A small 200 foot vert opening in mellow trees can kill you

[Core Shot]

Wow, saw Lou Dawsons write up of the death of Aspen patroller Cory Brettman, and what really struck me was how small the treeless opening was (and how experinced he was as a former Aspen patroller).

200 vert feet of open pocket in a treed slope.

Who wouldn't think twice (and maybe even hoot and holler) as you pop out of the thick trees and into a small open untracked freshie stash.

Such a small area can take you out in an instant.

Food for thought.

Aspen Backcountry December 14 2008

1 skier caught, buried, and killed

PRELIMINARY REPORT

Sometime during the afternoon hours of Sunday December 14th, a lone backcountry skier was caught and killed in an avalanche in the Richmond Ridge area, just south of Aspen Mountain. The victim was last seen around 1 pm while skiing at the resort. Sometime between 1 and 3 pm he exited the resort through a backcountry gate heading southeast of the ski area and entered backcountry terrain in an area known as “Powerline”. Since he was traveling alone, the exact times and events leading up to the accident are not known.

Map of the area, with the skier's tracks and the avalanche outlined (images from Google Maps and TOPO!)

The avalanche occurred on a NE aspect of Richmond Ridge. The crown of the avalanche, which was around 3 ft deep, was at 11,000 ft, located in a small open pocket in gladed terrain below treeline. The avalanche failed about 10 inches above the ground in a layer of 2mm faceted snow grains that were buried by our storm on Thanksgiving Day. The victim was carried 200 vertical feet down the slope before being buried in a group of trees.

From the crown looking down the avalanche.

The crown of the avalanche

Looking up the avalanche.

Rescue efforts were launched around 8pm by Aspen Ski Company employees after the victim was reported overdue for a gathering that evening. He was found by members of the Aspen and Snowmass ski patrols at approximately 9 pm. He was not wearing an avalanche beacon and carried no rescue gear. Patrol members located him by finding a ski at the snow surface. Just under snow near the ski, they uncovered his boot and began digging him out shortly after.

http://www.wildsnow.com/1594/brettma...al-site-visit/
http://avalanche.state.co.us/pub/acc...20081214_aspen
RIP and vibes
http://tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=144019

[CookieMonster]

Perception of terrain hazard is very similar to perception of instability: the continuum has two boundaries: terrain that is obviously safe and terrain that is obviously dangerous. Much of the terrain in between is not obviously dangerous, or is sometimes difficult to evaluate. This is high uncertainty terrain and you can expect a high rate of perceptual errors. That's why you might look at the flats and think "no way" or a mountain and think "no way" - but that 60 meter shot in the trees seems just right. Very dangerous situations arise when you combine perceptual errors from terrain hazard with perceptual errors related to instability.

[snoweater]

If it's open enough to ski, it can slide. Hopefully that story should be a wake-up-call/reminder to a lot of people to trust your snow-knowledge and fight the pow fever!

[moose pit]

Shitty, real shitty.

That is the type of terrain I would be looking at (and have hit) in sketchy conditions.

wind slab on early season rain crust and facets?

[squatch]

Shitty, real shitty.

That is the type of terrain I would be looking at (and have hit) in sketchy conditions.

wind slab on early season rain crust and facets?

I'm not familiar with the aspen area, but usually that's just the standard CO december snowpack--i.e. shitty.

[srsosbso]

Really unnerving. Looks like the shit we ski every day here.

Is this an area that would see a fair bit of skier traffic generally? In these parts, it would be fair to say that we often count on skier activity to stabilize things over time.

[khyber.pass]

Wow, that sure gave my terrain evaluation markers a shake-up.

[LivinCO]

Wow, that sure gave my terrain evaluation markers a shake-up.

Yup!

Jeezus, I just hit terrain that look identical to that in Beaver Creek sidecountry. Buddy and I were wearing all the gear and did take some basic precautions, read CAIC report, looked for safe zones, checked aspect, etc, but the we both thought about the chance of something like that actually sliding seemed minimal. Lots of anchors, little wind load, somewhat high traffic, etc... Yea, nothing slid, but there's always more to learn.

What a season were having....