Brush with a smallish slide.

[soylent green]

Says it all.

Is that counting this year?

Generally speaking if you evaluate a slope with consequences and then ski it and trigger a slide, you fucked up.

To put up a post saying you did everything right without acknowledging the above says it all.

This is like looking at a gun with one bullet, pointing it at your head, pulling the trigger, firing a blank, and then congratulating yourself on your evaluation of the risk (only a 1 in 6 chance!).

The comfort level you have with this level of risk = you will be a CAIC headline.

Honestly I hope not, but that's my take.

What's your "bc guide" Uncle's take on your decision making?

Not hating, but you put this up for feedback and that's my reaction to this.

[goldenboy]

All I really see above boils down to "My level of risk tolerance is X" and "My level of risk tolerance is Y". Not really a conversation with a correct answer, IMO.

[Solesides]

The highest probable consequences in that situation were injuries sustained going through the trees

"Injuries" - like death.. Come on, man - you're in Colorado, you know - "smallish" slides this year and in all years have huge consequences. Maybe you missed that in the Death Sucks thread where you were too busy defending Meesh and quoting your girlfriend.

Given the moderate angle, and composition of the snowpack, it was going to be slower moving.

Again, that slide was neither "smallish" nor "slower moving". You get flushed there, walking away would be a miracle. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you're OK, and glad this conversation is happening.. Clearly you want a long and prosperous life in the backcountry. It's just from your analysis of this situation, that doesn't seem a likely prospect.. You said it yourself - be safe out there.. Nobody wants to see you in the headlines.

[pappag]

Jesus.... I want to remain neutral here given the the few times we had together and plenty of mutual friends, but I'm lost for words really.

A lot of what I said to you a few weeks back in our heated discussion about your choices of being out in high danger, knowing that something will slide, then causing something to slide still isn't resonating. I called you out then and I'm leaning towards the same because I really don't want you to be another statistic. Calling this a smallish slide then using the term "sluffalanches" just makes me want to shake my head.

I understand you have a high risk tolerance, and mine is higher than most, but the powder thirst seems to be overtaking common sense on more than a couple occasions.



And if this is armchair QBing, then so fucking be it... I'm tired of people dying this season. Lastly, you prefaced your video with a lot of wording that can and was easily digested in such a way that is gonna tell us to tell you respect the dangers a little bit more and perhaps spend more time understanding the snowpack before continuing to put yourself in interesting situations.

[montanaskier]

All I really see above boils down to "My level of risk tolerance is X" and "My level of risk tolerance is Y". Not really a conversation with a correct answer, IMO.

agreed and that is what so many of these conversations end up being. Lindahl has a much higher risk tolerance than I do and there is nothing wrong with his level of tolerance nor mine. I know that had I been with him, I would have thought of all the vids we've seen about CT tests being good but the saw propagation test causing huge hard slabs to rip out. I would have looked at some of the things he described like recent activity, new snow wanting to rip out, etc and I would have bailed. I try to look for reasons not to ski something vs trying to form a reason to ski something. However that is my personal deal and not one he or anyone else has to follow. His group did what his group was comfortable doing and they did seem to talk thru the circumstances.

[dino]

All I really see above boils down to "My level of risk tolerance is X" and "My level of risk tolerance is Y". Not really a conversation with a correct answer, IMO.

Yup. Agree.

Goldenboy - you've managed to ski in the bc for a very long time with a very large number of days (with, from what I see on the intertubes, a very good safety record). Would you say that all that experience has changed your level of risk tolerance, or does all that experience help you understand the risks better? Do you think in your first year or two of skiing the Colorado bc you understood the risks as well as you do now? I know I didn't.

[Lindahl]

Dino,

Very fair questions and discussion.

Is that counting this year?

Sort of, it's counting part of this year as half (the other half from my first year of doing BC time in CO - which was infrequent).

Generally speaking if you evaluate a slope with consequences and then ski it and trigger a slide, you fucked up.

Only if you assume it won't slide, no? If you acknowledge the slope has a chance of sliding, but choose to ski it anyway, then you're not really fucking up, are you? This, of course, is only if you're comfortable with (and understand) the consequences. I felt like we accurately assessed the consequences: partial burial, with broken bones in the probable worst case.

There's also the question of the probability of being caught in the slide. Most choose for this to not play a role in decision making, which I completely understand. However, I think it's a fair question to ask. Should it play a role? If you inaccurately assess the probability of being caught in the slide, then I would also agree, that one has fucked up - as if you fucked up a ski cut, or a cornice drop. We felt the probability of being caught in a slide was roughly equivalent to falling, due to the nature of the snowpack, terrain, and the speed at which we planned to enter the slide terrain at. There was no hard slab that would break up in the middle and rapidly pick up speed - it would be a slowly initiated and accelerating soft slab.

This is like looking at a gun with one bullet, pointing it at your head, pulling the trigger, firing a blank, and then congratulating yourself on your evaluation of the risk (only a 1 in 6 chance!).

Ehh, I don't think it's that simple. I'd agree if the consequences are death, but the consequences were far from it, at least in our assessment. You also have to factor in the probability of being caught in the slide.

What's your "bc guide" Uncle's take on your decision making?

I have yet to run it by him yet. I've tried to learn as much from him as possible, especially in recent years. Since you put bc guide in quotes, I'll clarify that he's been an acredited backcountry guide in the Cascades for over 30 years. He also worked as a guide for CMH, and, I believe, another Canadian outfit, for several years.

As goldenboy mentions, I don't want to boil this down to an X vs. Y risk tolerance argument. Everyone has a different risk tolerance, and that's not how one does things out in the backcountry (you choose the lowest risk tolerance in the group). I regularly roll the dice with injury consequences as a result of misjudging my ability to ski a line. The probability of which, only I have a good idea of. This is a level of risk that myself, and a few of my partners are comfortable with. If this features me in a CAIC accident report (avalanche incident), or simply a visit to the hospital and a stop over at gimp central (non-avalanche incident), does the distinction really matter?

[Lindahl]

"Injuries" - like death.. Come on, man - you're in Colorado, you know - "smallish" slides this year and in all years have huge consequences. Maybe you missed that in the Death Sucks thread where you were too busy defending Meesh and quoting your girlfriend.

I don't believe I ever defended Meesh's decision. Do you have a quote to back that up?

From the multitude of accident reports and case studies I've read, the only similarly-sized avalanches that I've seen that have caused death, have either been freak consequences (mentioned in some way in the report), led right into significant burial terrain traps (gullies), or the unprepared (no beacon/etc.). Perhaps you have an accident report to share?

Again, that slide was neither "smallish" nor "slower moving".

I suppose I should have said slower initiating and accelerating. It was moving at a moderate pace - slower than I ski, but fast enough to catch you if you stopped/fell. In my opinion (and according to the European scale), it certainly is on the small side. About 200' long, and 50' wide. I call it smallish, because it's still dangerous to be in, a D1.5, if you will.

You get flushed there, walking away would be a miracle.

My assessment, based on accident reports and case studies I've read: Walking away alive? Extremely likely. Walking away unscathed, maybe not a miracle, but pretty lucky, yes. Walking away with broken bones, possibly. Walking away with significant bruising, likely.

What are you basing your assessment on?

[summit]

I hear a lot of people talking about "risk tolerance x vs y." I'm sick of this as a copout. To claim decisions are made with risk tolerance in mind, one must truly understand risk; one must truly understand both the hazard (chance of the event) and the exposure (consequences). Frank, for example, has the wide breadth of experience, education, and perspective to personally make such judgements, but most people slap that risk acceptance crap up when people are lackadaisically saying "oh well, I might have been hurt, but I thought about that." Did they really?

Brian, you need to think about what it would take to evac even a minor injury that prevents you from navigating Timber Falls on your own power. Think! Even on a sunny calm day, it is a nightmare. It's not quite the middle of the Gore, but it might as well be in some respects. That is how you turn a minor injury into hypothermia, frostbite, and months of recovery. It is how you turn a tib-fib into an amputation. It is how you turn some broken ribs into your death. These things happen as a result of where you fuck up.

It is OK you don't have the perspective yet. Some people never do. I was lucky: when I had been skiing BC as long as you have, I'd already pulled a body out of a slide and had a very good idea what is involved after you fuck up, I had a Level II, and I had very experienced mentors taught me good decision making, and one in particular who did it in EV, his stomping grounds for well over a decade. That didn't make me immune to error or random chance. I'm still not. I've broken a bone at the top of Bighorn doing something stupid, then had to ski out (luckily I was able to). I've had to repair a friend's exploded bindings in King A's. I've led out some gaper who skied on top of us with no gear out of the chutes. My partners had to clear someones head of snow when the tiniest slough buried him to his eyes because he was in a gully. What you have to ask yourself is, it is one thing to say "I might get hurt," but do you really want to reap the whirlwind? What are you prepared to deal with and have you thought about what happens when it is more than you can handle?

Going into the chutes, Watertank etc, is often done to escape the crowds and many people convince themselves it is less risky. However, it is at best an exercise in trading hazard for exposure. And yet people dump into them without skins or any gear to mitigate the consequences (and I'm not talking avalanche gear). All my skiing dreams have been good except for one nightmare: my friend getting hurt in Racquet Club and having them die during the evacuation. Don't live a nightmare. Timber Falls is far worse than Racquet Club.

I'm not saying, "you shouldn't have skied there." I'm not looking at this specific incident, but I am hopeful this was useful feedback to add to your general perspective.

[Lindahl]

I know that had I been with him, I would have thought of all the vids we've seen about CT tests being good but the saw propagation test causing huge hard slabs to rip out. I would have looked at some of the things he described like recent activity, new snow wanting to rip out, etc and I would have bailed. I try to look for reasons not to ski something vs trying to form a reason to ski something.

Well, if you were out there with us, we probably wouldn't be even looking at that slope... wrong group dynamics for that kind of risk level. There's quite a few people I ski with where the same consideration would have been made.

We were looking for hard slabs or weak deep instabilities, or other things we didn't expect to see. If we had found some, or the depth hoar was similar to what it is, for example, in Mushroom, we would have bailed. So, in a way, we were looking for reasons not to ski the slope.

[natew08]

I posted a reply that linked to some recent avalanches up in the PNW, for some reason the system isn't liking it probably because I have a new account. If it shows up out of order that's why. You can say you have a higher risk tolerance which is all well and good. Talking about risk tolerance is only valid if you are accurately assessing the consequences for your actions. So whatever, it may end up looking like I'm repeating myself.

There is easily enough snow to bury you, if my other post would show up I linked to an accident that I responded to two years ago where the slide was probably 30ft in distance w/ a 35" crown and it still buried a young skier. If you make the reasonable assumption that you are carried into the trees at a high rate of speed, what do you think happens to you when you get hung up on a tree and a significant portion of the avalanche is still moving past you? The force of the slide will try to rip you apart. Your assumptions about the forces involved in this avalanche (and probably any others) are grossly wrong. If the video kept playing, I'd wager it would be easy to see the trees in the deposition zone being buried at least 1m or more with debris. You lose a ski on the landing or fall, this slide probably seriously injures you if you are lucky and probably kills you.

[dos bolsas]

Avy 1 in WA (want to take a class out here though)
2 years in the CO backcountry.
3 years in the CO sidecountry.
A few 'learning' trips a year over 10 years in the Cascades with my uncle.
Try to read as many accident reports and case studies as I can.

If its not hate, whats with the persistent insults? Walks like a duck, talks like a duck...

What a surprise...

You are a NOOB.
You are a JONG.
Your insistance with putting up lame POVs indicates an inflated ego.


This is not about hate.
Its about tearing down the pedastals people of your ilk set themselves on.
You are the "bad example" that others should be warned about.


and I don't give a shit about whether you agree or not. It is what it is.

[montanaskier]

I hear a lot of people talking about "risk tolerance x vs y." I'm sick of this as a copout. To claim decisions are made with risk tolerance in mind, one must truly understand risk; one must truly understand both the hazard (chance of the event) and the hazard (consequences). Frank, for example, has the wide breadth of experience and perspective to make those calls realistically, but most people slap that risk acceptance crap up when people are lackadaisically saying "oh well, I might have been hurt, but I thought about that." Did they really?

Brian, you need to think about what it would take to evac even a minor injury that prevents you from navigating Timber Falls on your own power. Think! Even on a sunny calm day, it is a nightmare. It's not quite the middle of the Gore, but it might as well be in some respects. That is how you turn a minor injury into hypothermia, frostbite, and months of recovery. It is how you turn a tib-fib into an amputation. It is how you turn some broken ribs into your death. These things happen as a result of where you fuck up.

It is OK you don't have the perspective yet. Some people never do. I was lucky: when I had been skiing BC as long as you have, I'd already pulled a body out of a slide and had a very good idea what is involved after you fuck up, I had a Level II, and I had very experienced mentors taught me good decision making, and one in particular who did it in EV, his stomping grounds for well over a decade. That didn't make me immune to error or random chance. I'm still not. I've broken a bone at the top of Bighorn doing something stupid, then had to ski out (luckily I was able to). I've had to repair a friend's exploded bindings in King A's. I've led out some gaper who skied on top of us with no gear out of the chutes. My partners had to clear someones head of snow when the tiniest slough buried him to his eyes because he was in a gully. What you have to ask yourself is, it is one thing to say "I might get hurt," but do you really want to reap the whirlwind? What are you prepared to deal with and have you thought about what happens when it is more than you can handle?

Going into the chutes, Watertank etc, is often done to escape the crowds and many people convince themselves it is less risky. However, it is at best an exercise in trading hazard for exposure. And yet people dump into them without skins or any gear to mitigate the consequences (and I'm not talking avalanche gear). All my skiing dreams have been good except for one nightmare: my friend getting hurt in Racquet Club and having them die during the evacuation. Don't live a nightmare. Timber Falls is far worse than Racquet Club.

I'm not saying, "you shouldn't have skied there." I'm not looking at this specific incident, but I am hopeful this was useful feedback to add to your general perspective.

Aaron always brings a good set of thoughts. Most people are ok with a level of risk as long as nothing bad has happened. I used to huck stuff but tore out my knee flailing off a rock like a gaper so I don't do that anymore.

[goldenboy]

Yup. Agree.

Goldenboy - you've managed to ski in the bc for a very long time with a very large number of days (with, from what I see on the intertubes, a very good safety record). Would you say that all that experience has changed your level of risk tolerance, or does all that experience help you understand the risks better? Do you think in your first year or two of skiing the Colorado bc you understood the risks as well as you do now? I know I didn't.

I've had one slide in 15+ years of skiing CO's bc, and that was just last year, but I certainly wonder how much of that was just dumb luck, especially at the beginning, as you alluded to. Mistakes are easy to come by.

I'd say experience has taken my risk tolerance in both directions. For instance, this year my experience has given my a very low level of risk tolerance. I don't have any faith in this snowpack so I've skied pitches that I hardly ever do that are less than 30 degrees, and ridden my bike, and skated on lakes, and I'm in AK right now just to get the hell away from that snowpack.

On the flip side, if I feel good about things, I might ski something high consequence due to my experience. This scares me because the other side of that coin is the expert halo that gets talked about (and was the root cause of the slide I was involved with last season). So I try to fight it.

[Lindahl]

I posted a reply that linked to some recent avalanches up in the PNW,

I'd like to know if I'm underestimating the burial ability of that size of an avalanche. Are they on the NWAC site? If so, I'll dig around for them and do some more reading. Otherwise, what site are they located on? It's important to note that I acknowledge and recognize that more severe consequences CAN possibly occur, but the likelihood of those are extremely small (and on par with the likelihood of other severe consequences in daily life).

Timber Falls is far worse than Racquet Club.

Eh, it's pretty on par, based on my experiences. Perhaps we're taking different routes out? Now Pitkin, on the other hand...

What are you prepared to deal with and have you thought about what happens when it is more than you can handle?

I have enough first aid equipment to hopefully be prepared to deal with the sorts of injuries that I've mentioned. I do think about what it might take to get out of there with a broken bone or two. I've thought about this before dropping cliffs in the routes that I frequent.

In order to understand my risk tolerance a bit better, it should be noted that I partake in lots of similarly-consequential activities outside of skiing. For example, jumping into pools, rather than rappelling, while canyoneering in a remote canyon on the fringes of Lake Powell, or free-soloing a low class 5 route, without beta, on the north spur of Mt. Powell, deep inside the Gores. I do have a high risk tolerance, in most activities. For me, it's a part of living. For others, it's a stupid decision.

[The Sneak]

[Lindahl]. Rookie, with dumb friends.

Fascinating.

[natew08]

On the nwac accidents page (it's not allowing linking because of my n00b status)

Back country near Mission Ridge Ski Area; east slopes central WA Cascades - that is the name of one of them

Hooky Bowl on Trout Ck drainage, near Mt Cashmere, east slopes central WA Cascades - that's the other

One shows just how small an avalanche can be and still bury you. The second shows how bad it can be to get dragged through trees.

[dino]

Lindahl - kudos for the willingness to put all this out there. You obviously thought about things a great deal.

A few more thoughts from my (old guy, conservative) perspective:

Basic avalanche evaluation looks for (a) Avalanche terrain + negative consequences, (b) weak layer, and (c) load or trigger. You found all of these and then moved on to more complex and much less objective criteria (how much snow will go, how fast will it go, when will it break, will I get caught, how to I get out, will I get injured, what kind of injures, etc.). This is during one of the worst avalanche years in one of the year-in-year-out worst snowpacks in the world.

You are making the classic mistake of using those secondary mitigating factors to talk yourself into skiing slopes you have objectively determined to be likely to slide.

Odds are stacked against you no matter how you justify it if you are keeping your evaluation going after those first three come up bad.

In my observation, the more experience you have in the bc evaluating difficult avalanche conditions, the more respect & humility you have for luck, randomness and the power of the mountains. The way you talk with such confidence about predicting such complex factors indicates to me a limited understanding of them. I don't mean that with any disrespect, it's just an observation on my part.

I fully understand the risk tolerance part, but think it is widely mis-used. Seems to me that there is a very high correlation of high risk tolerance with relatively inexperienced backcountry skiers. I.e. it takes lots of experience to accurately understand the risk. [cliche] There are old bc skiers, and there are bold bc skiers, but there are no old, bold bc skiers. [/cliche]

[JoeStrummer]

Like some old Greek said, It is impossible for a man to learn what he already thinks he knows.

OP - I think you're a bit casual with the potential for things like "partial burial" and a "few broken bones." But what do I know, I paid $11 for an overcooked resort cheeseburger today and was shitting my pants within 90 minutes, so my own risk-benefit analysis isn't too good.

In the end, your choices are your choices and one man's auto-erotic asphyxiation in a church closet with a strand of barbed wire around his nutsack is another man's missionary position with the lights off in his own bedroom.

[montanaskier]

I heart Joe Strummer.....sig worthy

[uglymoney]

Forgetting the very important avy discussion for a moment that was some tight skiing. If I ever see you I'll make sure not to follow you into the trees. Those look like first year Billy Goat topsheets?

[skifishbum]

whats the difference tween side and backcounty again? I forgot
are 2 sidecountry days = to 1 backcountry day?
how many feet outside the resort does the sidecounrty end and the backcountry start?
if you don't ride lifts is it backcountry by default?

[TahoeJ]

Leaving the slide part of this POV aside, loved that run starting at 2:45 or so. Good stuff.

[ak_powder_monkey]

sounds like you managed terrain while running with scissors, make sure you learn something and keep having fun.

[Lindahl]

Another thing that just occured to me to mention, that if it wasn't for the adjacent old slide, our decision would have been different. It gave us a good idea of what a slide would look like, if we triggered one. One of our party members wasn't ok with the same personal risk, and chose a different line and was able to get lower, and give us good beta on what the old activity looked like.

On the nwac accidents page (it's not allowing linking because of my n00b status)

Back country near Mission Ridge Ski Area; east slopes central WA Cascades - that is the name of one of them

Hooky Bowl on Trout Ck drainage, near Mt Cashmere, east slopes central WA Cascades - that's the other

One shows just how small an avalanche can be and still bury you. The second shows how bad it can be to get dragged through trees.

The burial slide is a classic gully terrain trap (where snow can pile up in huge debris piles). We did get a close look at the debris below our slide (and the adjacent old slide), and it was insignificantly deep, but that's mostly just anecdotal evidence and not really something I'd prefer to use in judgements.

The trees I would have been pushed through are dramatically different. Most of them are small midget trees, with only a couple of "real" trees. Force would likely be a lot greater, as well, due to the significantly higher slope angle. Not saying I know all and that it's impossible for similar massive trauma to occur, but I still question whether it was a probable consequence.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.627...num=1&t=h&z=18

I've read similar accident reports from around CO (Dry Gulch for trauma, and multiple reports for gully terrain traps).

Basic avalanche evaluation looks for (a) Avalanche terrain + negative consequences, (b) weak layer, and (c) load or trigger. You found all of these and then moved on to more complex and much less objective criteria (how much snow will go, how fast will it go, when will it break, will I get caught, how to I get out, will I get injured, what kind of injures, etc.). This is during one of the worst avalanche years in one of the year-in-year-out worst snowpacks in the world.

You are making the classic mistake of using those secondary mitigating factors to talk yourself into skiing slopes you have objectively determined to be likely to slide.

Great points. I'll have to think about those. I am aware that it is pretty subjective criteria, and that confidence is often an hindsight luxury, with balls/boldness being the foresight. I certainly wouldn't be doing this with a good chance of death on the line, but I do gamble some when it comes to injury in my other activities (mtb, canyoneering, climbing/mountaineering).

In the end, your choices are your choices and one man's auto-erotic asphyxiation in a church closet with a strand of barbed wire around his nutsack is another man's missionary position with the lights off in his own bedroom.

Funny shit that needs to be quoted.