Berthoud Photo/Conditions Thread (2010-2011)

[pbourdon]

Anybody up there today? I'm thinking about heading up tomorrow with the lady and a couple of other friends. What's the snow like? Has it begun its transition back to spring snow? I know we're supposed to get a few inches tonight, so......just looking for a comment on conditions. Thanks.

[FiveLarge]

^^^
Great pics, Shan. Representative of conditions for sure.

Here's a couple of scenics from my dusk patrol Wed.

[pbourdon]

^^^
Good stuff.

Went out with the usual suspects for a couple laps up there yesterday. We got a way later start than we wanted to; but the stuff up high was still good. Our first lap was down Floral, then we headed over to Current creek.

It was pretty fun, and a great intro to the pass.

Pretty scenic up there for sure...


Bo heading toward treeline in Current...


Gidley gettin' in a nice one down lower...


And Bo, being Bo (he lived in LA for a while, what else can I say? )

(I have the full sequence of the look-back through the turn, its pretty damn funny)

[Lindahl]

Anyone headed up there this weekend?

[pbourdon]

Anyone headed up there this weekend?

There's a strong chance our crew will be around this weekend, unless we decide to do something bigger somewhere. Shoot me a PM if you wanna make some turns with some kooks that know how to have fun.

[funkendrenchman]

Anyone going Friday? On my way to DIA for an evening flight and would like to get some turns in.

[adrenalated]

Anyone up today and can report on how much new snow fell?

[simple]

We found about 14 inches of blower over in mines. Whoa what a night!

[wpskier]

I agree with the 14" report in Hells as well. Awesome night! Tomorrow morning should be SWEET! I should be up early, hopefully just after daybreak. Dark grey Xterra and BD Verdicts. Holler if you're up there as well.

[fastfroggy]

any intel from today?

[SILENCER]

Was up Saturday at dusk. Dropped Shoulder/High Trail trees. Deep, but new snow slabs were starting to form. Still good drop. Skinned up west side and dropped the 90's to Current. Re-frickin-diculous. Felt like February. Between 10-12" of light, cold blower. No signs of movement either. Still kinda pinching myself.

[fastfroggy]

thanks for the update silencer. c and i were there early sat and got some good pow turns in. great day out!

http://fastfroggyphotography.com/photos/may21pow.mov

[pbourdon]

Here's a few shots from this past Sunday.

But first a discussion of our slide at Bert on Sunday....

First off; we were all wearing beacons, and carrying our probes and shovels...

Myself, my girl, and my buddy Cory all met up with Lindahl on BP on Sunday around 750am. We got our boots on and were hiking our first lap (Lindahl had just skied rush1 prior to meeting up with us) by 810 or so. I'm not sure what time we reached the top of our chosen line in the Rush Chutes area, but I do know that Lindahl did do a really good job of explaining how to manage this terrain, since we (myself, Cory, and Erica) hadn't ridden it before. He informed us that we were to head down the skiers left line to a high knoll on the riders left of the line. We had discussed the fact that we did need to move fairly quickly as the morning sun was beginning to heat things up a little.

We had also all discussed the previous days snowfalls, and winds agreeing that if anything were to pop it would be the recent storm snow, and that if we choose our routes wisely any slide we do encounter will be manageable.

We kicked off a small soft slab on the furthest riders left slope of the Rush chutes, right on the convexity, right where we figured it might pop. The interesting part about it though was that it wasn't until the 3rd rider had descended the slope (me) and decided (somewhat stupidly) to hammer a little toe-side slasher right on the convexity. (I know that's not terribly uncommon, especially this time of year, but to witness it was a good lesson in humility for sure) The slope was small enough that the slide didn't have enough fetch to pick up a head of steam. I was pulling into the safe zone when I hear calls of "slide". One of our party had left the safe zone a little prematurely and was taken for a 50ft ride but was clear of any terrain traps and fortunately was able to stay on top, only to be buried to his knees. The top 12" of snow went about 60ft wide and ran no more than 200 vertical. It was about 910 when the slide occurred.

I'm posting this because we fucked up. No one should've been leaving the safe zone early, even if we thought the slope was safe. However, it was good that it did happen because it taught us an important lesson about becoming a little complacent with each passing decent on a given slope.

Still, I will say that we made better terrain management choices than who ever it was that kicked off the slide over the Rush Chutes proper, and went for a little ride over the rocks over an hour after our incident occurred.

If you feel the need to flame, please do. Like I said, we fucked up, and we talked about the lessons to be learned from this, and what I'd rather hear is any constructive criticism or wisdom from any of those on here with more wisdom.

Ok...on to the pics.

Here's a shot of the two slides. Ours is the smaller one on the lookers right. (photo: Cory Arola)


Our lines from our first lap. After the slide we headed over to the 90s to get out of the sun. The snow on the North face was solid, and very supportive cream. Reminded me a lot of Tahoe pow.



Lindahl hucking a drop in the 80s on our second lap.


and making an exit turn...


After our second lap, we rested a little, eating the mandatory PBJ. (photo: Cory Arola)


Then headed up to the Hell's Half Acre zone....

Erica and I making our way up Mines. (Photo: Cory Arola)


Gearing up, up top. We dropped into Sentinal/Hanging Meadow. Pretty fun.


There were some impressive roller balls at the bottom of HHA.


I wanna thank Lindahl again for showing us around the pass a little more that day, and also to Adrenalated for taking me up to N.Chutes on Russell on Friday? Or was it thursday??? Either way, that was a blast as well.

[Lindahl]

Great discussion and report from Sunday. One thing I really regret from that day and take as a lesson learned is that I failed to discuss the risk in detail with you guys to see if you were comfortable with the risk level that I'm comfortable with. Fortunately, a brief discussion of this, after the slide, revealed that you guys were, but it was a big mistake not to discuss this beforehand. This was my first time as the 'expert' in a group and I should have done a better job communicating to avoid this form of the expert halo heuristic trap. I really would not have been happy with myself if someone had freaked out.

[nrd]

Anyone want to take credit for this last Sunday:


If you look close you can see the rider between the crown and some cliffs:

[Lindahl]

If you look close you can see the rider between the crown and some cliffs:

The rider or his tracks? I don't see a rider, but I do see tracks. Talk about cheating death. I didn't get a close look at this on Sunday, but I thought for sure that was a natural, as I figured no one in their right mind would be up there on a day like that. Yikes.

[Edgnar]

Hey Lindahl, Pretty much dead center right above the middle cliff, just to the right of the small trees. You can vaguely make out the track leading to him. I think that JONG tylaw333 said he or his buddy triggered something over there this weekend.

[Lindahl]

Hey Lindahl, Pretty much dead center right above the middle cliff, just to the right of the small trees. You can vaguely make out the track leading to him. I think that JONG tylaw333 said he or his buddy triggered something over there this weekend.

Now I see him - looks like a tree. Is this who triggered the avy (the rider in the photo)? Or was he descending through the slide path?

[Edgnar]

I would assume, but I wasn't there, so no idea.

[Pinner]

Pictures like that remind me why we need free avy classes.

[pbourdon]

Pictures like that remind me why we need free avy classes.

Quoted for Troof.

Really though, I mean for me, I would love to take an Avy I course; but as essentially a ski bum, I don't really have an extra $350 to spare at any given point in the winter (or the rest of the year for that matter). Fortunately for me, I have several friends who are at a minimum of Avy I, and others who have spent years studying this stuff, so I've been gleaning as much as possible from them. It also seems to me like a HUGE part of safe BC travel is simply being able to read terrain and know what areas are safe and which areas aren't. I also was able to dig a few pits this year, and man was that nice to be able to see what was going on underneath my feet. Digging down 70+" into the snowpack reveals a whole other world, and it blew my mind to pull out massive blocks of deep slab and actually feel how heavy and hard they can be first hand. It was sobering to say the least. So, to any and all of you that have taught me something this year, again, thank you.

I don't know how you could offer free avy classes, but if there's a way it can be done, it would be an incredible thing to have available. Especially here in CO, where anyone venturing into the BC should have some idea of how to read terrain, and make smart informed decisions out there. And hell, maybe it would help to alleviate some of the "don't slough on me bro" problem that someone alluded to in the 'Avy Death on Torrey's' thread. I mean honestly, the fact that there are so many completely clueless people running around on Loveland (especially) and Bert (to a much lesser extent it seems) is pretty scary to me.


And B, don't worry about not discussing the risk with us before we dropped. I think both Cory and myself knew what we were getting into, and our discussion of the recent snow and snowpack conditions in the lot prior to going up was sufficient enough in my opinion. And to be fair, you may have freaked Erica out on top of that line if you had said that you thought it might pop. I knew there was a chance something could go on that slope, but I was comfortable with our safe zone and the fact that there was really nothing below us to worry about if it did go. So yeah man, don't sweat it. I thought you did a great job that day explaining the things that needed to be explained. S'all good buddy.

[Edgnar]

PBourdon: Friends of Berthoud Pass.
http://berthoudpass.org/
From their web page:

In 2004 we introduced our grassroots avalanche education program. Each year we offer 10 or more three-hour classroom avalanche awareness presentations followed in mid-winter by a full day on snow. The classroom sessions are attended by more than 1,200 people each year and the field sessions quickly reach the limited allotted registrations per day. All courses are free and open to the public. Click here for the 2010-2011 course calendar.

[Pinner]

We are refining the program so that you can earn a free (or heavily subsidized) Level 1 (and subsequent Level 2) in exchange for mentoring others.

[pbourdon]

Very cool to hear. Even if I am moving back to Tahoe next year, if only for a (generally) more stable snowpack. Still, I wonder how many people know about these classes? I moved here in mid-December and this was the first I'd heard of it. Then again, I did know that FOBP did a lot of good work in educating people for next to nothing, but I never knew when. But that's good to know that's available. Perhaps you guys should make a point to let every ski area know of this, so that their employees can take advantage of it. I know there are a lot of people I worked with at Loveland this year that were completely clueless about safe BC practices/travel and yet they were routinely doing mine dumps laps, pass laps, etc.

[BrianH]

Early this season the Silverton Avalanche Center offered a free four-hour refresher course focusing solely on how to dig out a buried slider. It was time well spent, and something you would want your partners to know. They might be doing the same next season, check the website.