Avalanche!!!!!

[Higgins-LCHC]

It doesn't matter how informed you are you can still get caught in an avy.
Look at what happened in the movie "A Dozen More Turns". All were very knowlegable in Avalanche awareness. Heck the guy who died was going to school for avalanche study. I always check the local sites for avy info.
Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center
http://www.nwac.us/
Higs

 

[trackvs2wheels]

Great topic guys...

Although I do not have any useful information on the subject, I really like to read up on other people's experiences so that "IF" it ever happens to me I can be prepared and think back to what YOU GUYS taught me

Hopefully those who read this thread will never have to use the information obtained from within, but it sure can't help knowing it!!

Track~

 

[WARY]

We set off a dozen or so avalanches each year in order to test avalanche flotation devices and the picture below is of the only slide that came close to nailing a couple of us. We definitely got surprised by a slide that went big. I guess that would be our advice, take another look at your “safety zone” whether you are riding or stopped. And if you see or hear an avalanche, assume you are in danger and get your machine fired up and pointed in the other direction. If you see a slide assume it’s the finger of a larger slide that’s bearing down on you from somewhere you can’t see and get the hell out of there. If you come across fresh debris assume there’s more snow up there that’s about to let loose and come down on you like the hand of God. Find another valley, find another trail, find a good bar and sit the day out with some NFL and a cold one.

 

[SnowBigDeal]

That's a great photo!

 

[aebsledder]

In this one last year

Was caused by a rider not in our group who didn't know we were there. Made a mistake of helping a buddy who was stuck. Never exposing more than one rider to a slope is definitely a good rule of thumb. We were all extremely lucky to have made it out. Definitely a lot more educated now.

 

[hudini]

Read the reports, know the conditions, do some tests on slopes, know how to use your gear, make good decisions, if you don't want to hit the hill then ride the trees, thats what we do and its way more fun then wondering when the hill is going to slide.

The one thing that I know is that any hill can slide at any given time.

Have fun this year people and ride safe/smart.

 

[firecatguy]

Just want to start a thread that talks about experiences, knowledge, info on avalanches since the season is getting close. If everyone posts a small bit of personal experience or knowledge, maybe it'll save someone elses bacon this year.
I'll start...
I learned in Cooke City that the hill to the right, right before you climb to the top of lulu pass ALWAYS slides!!!Everytime I go there there is debris we have to sled over to start the climb up lulu. I learned from that slope that trees tell a good story. All the trees on that slope look like they were standing beside a nuclear blast. After learning that I can tell a lot of dangerous slopes even in the summer if I look.

your right it does

Sure, when i get some time i'll throw some up. But for you to say that the slope on the right before lulu pass always slides is a gross generalization of that area. Perhaps saying that yes, there are numerous slide paths and yes they can slide when conditions are right would help more people out than saying that is always does. Absolutes seem to cause complacency from what i have observed. Instead of learning through observations that a specific path in a specific area slides so therefore it is dangerous is not as effective as simply learning to properly distinguish terrain features. I could name hundreds of slide paths in a cooke city but that would not help or be easy to teach each one to every person that rides there. Terrain recognition is one of the biggest parts in in hazard evaluation.

Edit: forgot to add that in your first post i did like you put that flagging is a good sign of path recognition.

well my friend its called RASTA CHUTE and right out of the LOCALS mouth "STAY OFF RASTA IT ALWAYS SLIDES" but ive got one better for ya last year we seen the yammi hood all smashed laying on rasta!!
oh wait the local that told us this lost his best friend 10years ago on rasta

are you giving everyone the green light on a hill that always slides!!

last year slide on rasta in dec

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuc45gxLBc4

just what we have seen and been told by locals

 

[Pastor]

Every time we ride we are very observant on the way in to look for natural slides. If there are natural slides on a given day it is a very dangerous day.

If the hills are ready to slide on their own they are very very likely to slide with you and your sleds added weight.

I have been in one avalanche. It was on a day that things just did not seem right but there was little tangable evidence, things just did not seem right. I made a climb in an area that was not real steep and had a good escape route, everything held good. My next climb was the climb I really wanted to make but my escape route was to go where I had just been. (so in other words the whole reason for the first climb was to establish an escepe route for the second climb) I started the climb paying close attention ahead of me when I saw the snow crack about 40' above me, I immediately sidehilled toward the safe zone I had already established, once safe, I sat there and watched the hill slide away. It was not a real fast moving slide but it got my attention.

One other thing that really impressed me about a particular avalanche was how far it ran out. For years I have watched guys, myself included park well out from a particular bowl in a safe zone and take our turns. One year a horrible avalanche happened in that bowl and coverered with ten feet of snow the entire safe zone!! It was not a safe zone after all!!

We always ride with beacons, we practice with our beacons, we go to an avalanche class every year and we really try to educate the new riders with the information we have learned over the years. We still need to learn more.

I have asked year after year to go out with the avalanche guys that do the training and write the snow reports. Every year they are nice as can be and tell me they would like that but so far I have not actually received an invitaiton to go. I would really like some, on the mountain training so I can do some acurate testing of the snow conditions.

 

[anziconda]

Was caused by a rider not in our group who didn't know we were there. Made a mistake of helping a buddy who was stuck. Never exposing more than one rider to a slope is definitely a good rule of thumb. We were all extremely lucky to have made it out. Definitely a lot more educated now.

Wow, great pic...was that up buck creek last year? If it was, I ran into you guys right after it happened.(I was on the M1000 and one of your group let me take his dragon 800 for a spin) If thats the slide I think it was, I was happy my buds and I made the choice to stay off that slope earlier in the day...when we came back we saw the slide and tracks all over it. Glad noone was hurt and/or killed!

 

[Beartoothclimb]

your right it does





well my friend its called RASTA CHUTE and right out of the LOCALS mouth "STAY OFF RASTA IT ALWAYS SLIDES" but ive got one better for ya last year we seen the yammi hood all smashed laying on rasta!!
oh wait the local that told us this lost his best friend 10years ago on rasta

are you giving everyone the green light on a hill that always slides!!

last year slide on rasta in dec

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuc45gxLBc4

just what we have seen and been told by locals

Definetly not giving a green light. Just saying that you should not say something always slides even if it is a high frequency slider. People may easily mistake that if they do not see that path or paths have recently run, then it may be easy for them to extrapolate that other slopes with different aspect, etch are gonna be safer that day.

Also, recognizing recent events and knowing terrain should give people enough of a clue to stay safeand be able to use that knowledge in areas that they have never been and don't have any knowledge to go off of. Like in Doug's video, cooke received 2" swe in a very short time which should put up a giant red flag for anyone going out.


so here's my question to you. Should you teach people the proper way of identifying terrain and conditions or tell them which chutes slide the most? It's easy to identify high frequency slides but a lot of accidents happen on slopes that people considered "safe" and seem mellow.

 

[Motley Doo]

The beginning of 509 Evolution has a great vid of a huge avy, scary reminder of things that can happen!

 

[firecatguy]

Definetly not giving a green light. Just saying that you should not say something always slides even if it is a high frequency slider. People may easily mistake that if they do not see that path or paths have recently run, then it may be easy for them to extrapolate that other slopes with different aspect, etch are gonna be safer that day.

Also, recognizing recent events and knowing terrain should give people enough of a clue to stay safeand be able to use that knowledge in areas that they have never been and don't have any knowledge to go off of. Like in Doug's video, cooke received 2" swe in a very short time which should put up a giant red flag for anyone going out.


so here's my question to you. Should you teach people the proper way of identifying terrain and conditions or tell them which chutes slide the most? It's easy to identify high frequency slides but a lot of accidents happen on slopes that people considered "safe" and seem mellow.

I AGREE 100% learn to id terrain and snow pack!! need alot of work in that field myself..

 

[aebsledder]

Yep, that was us

Wow, great pic...was that up buck creek last year? If it was, I ran into you guys right after it happened.(I was on the M1000 and one of your group let me take his dragon 800 for a spin) If thats the slide I think it was, I was happy my buds and I made the choice to stay off that slope earlier in the day...when we came back we saw the slide and tracks all over it. Glad noone was hurt and/or killed!

That was us in the slide at buck creek. The guy on the dragon is actually the one who triggered it and he managed to not get hurt or killed. He was one of the guys in the other group, they actually helped us dig all our sleds out after. Not really his fault, he didn't know we were there. We were in that group of trees on the left. Doug Chabot did a little video on it the next day. Gives me chills just thinking about it.

 

[anziconda]

cmon guys...b/s obama threads get more replys than this and he'll damn sure never save us....

 

[tudizzle]

Here is one....dropped this little cornice a bunch of times then one person went up and it slides. Just goes to show that previous tracks is never a sign that things are stable.



Just a small soft slide....conditions were low to moderate that day.

http://media.putfile.com/boostdockavy

 

[Beartoothclimb]

So..........thought i'd put something up.

One overlooked aspect of avalanche burials is the shoveling out of the victim. Searching and probing are readily practiced but little to no effort is put into the practice of efficient shoveling. Remember, don't ride with a shovel on your sled, always have it in your pack on you.

Once you have probed the victim, you need to start digging. Do not dig directly down from where you probe is located. Go downhill slightly and start digging in towards the victim. You will move less snow doing this and also will not compromise the victim air pocket by trampling on it. One person should be at the front shoveling with more people behind the lead person moving the snow the front person shovels away from the hole. Think of it as a conveyer. The deeper the burial the more people that need to be moving the snow. The lead should also be chopping the snow into manageable blocks instead of hacking away towards the victim. when the lead gets tired, rotate shovelers.

Once the victim is found remember that the most important thing to uncover is the face for a reliable airway.

 

[Wheel House Motorsports]

always make sure you have some healthy diggers in your group, i hope i dont ever get burried, but if i do, my group are all some pretty darn in shape farm boys that can dig some holes!!!

on a serious note, as much fun as it is when yu get some fresh deep snow, everyone always wants to go and blast climbs and huge sidehills across the open stuff, but whenever we get more than a foot of fresh we try to stick to the trees, on the less than 20* sopes, might sacrafice a few nice lines, but its safe, so hard to complain. we had a day when i went out with a buddy and we went exlporing up this one logging cut, it had been a few years so the trees are all about 10 feet tall, with about 2-3 feet sticking out of the snow, as we rode up the hill, around 20-30 degrees, we would see the snow just settle beneath us, and you could see little fracture lines jutting across the snow, saw a few small slides, maybe an acre total including runout, needless to say we got to some flatter terrain.

biggest thing i can think of is pay attention to the snow when your riding. sometimes i like to try and trench in as deep as possible on a little turn out in a safe spot, this is like diggin an avy pit in like 5 seconds, easy to look at, just scrape the snow away with your shovel so its not all messed up from your track. i think we all are pretty aware its easy to throw down a 3-4 foot deep turnout pretty quick.

 

[airmanf]

Watch this video. It will definitely make a guy think twice about where he goes on certain days.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=2IItP7dVoYc

 

[Powderhound]

Watch this video. It will definitely make a guy think twice about where he goes on certain days.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=2IItP7dVoYc

I believe the rule is one guy on the hill at a time. !!!!!!!

 

[Uller]

Sorry if my observation was generalization to you. I just like to know the slopes that are common to slide and I stay off them at all times. Like I said, EVERY time I have been through there there is debris from a slide and I always see sled tracks on that slope. I don't climb there at all. Thanks for you input though, I definately don't want to mislead anybody at all...just thought a thread where people could talk about avys in any way...even if it helps one person decide not to go up a dangerous slope would be worthwhile...I welcome you to post some of your knowledge on reconizing terrain, maybe I could learn something usefull. What some people think is common knowledge could be helpfull for others.

As a general rule you should assume that each and every slope you like to ride on has the ability to slide. It is just a matter of temp, snow properties, and method of deposit. NOT A SINGLE SLOPE IS IMMUNE FROM AN AVALANCHE. Please spend the money and take the time to go to a hands on avalanche awareness/information course. This book (The ABC of Avalanche Safety by Edward R. LaChapelle) was a required read as part of the course I took. I highly suggest everyone who spends time in the mountains during winter read it.