Snow in the PNW 13/14

[oftpiste]

powder bowl supposedly was blown and went to the ground and sheared out the cat track.

bear pits controlled slide was a separate incident.

that makes four with more to come I'd think.

[PNWbrit]

Camble [sic] Basin

[Buster Highmen]

powder bowl supposedly was blown and went to the ground and sheared out the cat track.
that makes four with more to come I'd think.

Y'know, this could be read with a just a certain je ne sais quoi...and enhanced if the patroller who performed the function were named.

[GoldMember]

According to their FB page, they're going to replace HC with a similar lift to Northway.

[PNWbrit]

[Norseman]

Interesting how the one on looker's right just peeled out of the middle of the slope.

[brown9]

I guess they just want to ruin all the slopes so they don't have to be open for spring skiing!

[GoldMember]

Video of yesterday's slide at Crystal, courtesy of Kim Kircher:

[PNWbrit]

Video of yesterday's slide at Crystal, courtesy of Kim Kircher:

That's Sunday's slide. In Employee Housing. Not Yesterday's.

[GoldMember]

^^ Ahhh...yeah, you're right. My bad. I picked it off The Ski Channel where they were talking about the C6 slide. I didn't read the caption close enough.

[skimaxpower]

Tacoma News Tribune

Crystal Mountain chairlift destroyed by avalanche

Crystal Mountain’s highest-elevation chairlift was destroyed Monday evening by an after-hours avalanche intentionally triggered by the ski patrol, resort spokeswoman Tiana Enger said.

Nobody was injured in the avalanche that occurred at 4:45 p.m. when the ski patrol threw a 40-pound explosive in an area known as The Throne.

The avalanche swept down the Campbell Basin area and destroyed the High Campbell lift shack, burying the remnants under 6 to 8 feet of snow, Enger said. The two-story motor room was knocked off its foundation and two lift towers were destroyed.

The avalanche continued on to Queens Run, a popular beginners route. High Campbell will be closed for the rest of the season and Queens Run will be closed for at least a week while crews remove debris, Enger said.

Campbell Basin was closed to skiers Monday because of the deep snow, and Enger says it’s impossible to know if the avalanche was at risk of happening naturally earlier in the day.

“A 40-pound charge is pretty significant, so I’d say the odds of it being triggered naturally or by skiers was pretty slim,” Enger said. “You could probably have 100 skiers on it and not trigger the avalanche.”

Enger estimates there were fewer than 500 skiers at Crystal on Monday.

The High Campbell lift, opened in 1976, will be replaced over the summer. “It was already high on the priority list,” Enger said. “Now it’s definitely on top.”

Less than two hours after pictures of the wreckage were posted on the resort’s Facebook page, Enger received requests from skiers to purchase the seats as souvenirs. The ski area has sold seats from old lifts in the past for about $250.

Avalanche control work is a regular occurrence at ski areas. Ski patrols use explosives to trigger avalanches to make the terrain safer for visitors.

Recent heavy snow fall coupled with warming temperatures has led to several large, heavy after-hours controlled avalanches. Monday evening’s avalanche was the only to cause damage.

Avalanche control work will continue Tuesday and will require the Northway Lift to remain closed. Enger said officials will have a meeting Tuesday morning to determine if lift ticket prices will be reduced because of the closures.

High Campbell is believed to be the first chairlift destroyed by an avalanche in Crystal’s 52-year history.

In January 2009, a landslide destroyed the lift at the Summit at Snoqualmie’s Summit East, closing the ski area for two years.

[GoldMember]

Here is KIRO TV's raw video shot over the avalanche site at Crystal. Holy shit! It's huge!!

http://www.kirotv.com/videos/news/ra...untain/vCS52N/

[Brianskis]

Another look at the crown...

[2FUNKY]

^^Good gawd that thing is massive!

[pipedream]

^^ that's what she said

[Zeedashbo]

Calling all Internet avalanche professionals!

Since all this stuff is skier compacted, is it still sliding on the PWL? Is it considered a PWL if it's been skied and controlled? Can all the nerds quit using PWL like it's some special code only dorks know? Is it sliding on a crust well above the weak layer. Is it just saturated storm snow sliding on the layer where the saturation ends?


Fill me in son!

[pipedream]

I recall hearing about a big snow year up the Alpen valley which sheared the tower on the Fan off of its foundation. Not because of a slide, but because of the general downward motion of the snowpack during the spring meltout. Now that tower's roped to its buddies up the hill, just in case.

[pipedream]

Calling all Internet avalanche professionals!

Since all this stuff is skier compacted, is it still sliding on the PWL? Is it considered a PWL if it's been skied and controlled? Can all the nerds quit using PWL like it's some special code only dorks know? Is it sliding on a crust well above the weak layer. Is it just saturated storm snow sliding on the layer where the saturation ends?


Fill me in son!

Ain't no professional, but my gut says the big ones at Crystal released down to the late Jan. crust. The evidence I have for this theory is that the pictures of the slides didn't go to the ground, fractured to approx. the depth that the layer is at and took a big force to dislodge (40+ lbs of anfo). Why now? Well, rain penetrated the snowpack above 6k for the first time in weeks, increasing its density and breaking-up any intermediate layers between the deep PWL and the surface. Add the warming trend on top and you've got all the ingredients necessary for climax-scale avalanches.

There's some speculation floating around that the resort could've kept the terrain closed until things either settled or the snow depth above the weak layer waned. But that would be treading into a very risky area - you know if you bomb it big it will go and that immediately mitigates the hazard versus hedging your bets against it releasing naturally (or some kook climbing up there and triggering it himself). As for the reason why ski areas use such large amounts of explosives which exert much more force on the snowpack than a single or even many skiers? You can thank the Alpental Pro Patrol for that: http://arc.lib.montana.edu/snow-scie...w-1998-022.pdf

[Greydon Clark]

Z-Bo, when it comes to internet avalanches, I'm strictly amateur. This paper on big wet slabs failing on skier compacted terrain at Bridger Bowl is interesting: http://www.fsavalanche.org/NAC/techP...Marienthal.pdf.

[bgrayvy]

Interesting history in that link. Thanks.

[Zeedashbo]

it just seems like a totally different thing if it's been skier compacted and controlled. which is why i'm curious what the pro's are thinking. around and east of stevens the weak layer had a thick rain crust over it when the big storm started.


i went to go check for my own personal pwl today. only found pow.

note the huge crown on top of the hanging snowfield. that's not a cornice.

also note the gnar lines to the left which were mentioned previously











9 days ago. damn i want it back.

[Mofro261]

As for the reason why ski areas use such large amounts of explosives which exert much more force on the snowpack than a single or even many skiers? You can thank the Alpental Pro Patrol for that: http://arc.lib.montana.edu/snow-scie...w-1998-022.pdf

Ammo for the guns was expensive and increasingly hard to get in the 80's -I was always told Alpental used more ammunition for avy control than anywhere else in the US, except Alta. So they started playing with the big bang theory. I can thank Lee R. and Craig W. for many laps out the High T in the name of "stability checks" as well.

[pipedream]

Nothing gets a snowpack moving like a 50 pound fertilizer bomb detonated a meter above the snow. I clearly picked the wrong branch of science to study in my formative days.

Nice pics from today, Dash. How was the snow holding up back there? If the north-facers stay good, I might help compact yr skin track before the week is through.

[Zeedashbo]

The north and east facing held up well. Tough skiing in non open slopes below 4500ft. Expectations were exceeded. Too bad there isn't more easy to get to high elevation open north faces that won't kill you.

[Zeedashbo]

Apologies. My wounded leg has forsaken lift skiing unless softness abounds.