When things go to shit

[Bunion 2020]

Every avalanche fatality is a product of people who fuck up. Yes, fucked up.

Whether you have fucked up in the past and gotten away with it, whether you treat it as an increased risk tolerance, or whether you decide to just give it up doesn't matter. It's physics.

Don't fuck up. It's never changed.

Edit to add, please try and keep this as a learning experience and not a finger pointing one.

@ El Grom,

Sorry for your loss. In my understanding of the weather the day of the accident it sounded like it was the end of the storm cycle, still poor visibility although clearing and that the group may have made an error in where they were on the slope.

I also believe that most BC skiers have a high level of faith in their route finding abilities and that may be their biggest downfall.

Most accidents including avalanches are a product of a series of small and seeming minor errors that pile up and in retrospect are fairly obvious. From the injuries sustained by the other skier and the fact that he survived, your friends did a helluva job stabilizing him for recovery.

Best of luck.

[skifishbum]

let he who has never fucked up wave his expert dick on the internet for all to see
and vibes to those who did make mistakes that had dire consequences

[GoldMember]

let he who has never fucked up wave his expert dick on the internet for all to see
and vibes to those who did make mistakes that had dire consequences

Well said. Condolences, El Grom.

[muted]

Sorry El Grom. One thing we all can learn over and over from accidents like this is Makers can be a dick on this board.

[ODHGABFE]

Full report can be found here

https://www.mtavalanche.com/sites/de...nal_PUBLIC.pdf

[total_immortal]

Not to monday morning quarterback but that really seems like an obviously bad place to be. I certainly wouldn't consider that 'trees'. in fact, barely glades. The safe path they chose to ski prior also seems quite suspect.

In their defense and having skied in that area several times, the trees low on that slope are extremely thick, this along with the fact that they weren't locals and may not have had a grasp on the terrain and weather patterns would make it hard to judge just how exposed they were. I have toured in new areas where I think I am traveling in a protected area only to later realize you were extremely exposed because you don't know the terrain very well. Their decision to continue climbing when the trees started to thin out is suspect, but again, they probably saw they were close to topping out and made a decision to continue as they didn't observe any signs of instability. It's a shitty situation and not our place to pass judgement on their decisions, we weren't with them and we don't know how the group perceived the danger, all we know was that they ended up in a dangerous location and things went to shit very quickly.

[powdork]

but that's the thing. they did observe signs of instability and were seeking low angle terrain but repeatedly put themselves on slopes of 35-40 degrees or in slide paths. but i do get it, there are times when you think you're on a good track and then you get to a point where there is no safe exit but to go back down (and sometimes not even that). It seems the mistake was made with the decision to cross the ridgeline and ski the northeast facing slope rather than ski back down to the yurt

"On the morning of Friday, January 25, the four skiers left the yurt and ascended a nearby skin track up a
forested, less than 35 degree, south-southeast facing slope. During their ascent they dug quick hand pits
which revealed a poor snowpack structure of weak, sugary snow below a slab of recent snow. Due to
these findings, and a “whumph” and cracking of the snowpack they had experienced the day before,
they decided to seek lower angle terrain and play it safe. They gained a ridge that runs east off the
summit of Long Mountain, and skied a few hundred feet down the opposite, northeast facing slope.
The skiers stopped on a low-angle bench less than halfway down the track of a large avalanche chute on
the east aspect of Long Mountain. "

[el grom]

No, it's a fact. Riddle me this:

Choice #1: Don't go in the bc;
Choice #2: Stay off slopes over 32 degrees.

Bullshit. Sit in your house. I'll ski that pow for you, 5 post JONG.

You might want to take a course or 2. Moran.

Of course, because I don't spend a large part of my life ridiculing others on a forum, I don't know shit, right? I can think of at least 5 other risk factors in the BC that don't involve skiing on a >32 degree slope. Can you mitigate against every possible risk, of which there are many that don't involve an avalanche, any more than you can be 100% sure you won't be in an accident driving to the store.

I've taken "a course or two." I've started a lot of slides, mostly on purpose. I've been in a near full burial before I knew what to look for as a 14 year old. Was lucky to survive a bunch of near-misses when I was living in SE Alaska as a dumb teen while stationed in the Coast Guard. Seen dozen's of slides run while in the BC in my lifetime. And I've lost a couple of friends and even more acquaintances in avalanches, river accidents, climbing accidents, flying accidents, and just day-to-day life. In most of those situations, those people "thought" that they had it all covered, and in many of them, random events—acts of God, whatever— took them without a rat's ass concern for their expertise, knowledge, or skills. Those same random events can take a life in the backcountry, and you can't mitigate 100% of that risk, no matter what your inflated sense of superiority says...

[John_B]

Thank you for the link to your friend's obit. He sounded like an easy person to like as well as someone similar to many of us.

[skiJ]

No, it's a fact. Riddle me this:

Choice #1: Don't go in the bc;
Choice #2: Stay off slopes over 32 degrees.

Bullshit. Sit in your house. I'll ski that pow for you, 5 post JONG.

You might want to take a course or 2. Moran.

I try not to fee the trolls, But

el grom has been here ten years, And he Just lost a friend --

… seems like there has been Good interaction with MTM in the past, but today(,)

he is my moron of the day.

( How many died in the course earlier this month ? )

… seems to me there is an expression about
those who have seen Danger, and
those who have not seen Danger - yet.

(Please) Be Safe out there... THE Goal Should be to get Home.

Mistakes are made - we can learn from them without having to resort to insults.

( End of rant. )

el grom. My condolences. tj

[powdork]

i don't mean any disrespect by my quarterbacking. it would be useful to know what the mindset was that got them there. i have been on tours where the expert in the group wanted to keep going until they found instabilities, while in avalanche terrain. imo, that can easily put you in the situation here. in one situation i turned around early. in another i said nothing and started a slide that ran top to bottom covering our skin track on a safe slope that 'never slides'. Video below. On the second run we climbed a little higher and stopped basically right when we got to the 35+ degree stuff because we were uncomfortable going higher.

Also note at about :58 when I plunge my pole in to move backward you can see a second remotely triggered slide at the top of the screen

[powdork]

someone posted this link over in the Red Mtn Pass thread

https://www.powder.com/stories/your-...anche-terrain/

I found this particularly useful

"I recommend assigning somebody who is knowledgeable, confident, and willing to speak up in your group to be the Devil's Advocate for the day," Boilen says. "This person's job is to battle confirmation bias. They are going to come up with valid arguments against whatever the group is moving toward."

[plugboots]

"I recommend assigning somebody who is knowledgeable, confident, and willing to speak up in your group to be the Devil's Advocate for the day," Boilen says. "This person's job is to battle confirmation bias. They are going to come up with valid arguments against whatever the group is moving toward."

I'll use that.

[total_immortal]

but that's the thing. they did observe signs of instability and were seeking low angle terrain but repeatedly put themselves on slopes of 35-40 degrees or in slide paths. but i do get it, there are times when you think you're on a good track and then you get to a point where there is no safe exit but to go back down (and sometimes not even that). It seems the mistake was made with the decision to cross the ridgeline and ski the northeast facing slope rather than ski back down to the yurt

Thanks to hindsight it's easy to say they shouldn't have crossed the ridge. However, imagine you are with this group. You have traveled half-way across the country to go on a yurt trip in a remote Montana mountain range. You have been planning this trip for sometime, spent a lot of money, etc. You head out the first morning and find some signs of instability on one aspect at one elevation band (presumably). No big deal, let's try a different aspect, so you head over the ridge and ski a presumably safe slope on a different aspect (we don't know exactly where they skied their first run, maybe they dug a pit? Assessed stability somehow?). The skiing was great, but it dumps you into a large avalanche path, uh oh don't want to be here and don't want to climb what you skied with the exposure above you. No worries, we'll just contour around the ridge and regain our old skin track. Dang, these trees are really thick and hard to navigate let's just climb the ridge from here. Hmmmm, the trees are starting to space out quite a bit and this is a pretty steep slope we're climbing but we're only a few switchbacks from the top and we'd lose a ton of time and energy if we turn around, plus we've only seen warning signs on a south-east/south aspect and this is directly east facing, it's not ideal but lets just go for it. *WHOOMP*...shit.

I'm not saying this is what happened to these folks, but I believe it is a plausible scenario. Was crossing that ridge rather going back to the yurt a bad decision? Yes, but they likely didn't know it at the time. I like to use the analogy that backcountry skiing is like playing golf in a lightning storm, you can try and mitigate the risk as much as possible, but sometimes you are unlucky.

[powdork]

^^the link i posted above goes into just that. sunk costs and opportunity costs

also, they mentioned digging several hand pits that day and finding poor results. if they had dug a pit I can't imagine that wouldn't have been in the report. another thing i found reading the report til the end about how they got out is that they were just above the trail that took them back to the yurt . it was buried by the slide debris.


edit- also, don't play golf in the lightning. just don't

[summit]

Reading that report... wow... you can just look at the pit profile and see the problem glaring, add 1.9" of SWE from the storm that just ended and it's easy to understand why it was Risk 3, why they decided to aim for less dangerous terrain after encountering obvious signs of instability on top of scary hand pits. But then it sounds like they for some inexplicable reason turned off their avalanche brains and did not treat as avalanche terrain the sparsely treed slope they cut a NEW skin track up despite its prime avalanche starting angles (and after skiing lower angles in the name of conservatism). Seems like there might have been some letting down of the guard at the end of the day... "get-home-it is." What at terrible tragedy!

[SkyIsland]

I think that may be true. I remember *vividly* having a guide at Silverton many moons ago (it was the now-famous John Shocklee) tell our group that if the trees are wide enough to be skiable, they can slide. It stuck with me a a general rule-of-thumb in the backcountry.

The web is oddly resistant to that message.

The WaPow comments linked by PNW are maybe a bit to one side imo though.

Whole thing in this case is terrible and sad.

[Bunion 2020]

From today's GNFAC page

Bob Snowgeek (not his real name ) skied to Mt. Ellis yesterday and his experience is instructive. He was there on Saturday and retreated lower on the mountain when he got collapses and poor stability test scores (video). Yesterday there were no collapses and cracking, but he dug 3 snowpits (yes, he’s super into it) and found instability in each one (video).

From the summit he skied his skin track back to the car avoiding avalanche terrain. Although the avalanche danger is going down throughout our area, he found conditions that were bad. What Bob did is what we all need to do: in the absence of collapsing and cracking, dig and test the snow. It’s the only way to know what’s under our feet.

What I have experienced with BC groups is that you have a few very red flags thrown up and rather than being willing to write the day or tour off and retreat back the safe way we tend to look for something to ski with less exposure.

And in many cases it doesn't work out so well.

[total_immortal]

^^the link i posted above goes into just that. sunk costs and opportunity costs

also, they mentioned digging several hand pits that day and finding poor results. if they had dug a pit I can't imagine that wouldn't have been in the report. another thing i found reading the report til the end about how they got out is that they were just above the trail that took them back to the yurt . it was buried by the slide debris.


edit- also, don't play golf in the lightning. just don't

Ah sorry I didn't read the article before writing that response. I saw that they dug hand pits but I assumed that was on the climb, the report is pretty vague about their first run so we don't really know what they experienced or did on that first lap. As someone else said up-thread, these incidents are typically a series of small decisions that lead to tragedy, so I don't agree that skiing the north-east face was necessarily their biggest mistake. Also, the passage about missing the trail back to the yurt was after the incident when they were leaving the scene. Having skied back there several times (the yurt operator is an occasional ski partner of mine) they missed the summer trail that leads back to the yurt, but if they were trying to lap the north-east face that trail isn't practical as it drops well below the yurt and you would be adding a mile or two onto your lap by having to redo the approach to the yurt. Obviously mistakes were made, but I think they were mistakes any of us could have made so we really should reserve judgement on this group.

Regarding the golf in a lightning storm analogy - if golfing on a clear day is resort skiing then when we go into the backcountry we are essentially playing in a lightning storm, sure you may try and protect yourself somehow, but at the end of the day a lot times we are just plain lucky that nothing happened. Your edit is exactly what el grom is saying, if you want to be 100% safe backcountry skiing, don't go backcountry skiing. just don't

[powdork]

Your edit is exactly what el grom is saying, if you want to be 100% safe backcountry skiing, don't go backcountry skiing. just don't

your analogy is way off. both ski resorts and golf courses allow you a lot of personal responsibility that could result in death. Neither allows you to play in a lightning storm. Golfing in a lightning storm is attempting to do the most dangerous thing rather than the least dangerous or anything in between. Although that does seem to describe their decision to skin up that slope (and not just in hindsight)

[jono]

https://www.mtavalanche.com/node/19826
....
Please discuss without judgement.

Very useful, thanks for posting it. Lots of ways for things to go to shit, but I was not expecting the thread to serve as an example. Seems like for a while here we've made good progress in educating people on the counterproductive nature of finger pointing and judgement in these moments, but like everything, refreshers will be needed from time to time.

[kootenayskier]

Ah sorry I didn't read the article before writing that response. I saw that they dug hand pits but I assumed that was on the climb, the report is pretty vague about their first run so we don't really know what they experienced or did on that first lap. As someone else said up-thread, these incidents are typically a series of small decisions that lead to tragedy, so I don't agree that skiing the north-east face was necessarily their biggest mistake. Also, the passage about missing the trail back to the yurt was after the incident when they were leaving the scene. Having skied back there several times (the yurt operator is an occasional ski partner of mine) they missed the summer trail that leads back to the yurt, but if they were trying to lap the north-east face that trail isn't practical as it drops well below the yurt and you would be adding a mile or two onto your lap by having to redo the approach to the yurt. Obviously mistakes were made, but I think they were mistakes any of us could have made so we really should reserve judgement on this group.

Regarding the golf in a lightning storm analogy - if golfing on a clear day is resort skiing then when we go into the backcountry we are essentially playing in a lightning storm, sure you may try and protect yourself somehow, but at the end of the day a lot times we are just plain lucky that nothing happened. Your edit is exactly what el grom is saying, if you want to be 100% safe backcountry skiing, don't go backcountry skiing. just don't

Yes, people can and do make poor decisions, but we can also develop self awareness, and can learn from the mistakes of others. Understanding how and why others fucked up is exactly the point of the official reports, and why I pay attention and occasionally participate to these discussions. If all you want is platitudes and fatalism, go to church.

[skifishbum]

turns out before skier 1 or 2 divorced his wife i have broke bread and partied with him through mutual friends
glad i didnt come off like the cunts some of ya are
the grom jongs kinda right zero fatalities aint never gonna happen
if ya aint prepared to make mistakes and possibly die
just stay home and crotchet under the bed