acc_id=631
Lots of stuff to take note of. Survivor's airbag didn't inflate?
Deceased had an airbag but no beacon? Did he try and fail to deploy his bag as well?
Sounds hair trigger- 3 slides in a short amount of time...
33 degree slope
Damn! Wondered if they were gonna write a full report. Can now understand how it took awhile.
friend of a friend (never met him)... six kids... weird and shitty situation
Thought this was interesting:
We observed three snow profiles in the area, one in the crown of the avalanche. In all three profiles the surface hoar crystals were laying down, and difficult to see in the pit wall. In Extended Column Tests the crack propagated across the column on tap number 26 and 28. We had one test that did not produce a propagating crack.
Sounds like things were touchy:
Rider 2 was worried about the length of time that Rider 1 was missing and decided he needed to get help. He hiked uphill and dug out his bike, which was buried with part of the ski sticking out. He rode towards the top of the slope, parking his bike just below the crown about 15 feet into the south flank of the avalanche. He walked up to the ridgeline and searched for a cell phone signal to send a message, but was unsuccessful. He walked downhill towards his bike, but it was no longer where he left it. A third avalanche released while he was out of sight, washing his bike downhill. Part of his bike was sticking out of the debris. He descended the slope on the bed surface and retrieved the machine. He rode back to the meadow below the slope, then north and up to a higher portion of the same north/south running ridgeline. There he got a weak cell phone signal and sent a text message with a rough location and asking for help.
Combine those results with multiple slides for the survivor...Quote:
Originally Posted by sfotex
So the moral of the story is never trust SH, I guess?
Not that surprising... seen plenty of laid down SH around that doesn't talk back easily... and I'd certainly not expect it to be standing up in a FLP even if it was up before the slide.Quote:
Originally Posted by sfotex
More interesting that they both had airbags, neither deployed (one was certainly attempted)... and they didn't perform a trailhead check clearly...
Oh man reading a news article, there are a gaggle of buffoons screaming for someone to prosecute the survivor and the family of the decesased for brapping in W... wtf is wrong with people?
And that propagating results in an ECT = BAD regardless of how many taps it takes.Quote:
Originally Posted by goldenboy
I thought the moral of the story was wear a beacon? It was a shallow burial and he couldn't find him with visual or probe.Quote:
Originally Posted by goldenboy
All in all a tragic story.
Well, yeah, there is that too. And keep visual contactQuote:
Originally Posted by simple
I do not know when the site visit was. Apparently the report was put out 9 days after the incident. it seems possible the warm temps could of affected the test results if done at a later date.
Same 1/19 SH layer as the Flat Tops slide, CBAC observation on 1/26: "The usual bag of tricks aren’t working. No collapsing or cracking observed on low angle terrain, stability tests weren’t concerning, yet every slope we touched steeper than 33 degrees avalanched on surface hoar about 15-20″ deep"
http://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/ob...p?obs_id=44937
They visit the site the next day in almost all incidents. Sometimes they can't if weather is awful.Quote:
Originally Posted by BFD
This. The date on the pit profile is Feb 15, which is the day after the accident.Quote:
Originally Posted by simple
seems to question the validity of the ECT in cases of surface hoar. didn't scroll down far enough to see the profile.
Quote:
Originally Posted by goldenboy
Other than some learning to pick a better place to watch their bro highmark, or at least leave their sled running. BC etiquette has a ways to go in the motorized world.
Visual contact on snowbikes is often two guys 10 feet apart, and equally exposed. Physical effort is less than skiing, so will require more disciple to learn to space out and hit stuff one at a time. As taking a breather is more about giving your butt a rest, than your lungs.
That said, I saw plenty of WTFWTT stuff from skiers and sledders during the time of this slide. So all groups can/could do better.
Yikes. I imagine a "tests = useless, skiing = slide" scenario like this is pretty uncommon, but damn scary nonetheless.Quote:
Originally Posted by goldenboy
^SH is notorious for things like that... and killing experienced folks and avalanche pros. SH is the number 1 PWL for avalanche accidents involving avalanche pros. Particularly because it is so variably distributed and variably reactive. It can be on your slope but not in your pit, or vice versa. Or you can miss it. or it can react differently on your slope than in your pit. King of spatially variable weak layers!
Looking for SH in your pit is hard unless you already knew it was there or unless they are big big big SH and haven't laid down. If you have to look, tilt tap (burp the baby) or SS test... then you look. Sometimes your compressions will find it if you look at a clean shear plane, but don't usually expect to just see it in a pit wall. But really the best way to know about the SH is to look in your log book where you wrote down "saw SH" then "SH persisted in X Y Z areas on A B C aspects in W T F elevation bands" and then "snowed, don't think the SH all went away and is now buried *frowny face*" Or for most, CAIC says "SH is lurking in some areas." We don't normally get it like this in CO. BC is more familiar with this problem.
Thanks Summit, good stuff here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Summit
Ditto that. We don't see it much in CA in terms of it hanging around. Usually if we do get it, it'll get warm enough to destroy it in (almost) all places before it's buried again, or it'll be destroyed as a cohesive layer by rain/massive amount of wet snow. At least those are my observations over the years. Quite rare that it becomes an issue.
For a while there, the thing to do was listen to the avie center and not even mess with the aspects and elevations that they were concerned about SH. Too easy to miss, too much variability. The areas that were the worst were the areas people usually go to in CO winter- lower 30 degree glade skiing, N through E aspects.
Not sure how or if I can embed a facebook video, but here's a good SH demo (and they couldn't ID it in a pit, either):
https://www.facebook.com/cbavalanche...4737542022860/