Break a Leg Out There...uh...

[mbizzles]

Article

Pretty interesting first hand account/analysis of the slide Nick DeVore was in. Scary stuff. Glad to see he came out ok-ish. The RF Valley has been through a lot this year. Yuck.

[auvgeek]

Wow, that's pretty scary. Guess I never realized how much damage a small avy could cause.

What do you guys think the responsible thing to do in this situation? And 9-18" slab really isn't terribly deep. As DeVore himself realized, this incident would probably not have been a big deal except for the fact that he hit a rock...would skiing an easier line (at the same aspect) to start things off be the best way to go about it? Or is the consensus that they shouldn't have skied at all that day with the known avy danger?

[neufox47]

^^Think about the amount of water equivalent that is in 9-18" of wet snow slab, 3-6"? Same weight as maybe a 2-4' dry slab? Thats still a ton of energy. Luckily they usually have much more friction and therefore move slower (? is that the limiting force, friction with the bed surface and friction within the avalanche itself right? Maybe viscosity is the better term?)

Caught is caught with slab avalanches, wet, dry, small, or large, your going where the dragon takes you, and there is very little you can do about it. If there are cliffs or rocks in the path of least resistance...

IMHO - skiing that exposed terrain on a high avalanche day is crazy. Skiing on high danger days is pretty crazy unless you can really manage terrain effectively. Article is pretty freaking priceless. Well these guys skied in AK so obviously were safe in CO...

“I was up there with my friend Jake and he’s been to AK before. And it’s like, when you’ve skied huge lines with big exposure, these little lines aren’t as scary—if something rips out, you can just out ski it. We saw a large fracture avalanche on one of the chutes nearby, from the day before I think. But it was beautiful. I even remember Ian and Chris, down at the bottom, they radioed up: ‘Are you guys gonna dig a pit?’ And we said, ‘No, we’re just gonna send it.’”

“Some of the lines are going to be sliding, and that’s an element we’re used to. I mean, the avalanche here was something that would be called ‘manageable sluff’ in Alaska. … So we all skied one run, no worries, and the snow was thick and buttery. Then we went to these steeper lines that were slightly more east-facing and had a cornice drop to get in. It was wind-loaded and had been kinda sun baked. It was really kind of obvious. And that’s the case every time I’m in a situation like this—it is obvious. All the signs were there beforehand. I even kinda knew beforehand, just kind of neglected it.”

“I hate to be saying it like this, but after skiing a couple thousand vert lines, when you get on top of 500 to 800-foot lines, it’s not as as exciting. You just feel like if it does rip out you can just ski out of it and avoid it and be faster than it. So because of the size of the line and the lack of gnarliness there, we sort of overlooked potential hazards.”

[leroy jenkins]

IMHO - skiing that exposed terrain on a high avalanche day is crazy. Skiing on high danger days is pretty crazy unless you can really manage terrain effectively.

If you're going to speak in absolutes, I feel compelled to mention that there are a few lines there towards lookers left that you could just straightline and end up out of the way of any avy easily, and there are days when you know if it does slide its going to be a wetslide and not super fast.

Judging from the comments in the article, that was basically the plan. If I had to guess, based on his comment about the cornice drop, I'd guess he aired too slow and sidehill thinking he'd at least be ok for his first turn and it slid.


If it was really THAT dangerous the rescue teams would have chopperd him out ASAP not high marked up to him on sleds.

[CookieMonster]

Some of the statements made in the article reflect a fairly common perceptual error. Statistically speaking, small avalanches are much more frequent than large avalanches, so the average backcountry skier is much more likely to be caught by a small avalanche.

As NeuFox says, it doesn't take much snow to bury someone. In fact, I like to remind myself that a potentially fatal burial really only takes about the same amount of snow as you can fit into a coffin. After all, if you're buried by an avalanche, you're not actually buried by most of the snow in the debris pile. You're buried by a very small amount of the total snow.

According to the US Forest Service, about half of all avalanche fatalities involve slides that travel less than 300 feet of slope distance. ( Source: http://www.nwac.us/media/uploads/pdf...e_Brochure.pdf - See the section titled "TERRAIN FACTORS -> Slope Profile" ).

I wrote a blog post about terrain size and likelihood of errors: ( http://avalanchesafety.blogspot.com/...ze-matter.html ) At the bottom of the article there are links to accident reports for small slides.

[goldenboy]

If you're going to speak in absolutes, I feel compelled to mention that there are a few lines there towards lookers left that you could just straightline and end up out of the way of any avy easily, and there are days when you know if it does slide its going to be a wetslide and not super fast.

Judging from the comments in the article, that was basically the plan. If I had to guess, based on his comment about the cornice drop, I'd guess he aired too slow and sidehill thinking he'd at least be ok for his first turn and it slid.


If it was really THAT dangerous the rescue teams would have chopperd him out ASAP not high marked up to him on sleds.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. They were playing mini-golf and didn't keep it fast and fall-line enough.

[Meadow Skipper]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. They were playing mini-golf and didn't keep it fast and fall-line enough.

Telemarkers...

[AfroMullet]

If you're going to speak in absolutes, I feel compelled to mention that there are a few lines there towards lookers left that you could just straightline and end up out of the way of any avy easily, and there are days when you know if it does slide its going to be a wetslide and not super fast.

yeah bro bra, just straightline it, you'll be fine if it rips!!