MAKE TAHOE DEEP AGAIN ~ 2016/17 OFISHUL SNOW/FOOD/WHINE & STOKE THREAD

[SchralphMacchio]

I've been looking into doing an Avalanche 1 refresher. Looks like ASI are the only one offers a course. Has anyone done a a refresher. It's been ~10 years since I took the level one. Want to make sure I don't regret not redoing a level one. Any recommendations would be welcomed.

A lot has been updated in the last 10 years. I don't think you will regret any course provider you choose. Even if you do the full 3 day class it will be valuable. You might get a little annoyed with beginner questions but no doubt you will learn new things, and it's never a bad thing to re-practice rescue and decision making scenarios with new partners - that can be a lot like real life incidents.

I've got the AIARE coursebooks for the last 5 years and there have been some really great updates. I have no comment on refresher courses since I'm more familiar with the full 3-day curricula.

[gimpy]

And the rain came down and washed it all away

Thought we would have a window this am before the temp spike but 'twas not to be. One and done and soaked. Snowline just below 9k at heave

[mmmm...pow!]

Holy fucking tree bombs! DUCK!!!

[gimpy]

I'm thinking bout getting a squalpine pass next year cuz u guys make it sound like so much fun. I love waiting in lines. 2 laps in 3.5 hours sounds like my kind of skiing

[MagnificentUnicorn]

And the rain came down and washed it all away

Thought we would have a window this am before the temp spike but 'twas not to be. One and done and soaked. Snowline just below 9k at heave

What's the temp? I doubt much snow will be washed away or melted. Cool rain isn't very good at melting snow. Your snowpack will be mostly saturated and you will be skiing these storm snows in June.

[SchralphMacchio]

Aaron, see my thread in slide zone. We have up to 10" of rain forecasted to 9k+ under the worst forecast, over the next 36 hours. This is the real deal for avalanches and floods!

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Aaron, see my thread in slide zone. We have up to 10" of rain forecasted to 9k+ under the worst forecast, over the next 36 hours. This is the real deal for avalanches and floods!

I'm not talking about avalanches, that's going to be bad. Flooding is real too. I'm just saying with the amount of snow on the ground it will saturate and rainwater will drain out of it. Unless it's getting into the 40-50 degree range there won't be much melting. The other dangers are scary and I hope people stay safe and out of harm's way.

[Ottime]

Aaron makes a good point. My wife was trying to get me to NYC in April. Looking at the forecast I said no way. The eastside should be killer in April. I'm asking her to go anyway.

[climberevan]

I'm thinking bout getting a squalpine pass next year cuz u guys make it sound like so much fun. I love waiting in lines. 2 laps in 3.5 hours sounds like my kind of skiing

Haha! Shoot, that would be a slow & out-of-shape backcountry day. Why would anyone wait that long? Honestly, I just can't understand it.

It's still well below freezing & snowing lightly in the Carson Valley. Today is a good day for waxing skis with cold wax in preparation for 6 weeks in Hokkaido.

[SchralphMacchio]

Gotcha Aaron, gimpy's comment was about short term skiing, which is done until Tuesday or Weds.

[gimpy]

Hah
I know man, I was just putting out some lyrics to a song that seemed relevant

[TahoeJ]

No, for real. SB is surprisingly flat, boring, no technical terrain, no pitch over 400 vert. And Ops never gets anything open on time. If you like skiing Squaw Creek chair, you'll love Sugar Bowl. Easy to get the mountain open when the only real avy terrain (i.e., the only STEEP terrain) is in the Palisades and Silver Belt/58.

Any idea why Rahlves is the only big name pro to call SB home? Because they can only afford to pay one guy's salary, and anyone looking for real terrain would go elsewhere. And yeah, that guy can ski just about anywhere in the world for free, so why not have a mellow local mountain that pays you to ski with the fam, when you can hop aboard any AK heli, BC cat, Euro resort, or any other N. Am ski area for free? Seriously, Squaw (or Alpine/Kirkwood) skiers would be bored at SB halfway through their first season.

I will still have my Epic Local pass with KW so I think I'll be fine. 2 of my best days last season were at Sugar Bowl (out of the three days I went over there with my Squaw pass) and a big part of that was not waiting in line much at all despite 1.5 - 2 feet of powder. Steeps are overrated when you have to wait an hour between laps and the second time around it's completely tracked.

If Squaw starts charging $1500 for a gold pass and puts a cap on the number they give out, I'll consider coming back.

Agreed that 2 runs in 3.5 hours is insane - you could do a lot more than that in the BC in that amount of time, surrounded by peace and quiet no less. Granted, not with the avy conditions this week.

[Ottime]

I'm thinking bout getting a squalpine pass next year cuz u guys make it sound like so much fun. I love waiting in lines. 2 laps in 3.5 hours sounds like my kind of skiing

Sounds like a morning in the back country.

[TahoeBC]

Still snowing at Luther when we arrived around 8:30 this morning, turned to stain around big meadows. Top 2/3 of phouse skied ok. Last 300 feet or so it was hard to crank out a turn.

Was starting to change from snow to rain when we left the pass.

Just when the lake levels lines were starting to come into play, this happens

[SchralphMacchio]

Honest question, did you feel like your choice of terrain and skinner on Phouse would appropriately manage a 6-10' deep persistent slab problem? Wondering if you are willing to discuss your thoughts about terrain choice in public.

[TahoeBC]

Will say it was the best skinner all year, nice consistent perfect skinner, thanks to who ever put that one in. Saw your buddy Scott at the top.

You would have needed explosives to get anything to move this am at phouse, stayed out of the bowl but did hit the steeper skier right lines, nothing was moving. Honestly I had no concerns with the skinner or the lines we skied.

[SchralphMacchio]

You would have needed explosives to get anything to move this am at phouse, stayed out of the bowl but did hit the steeper skier right lines, nothing was moving. Honestly I had no concerns with the skinner or the lines we skied.

Thanks for sharing J ... I'm going to be discussing this problem and decision making more deeply in the Slide Zone thread if you care to dig in a little deeper. I will say that this is not a typical problem and so certainty of outcome of terrain & problem is really tricky to manage right now. Also glad to hear you're picking things back up, look forward to seeing you soon.


To the couple involved in the Fireplug accident or any of their friends:

* Thank you very much for posting your account of your accident on the Sierra Avalanche Center site. It takes a lot of courage, and I am sure that it was an incredibly emotionally straining event. I was involved in a similar accident with fatal outcome 3 years ago, so I have a sense what you are going through. If you want to talk with someone who has been in the same boat - about anything, to vent, to learn, to share, to talk about the avy bulletin format, whatever - I can be found on Facebook, and Andy Anderson at SAC knows how to get a hold of me ... my name is Alex Do.



FYI, their account is here, and we have deeper commentary and discussion in my thread in the Slide Zone.

http://www.sierraavalanchecenter.org...anche-fireplug

... by the time we arrived it appeared that several people had skied Hourglass ... ski tour up to the ridge above fireplug and if the snow pit looked good we would ski it ... everything felt very stable , no whomphing and probing the snow with the ski pole showed no obvious weak layers in the new snow ... I didn't dig all the way to the ground, but I dug past the Dec. 15 ice crust by about a foot. The pack was surprisingly stable ... I could not get anything further down to release at all. Also, snow density was very consistent throughout the pack ... With this in mind we decided to ski it ... She was approximately 3/4 of the way down when she dissappeared from view. I gave her a minute to get to our safe point and began my descent ... I noticed a crack in the snowpack, then immediately saw the crown ... I switched over to search and began a beacon search of the debris field ... She was fully burried 3-4 feet deep. I found her head immediatley and found her to be breathing, but very lethargic borderline unconscious. After a few minutes of being in the open air she came around and complained only of knee pain ... we are very fortunate.

[gimpy]

Agreed Alex. Props to them for reporting. On the news the reporter said they refused to be interviewed as the camera showed them doing the walk of shame from the debris field to their car so that's awesome that they did a sac report to inform the public to learn from their mistake.

[shakyknees]

Speaking for myself, on Thursday at P-house I was banking on local lore and my belief I could stay on terrain <35. I was more concerned about a tree well type thing than avy danger, perhaps inappropriately. It was all freshly and dramatically loaded then, considerable rating. Encountered South Lake JT and a friend leaving after 3 laps on my way in at 10:30, who had enjoyed the conditions, who themselves had found a freshly broken skin track, and with whom I did not discuss stability. On the way up, what was notable was occasional voids where your pole does not encounter anything. I encountered another solo guy at the top, who brought up the avy situation, and we both felt that with appropriate route selection we could avoid danger (not surprisingly since we were there). I found the skiing tricky and left after one run.

There is maybe one other place I would tour for turns under these conditions and a whole bunch of places I'm staying away from; I don't think I'm being crazy, but OTOH I've only been bc skiing for 6 years and still have a lot to learn.

[gone2alpine]

Bummer about the rain levels so early, although not surprising. I will, however, take some smug satisfaction towards all of my Bay Area friends who ignored my advice and drove up this weekend anyway.

As you should...you made a very solid educational effort.

[old goat]

Bummer about the rain levels so early, although not surprising. I will, however, take some smug satisfaction towards all of my Bay Area friends who ignored my advice and drove up this weekend anyway.

If you aren't local and you want to ski you have to take some chances--better drive up to play video games all day than to stay home and miss an unexpectedly good day. I say congratulate them for dedication and passion for the sport.

Not your post but who was getting 2 laps in 3.5 hours? I was at Squaw for 3 hours yesterday and did 3 laps on KT, 2 on Red Dog (because I got parked by Far East), a Funnel, and a mountain run, and I'm really slow and stop a lot on KT. The wait on KT was about 15 minutes. (Before high speed lifts that would have been a full 8 hour day at Squaw. Some things have gotten better over the years.

[mmmm...pow!]

I'm not too familiar with P-house, but will say this - no matter what the avy conditions are, there is always stuff that is safe to ski in the backcountry. People that don't post on the internet from 200 miles away were out skiing awesome pow all week. If you just ski backcountry lines when you think it is "safe", you are just setting yourself up to get caught off guard - it's all about risk management, no matter the conditions. But I'm ok with more people being timid about getting after it, parking on the West shore was a bitch as it was. Caltrans only plowed the main Jakes and Rubicon pullout. Bliss SP also unplowed. Hopefully not how it's gonna be all season every time we get a decent storm.

[powpig]

Rose ski'd well this AM. Yes it was wet, but a few inches of cream and some wind made for some good turns. Definitely a ski-gee day as it was freezing on the goggles up top. Got in 2 1/2 hours & a dozen runs before I quit about 11:15.
Was snowing pretty good at 6500' when I left at 8:15 but full on raining at Noon.

[TahoeJ]

If you aren't local and you want to ski you have to take some chances--better drive up to play video games all day than to stay home and miss an unexpectedly good day. I say congratulate them for dedication and passion for the sport.

There's pretty big distinction between taking a chance to see how it turns out vs. hoping for a miracle... and then getting stuck on Sunday when you can't make it back home because 80 is closed. I'd chalk it up to "Squaw / Northstar said it's gonna be awesome!" Yes... of course they did. I'm all for the mantra of "you don't know unless you go," but sometimes you do know.

The 2 runs in 3.5 hours thing was back a page or two in this thread.

[ShakeMeUp]

Big props to that couple for writing up a report. I definitely try to do the same with any incidents I'm involved in, nothing like a sting to the ego to help you make better decisions moving forward. Toured moderate heavily wooded terrain the last two days. At the first popular drop-in point there were shooting cracks extending several hundred feet across the open area. At full extension (155cm) shoving my touring pole into the cracks barely grazed the bed surface. Was relieved to not see any down tracks. If you tried to ride this zone and it cut loose you would get strained through trees at the bottom and survival would be unlikely. Essentially retraced my skin track on the way down, not sexy, but still fun, and two incredibly beautiful days to be outside period. Hope this rain at least flushes some areas and helps consolidate others. Be safe out there.