Wasatch Conditions 11-12

[njfreeskier]

That's so sad! ++++Vibes++++ to the Pierre Family, and Jamie's friends.

RIP Jamie!

[Xover]

Matthew Jamie Pierre RIP

Aww God?!?! Noooooo!!!! .... don't really know what to say or type ..... RIP my brother!!! See you in Heaven some day buddy. We will all take care of your family until then. Sad, tragic and a HUDGE loss!!

[StopMakingSense]

First off, Jamie, I'm sorry to hear that you've left us. My condolences go out to you and your family, RIP dude.

Anyways, today I was out in the Alta area with the rest of the snow hungry freaks. We were at the Wildcat lift shooting the shit and my friend says "Oh, there's Jamie" my intial response was "Who?" ... "Jamie Pierre dude." ... "Ohhh!" ... "Yeah he's on a snowboard today." ... "Must just be trying to break the monotony of skiing everyday"

Freaking me out right now ... Jamie, again, I'm sorry to hear you go

[happytimefunbox]

Fuck this sucks, got to meet him last year at InKline, his boy played with mine while my liners baked, he seemed super upbeat, really happy.

Don't know what to say except RIP JP.....

[tyfalk]

So sad. RIP Jamie Pierre.

[skifishbum]

vibes
may your faith in sumthin guide your decisions
and shread in peace bro

[camlax]

wow horrible to hear it was jp.

[tromano]

Damn! Sorry to hear about all the drama in LCC.

I did an XC oriented tour this morning with the family in Logan Canyon. Started from ~6300' at the Tony Grove turn off and continued for ~2 miles to ~6600' before we decided the baby had enough.

Snow as about 12-17" of bottomless very heavy pow (bottomless even for my wife on 60mm XC skis). No pre-exiting base at that elevation. Got a few meadow skipping turns in on the down hill. Fun day, great introduction for the 1 year old, her first turns ever.

[F#*k you cat]

Sad to see it was Jamie Pierre

Vibes to his wife and young family

[Phatstix]

how bout some salt, then. this is good stuff!

rog

[jeremiahyawnson]

++vibes++

Remember these moments in life. The painful ones. The ones where you have complete empathy. Where you see all the opportunities for the same pain to be upon you and your loved ones, only removed by chance.

I mean with all my heart that I love this community, and the pain that I feel and the many others like I do, is a definition of our unity and love for this sport and one another.

Please be safe.

~Jeremiah

[teleyakco]

Why is noone talking about the lack of gear,and the comment that they had already set off a slide before the "fatal" one?RIP for Jaime,but couldn't this have been avoided?RIP jaime,Pray for his family

[skifishbum]

Why is noone talking about the lack of gear,and the comment that they had already set off a slide before the "fatal" one?RIP for Jaime,but couldn't this have been avoided?RIP jaime,Pray for his family

"Death makes angels of us all
& gives us wings
where we had shoulders
smooth as raven's
claws"
-JIM MORRISON, An American Prayer

dude had wings balls and a big heart
if you feel the need to discuss more start another thread or go listen to the doors would be a better call for a day or two

[abraham]

Cause this just happened and people are showing some respect. Its probably not yet the time to have that discussion you think?

I certainly feel bad for the family and his friends, Its always to early to lose anybody but especially people who have such a large influence on others. RIP

[wasatchcrawler]

Jamie was an old acquaintance of mine from working at the bird in the early 1990s. I had not talked to him in probably 15 years until I skinned up behind him and his friend on the shoulder of Baldy at Alta yesterday. We talked for 5 or 10 minutes about old times at the bird and what was going on lately in our lives. We wished each other well and to have a fun, safe day. About 15 minutes later, I put my gear together on the ridgeline and was preparing to make my run off of east facing Baldy shoulder when I heard loud whoophing noise. Some 200 feet to the east of me a section of upper Baldy avalanched and rumbled down a chute, exploding at the bottom in a huge dust cloud, it freaked me out (this was not the avalanche Jamie was involved in). I was probably one of the last people to ever talk to Jamie and he was happy to be making turns that day like the rest of us. I feel sick inside today, rest in peace Jamie, my deepest sympathies to your family.

[Trackhead]

Don't feed the trolls and negativity.

[Johnny Deep]

The stories of Jamie playing with his kids this past summer and hanging with friends make me sad.

RIP Jamie

[SPREAD EAGLE]

Well, here it goes.

If you have heard of reports up at Alta where a skier was taken out in a slide in Little Chute and lost significant gear, well that was me.

It was all sorta crazy and in the end I am thanking my lucky stars. Mid-way down little chute and after significant sluffage and all, I ended up getting into one of those situations where you know that control is lossed. Feeling snow move around me, I quickly made for the left wall of the chute to find something to cling to. Looking back up hill to see what was up, it was clear that what was happening was not good. Snow began to look like water and then the velocity of it took me for one hell of a ride.
I tried to arrest but was immediately under significant snow without any hope of visibility. It all happened so fast that I really didn't have any time to worry about the results but I went into survival mode and began flailing my arms and working towards the left flank. What was really unhappy is that I had atleast two free floating moments where I counted 2-3 seconds of hang time without knowing what was happening or where I would end up. This was extra worrisome because the snow would taper for a moment and then come upon me extra heavy. This was around the lower bottleneck of little chute and I do not know how I exited the thing but was completely buried with a slight visual of what was up and facing the sky.

Frantic, I dug like mad to reveal that I was still in one ski (dynafit binding) and my hat, goggles, both ski poles (unattached to my wrists), and one ski were gone. I on the other hand was wailing and yelling for air because during the whole ride snow was lodged into every orifice of my head and since I took my first breath above snow I yelled in disbelief and for the fact that I could stand on my own after the experience.

The deposition was everywhere so my thoughts turned to my ski partner. I whipped out my beacon, set it to "Receive" then pointed it uphill. A small group began forming down below and it turned out to be ALTA's finest yelling to find out the situation but I was unable to communicate with them. I was frantic for my buddy, and I had no signal. Soon I was sick of their yelling so I started yelling back. They were doing their job and I was in shock! Soon my buddy was descending the rock strewn couloir and the trollers informed me he was on his way down. Hearing that changed everything since I knew I was alright and that he did not get washed along with me.

Well, my ski was recovered but nothing else. I am lucky but feel very odd and uncomfortable today because Jamie Pierre was washed over a cliff band by an avalanche and I was too. The outcomes are more than obvious, Jamie did not survive. What went wrong? Why yesterday of all days did this happen? Before you start your rants and raves and finger pointing or whatever comes negative, STOP!!!! I am not here to listen but to report my Observations and experiences. The lesson was learned!

Please be safe and listen to your inner self. I felt confident with my skill set, ability to ski sluff, etc. but the fact remains. North facing slopes with significant angles are not happy right now and with Octobers faceted layers we are in for yet another pre-season full of danger and it is up to all of us to be careful and help others with this. Pay attention, take your avi classes, practice-practice-practice with your beacon, probe, and shovel w/ partners. Make decisions that will allow us to go back to the places we love. Live, Love, and Listen! The mountains speak and we need to listen!

[Trackhead]

^^^Thanks for the report. Pretty much everyone who ski tours on a regular basis will encounter the white dragon at some point. Luck determines the rest.

[glademaster]

It seems like the layer of rotten snow that caused many (all?) of the slides yesterday is only present on slopes that face N, NE or NW at relatively high elevations, right? Is it fair to say the weak layer is clearly problematic and may be for some time, but only in a relatively limited number of places?

[skifishbum]

vibes my sillytudial spread eagles bro
glad you is okay
I gots gear for you if needed
strong post as id th's
fuck my dumb ass fucked up post season as if a season of learnin didn't do shit
real easy to be at alta/bird and let you guard down or lapse or well like th said.....
stop by sometime

[backcountryben]

I know hindsight is 20/20, and I'm not trying to be disrespectful to anyone, but with reports like Spread Eagle's there, why is there not more discussion about how bad of an idea it was to be in Little Chute at all yesterday? (or in countless other areas that slid). Stuff was really touchy yesterday. We had almost 2 feet of snow with quite heavy S/SW winds the entire time, on a faceted snowpack. It shouldn't be surprising that stuff was loaded and sliding right and left. My party observed a ton of signs of instability all over the place on Sunday morning (after seeing some small scale, but quite worrisome signs of wind-loading and resulting instability around on Saturday), and we decided to stay away from anything steep as a result. Snow can certainly be unpredictable, and I agree with the statements that sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you get unlucky, but it really seems to me that yesterday wasn't one of those "luck" days - it was obviously really unstable with lots of potential for major trauma injuries from slides (due to the shallow snow pack). What were people thinking going up and skiing chutes on Baldy?

Not trying to point fingers, I just think this is kinda the elephant in the room here. It doesn't matter how "confident with your skill set, ability to ski sluff, etc." you are if you decide to ski some of the stuff people were skiing yesterday.

[SPREAD EAGLE]

glad master - Please inform yourself. http://utahavalanchecenter.org/advisory/slc

This is going to be problematic for sometime, especially with the forecast calling for occasional snow and Octobers left overs are going to linger. We must be vigilant and embrace this info. Faceted surface hoar is problematic until significant moisture can meld the layers together or it releases naturally - that is unlesss triggered by humans as was the case in yesterdays amounting incident reports. Be careful bud! (and all- Please)

[Slaag Master]

rip JP. bless your family and friends

[SPREAD EAGLE]

backcountry ben - you are right

I know hindsight is 20/20

and

What were people thinking going up and skiing chutes on Baldy?

My question to you then is, Did you go out yesterday? Of course you did. We all learned a little something yesterday. Only in person can we really make these decisions. I took all the precautions I new how to make then computed that info into my Pow Seeking soul then sent it! I did walk away and I am sharing my perspective with the collective. No angst or anything here just love. I have made many similar decisions and I support mine. I just don't want others thinking that they will be as lucky if they tempt the white dragon.

I was cautioned by my patroller friends, watched and learned on my way, have skied little chute dozens of times in the pre-season, and overall made the determination that I was walking away. Shit could have gone different but it didn't. I am lucky but made as many of the correct decisions I could make along the way. Today, - yesterday seems 20/20 but I do lack the visionary skill to predict the future. My bud and I were very verbal about everything that was going to happen. I even had a moment with him where we discussed "if something does happen..."

That is what was on my mind - what I didn't share is that the turns were ridiculously deep and I enjoyed every single one, even my nopoleon experience after the fact down to the car. The hand drags were amazing and I love skiing the POW POW