Benchmark Pit Report 01/10/12
Tuesday I made the most of the sunny afternoon to shoot up to the top of Benchmark, poke around and see what’s going on back in EV. Skinning out from Two Elk’s, it’s pretty obvious we are no where near the much needed snow pack to get things rolling in the back bowls. I love the sunshine, but seeing a brown-out on all the south facers that were caked deep only twelve months prior is a bit of a downer. Guess the snow is only hanging in the shade and baking in the sun. The slopes are littered with surface hoar, caused by the clear night’s frost and the sunshine baking bonds into weak facets.
Storms like this past Saturday’s is a little more what we could use three times a week for the rest of the month, but let’s face it, what’s here is now… and now we have a pretty weak snow pack. Studying the avy roses of the CAIC, the weakest areas should lie on the east facing slopes in the Vail-Summit Zone. I decided that’s exactly where I would belay to a shaded 38 degree slope on the NE side of the tall pines that separate East Abe’s and the open east facing slopes of Benchmark. Reason being, this is most likely where persistant weaknesses will remain throughout this season’s snow pack.
I harnessed up and tied in with the glacier line around a stout tree. Please be clear, it is not my intention to rope off and start popping off slides on purpose. A safety line is in every guide’s pack and is an extremely important tool for any back country traveler. Not to mention, it is the 8th Commandment in Bruce Tremper’s “Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain”: “Thou shalt use a Belay rope! Most serious avalanche professionals carry and use a belay rope.”
I am not an avalanche professional (yet), but I do posses the knowledge and self-preservation skills to have a 30m glacier line as a part of my BC toolkit. Hopefully it’s a last resort preventative from crack, pop, pin-ball ride through trees and a push off a cliff.
I dug a pit in what could be the sweet spot of a likely starting zone. During the careful descent amongst sloughing loose snow and little failures of the top layer my observations showed that there weren’t any cracks propagating off into the distance, but the small failures under my skis were enough to be wary of.
Got settled in, dug the “pit” and started to gather some data. There are presently as of 1/10/2012, 3:00pm above 11,400 ft. East Vail Proper, three layers to this shallow 70cm “snow pack”. The bottom 30cm is basically larger facets slightly bonded resting on depth hoar. The next 30-55/60cm are comprised of faceted loose grains and the very top layer 55-70cm is the last storm accumulation. The exposed snow is already riddled with surface hoar. Doesn’t look too great for the future, but some avi cycles are likely to occur with a big snow and flush this particular zone of some of those pesky white dragons for the time being. The snow pack is constantly changing and this does not mean that those dragons will not creep back into the mix in the future. So, beware.
An isolated column test resulted in the top 58-70cm layer failing after four shots from the wrist. Not too surprising, while the break was not completely a shear one (Q3). Four shots from the elbow failed at the 30-58cm range, again not a clean break (Q3). Under the right conditions, I’m sensing a collapse in these weaker layers after a good snowfall, or a human loads them.
For the real snow nerds out there (myself included), I measured the temps of the pack to see if there were any major gradients. Chose to use 20cm increments to measure within the noticeable layers and came up with 0 deg. Celsius at 10cm, -1.7 at 30cm, -3.4 at 50cm and -6 at 70cm. Towards the bottom 10-30cm that’s 8.5 deg/m, 17 deg/m in the middle
and 13 deg/m at the top. The numbers below 30cm represent a weak temp gradient (<10 deg. C/m). The rest of the snow pack has a strong temp gradient (>10 deg. C/m), and results in a loss of strength with facet formation. Math aside, we have plenty of weak snow to make conditions unfavorable in the future.
Cautiously negotiating my away from terrain traps and cliff bands, I skied my way to the lower angled aspect of East Abe’s and made some really fun turns. Crossing the creek and sticking skier’s right, I rode through the deeper shaded snow amongst the short pines until the waterfall. The ride was sugary and mellow. After the falls, the traverse left into the woods and the scarcely packed ski trail was extremely variable. We definitely need some serious snow in those woods to make the ride back to the bus a little less rough. The last bit of the trail is packed down by some snowmobiles and make the last portion along the water tower a welcoming slide home.
Not bad for my first “benchmark to water tower” trip of the year. Grand from afar, far from grand. It will be interesting to see how the snow pack in the zone evolves and how conditions will change as our season trudges on. Glad I was able to take the afternoon for some recon and gauge conditions until the next storm. Until then, keep it safe and pray for more snow!
1/9/12 Head pentrometer test in Tweeners
Went out back today with a couple of friends to the mysterious land of East Vail for a reunion. The recent vail eight(see four real) inch storm was a welcome change and a psychological victory for the valley. Far from curing all woes for lack of snow, the day long storm at least made the landscape look like actual winter. Snow in the trees, covering the ground and the majority of the bare spots on the mountain were the biggest benefit from the snowstorm. At least now we know it can snow and whatever horrible pattern of beautiful weather we have endured changed for a little while.
Luckily, we have avoided the fate of resorts like Squaw, which closed outright this past week. Hopefully more snow in store for us on Wendsday but nothing sustained which is what we really need in this mid-season game of snowpack catch up.
Upper scarp area of Tweeners was rock hard with about five inches of new, medium density snow on it. There were a couple other tracks and we noticed no signficant sluffing from their turns. The gullies in Benchie had evidence of natural new snow sluffs sometime during or after the storm that ran to the first bench after the first cliffs. Nothing significant, not really that much new snow to make it so. Most of Benchmark looks like a mini-evergreen forest and is unskiable in the areas that ran.
The choke in Tweeners is a three-foot wide frozen bush slide on to a frozen scraped out track. My attempt to hop the bush and ditch speed to skier’s right was met with acceleration out to the skier’s right side of the exit, towards the fresh snow next to the trees. I made the move to test the density change in the snow with my head three different times.
As I tumbled through snow and bushes, I had time to reflect on an early season that has been filled with too much time on groomers and my bike and not nearly enough time in the backcountry on skis, as evidenced by my triple lindy. I stopped rotating and took the mental inventory that is required after a good, meaty fall. Everything intact and working. Skied toward the sound of laughter which led me to my ski partners. Jeremy let me know he has it all on Go Pro. You Tube gold. I don’t fall often any more, a testament to my I’m-old, if I’m upside down it’s a problem, not fun, style of skiing. When it does happen, it is a sight to see.
The middle of Benchie drainage skier’s right after Tweeners in the fields skied well, actual shin/knee deep powder turns in mostly consolidated fresh snow. There were spots where the skis sank and dove, but had I had some enjoyable turns through the middle.
Had to walk out around the corner of the west face that leads to the lower traverse out, but no more than five minutes of hoofing it.
We we able to pick our way down the lower aspen glades with coverage minimal and the snow punchy. We stayed on skis all the way out to the water tank, which was a bonus. Definite survival skiing down low but worth it to actually get to try out the AK JJ’s on something other than groomers.
Snowpack didn’t change at all with the new snow. Loose facets and rounds still make up the majority of the pack. New snow aheared well to the hard pack underneath, surprisingly. Cut the skier’s top right middle on my entrance to Tweeners to see if there was any energy, but nothing popped.
Vail resort deals well with the low snow does a masterful job of moving snow around to make the skiing good as it can be. East Vail really highlights just how low we really are. The middle of Benchie is two feet short of being viable and the run out is arduous. Be careful out there.
Mushroom bowls 12/27-12/28
With the holiday crowds closing in, I skinned my way up to Mushie two days in a row to check out the snow on both the West and North aspects in the gladed 20-30 degree terrain for something to do. The ridge top had variable areas of 10 cm wind board on facets to soft wind blown crust over, you geussed it, more facets, to dirt patches. The first five upper low angle turns off the ridgeline were decent, fresh turns on stale cake. As the pitches steepened and rolled toward the cliff band that runs in the middle of Mushroom Bowl, the skiing turned to a barely covered nightmare of no more than 60 cms of 2mm facets on rocks and fallen trees. The best way to describe a weighted ski turn two thirds of the way down is hitting a sandcastle with a baseball bat. The snow looses cohesion, disintegrates under the weight and the facets run to the dirt in a glittering hiss below the turn. A frightening prospect for a basal layer for our snow pack when (think positive) our weather cycle does turn back to snow.
If we continue to get small amounts of snow with long periods of calm weather in between, then avalanche wise it’s really no problem, it will just be a low tide year for the central mountains like most of AK’s mountains had last year. However, if we do see an averaging out of the snowfall amounts in the last two thirds of the season, then I have to imagine we will have a signifigant avalanche cycle with the first large dump. With the depth of snow in EV ranging from dirt to sixty cm of loose facets that on both West and North aspects, a two foot dump would rip to the ground with little effort with any kind of rapid loading of typical cold low density mid-winter snow on such a weakly bonded base layer. Our best hope is precip to come in warm and wet and alot of it. Or a storm comes in with such rapid loading that EV flushes itself out naturally overnight and cleans out what has become a forgettable early season mess on all aspects.
Something else to check out. Noaa has an interesting report on their website on the effect La Nina will have on Colorado weather for the rest of the winter. Much of it is super technical, but it is interesting to read the atmospheric science based precipitation predictions for the next six months. I won’t ruin it for you, check it out and draw your own conclusions.
It was a relief to get out into Mushie and skin far far away from the madnesss happening with the holidays in Vail. Just passing Two Elk helped my personal holiday decompression. The lack of sno, however trying, fails to make the skin up to the top of Benchie any less beautiful. The black, grey and white spattered Gore range, gaunt and bare, stretched into a sky littered with purple and grey clouds streaming in from the Northwest. A few tendrils of snow stretched down to touch the very tops of the Gore Range, but the wisps were wishful thinking for a range that is now feet away from average. I enjoyed standing on the top of Benchie again, wind howling and no one around. Pretty much ski hiked the last two thirds of the run both days to the road, but I enjoyed the taste of the EV experience that I have, admittedly, taken for granted over the last fourteen years.
Old Man’s 11/7/11
Hey all,
Headed out into the bluebird Wendsday afternoon, eager to escape the groomed confines of early season Vail. I decided to head to the emptiness of EV. I skinned up Sourdough and headed past Two Elk, where the workers were just starting to pull out the picnic tables from the stacks. The back was empty and parts of the West Wall sat pasted an early season brown and white. Up the Silk Road I went and headed out the back door route to Old Mans’. It was nice to get out and stand on top of the ridge and take in the expanse of EV once again, though it looked vastly different than the last time I stood on the ridge. The prominent cliff band off the right side Old Mans’ entrance, which disappeared some time in January last year, was in full view now. At present it lies just below the ridge crest, but after a half season of regular snow load, the cliff band is at least thirty to forty feet below the entrance. The growth of the scarp above the cliff band is a true testement to the amount of snow transport that occurs at this spot due to the prevailing Westerly winds. Rocky tiers, cliffs and shrubs belie what was a smooth, fast entrance crowned by a massive cornice eight months ago.
I picked my way through the entrance and dove between rocky ledges and shrubbery, taking time to cut various pillowed pockets between rockbands. These small wind drifted areas provide good test spots for stability. There was little reactivity, and the old settled storm snow sitting on the usual layer of larger loose “October” facets skied like two feet of baking soda feeling unconsolidated and, of course, thin.
I skied cautiously to the flats and headed out to the highway instead of braving the thin cross cut over to the bus stop. I linked super slow pow turns in the trees on my way down, working my way past the half buried stumps and downed trees toward the highway. More snow than I thought, but two feet away from glory… Paitence friends and think snow.
Sunset Over EV
Taken from Uneva Peak, this shot was submitted from one of our FB friends Lucas. Thanks! A beautiful view and with December coming, we’re staying positive for snow!
2012 Season Preview
New video is live! Some of our favorite hits from last year and a few bits footage left on the cutting room floor. Big air, cliff drops, deep pow, and tight trees…all the usual fare from us. We put this up to get psyched for the 2012 season…here’s to hoping it’s a lot like last year! The Black Keys provide the sounds.
4/15/11 report
Hey all,
The reports of EV demise are greatly exaggerated. Skied the old mans again yesterday, continuing the spring old mans addiction and found winter like snow conditions with the three or four inches of fresh snow. Continuing to keep the notch viable with the saw for those who dare venture into old mans. The cornice continues to grow, a bulging overhung mass that now looms over the entire bowl. I’m sure there is a formula for the energy released by this death star sized snow load if it fell, something I’d love to see (from a significant distance). The drop in in requires putting that image out of your mind and railing it.
The end of the poma is my favorite time of year for EV. Traffic slows to a crawl, reminiscent of ten years ago, when you could count the number of tracks on one hand in Benchie and Old Mans. Conditions are the best I’ve ever seen for this time of year. An EV with winter snow and not one bare spot on April 15 is something that hasn’t happened since I’ve started skiing back out in EV. I’m truly an old fart so that’s saying something.
If your willing to skin a little longer, the reward is worth it. Peace.
Friends…
East Vail Institute 