1/23/12
Sunny after powder day in vail, but not much enjoyment in it after the tragic death of a 13 year old local skier. Bombs were resonating all day in the Vail area, with slides happening in places I’ve never seen before inbounds, like lower Sugar Mountain. We went out to check out expected releases in EV after the storm and reported near misses from yesterday and had no expectations of skiing. Had been two days since I had been back, purposely taking time off due to dangerous conditions. Saw evidence of natural and probable skier triggered avalanches, some of them considerable size. Check out the photos on Luke’s report.
Looked like yesterday was an active one, as slides, cracks and debris were all evident on E-NE slopes, a big one in West Marvin’s. Below treeline had evidence of large cracking and piles of debris indicating stability was terrible down lower in the trees yesterday as well. Heard a report of a partial burial below treeline yesterday but don’t know the details, I believe CAIC has the report.
Glad no one died in EV over the weekend, really thought it might happen. Hard to believe inbounds, though. Not much else to say. Hope to get back to enjoying the pow, but wondering if that is in the cards this season. Had some good skiing and didn’t see any new activity today, but in light of recent events, it doesn’t matter. Pow skiing should be fun not tragic.
Recent Activity 1/23/12
Went up with no expectations today. Caution was on high. Saw the activity under blue-sky’s famous cornice and took notice.
We encountered a couple other riders on the skin up, as well as at the top of Benchie. We all talked about our observations and our plan of action. They had mentioned having observed avi activity next to Tele-Line. The activity was visible from the top in a couple different areas. Let them go ahead and waited for a long time for them to make their descent. They did not set off any new activity.
The initiation was on the downhill side of the cliffs, potential release area for both natural and human triggered slides. Ranged from 0.2m-0.6m. deep and ran a ways downslope.
Evidence of two slides can be seen here, one during the last storm the other since yesterday. Also noted, were shooting cracks and obvious instability in the open glades. Further down to our riders right was a much more significant avi event that ran much farther.
Depth of some of the crown surface was an esimated 0.4m-0.6m.
Did not approach slides due to the presence of hangfire and obvious signs of instability. Stuck to lower angle pitches and skied amongst tall pines that were possible anchors for the weak snowpack. Below treeline, more cracking below the traverse through the aspens was observed.
Signals were everywhere and careful route planning and good decsion making are a must. Stay safe!
Friday / Saturday Observation
The trip to EV on Friday was an interesting one. Without a doubt best pow turns of my season, however it was also the most high stake avi danger day as well. Had multiple signs of weak snow pack, wind, numerous whoomfs, cracks, and even triggered a few small slides on both open faces and trees north-through-east. The aspect skiers right of our line had slid rather large and rather disturbingly as it is a line I have skied weekly in past seasons. Martineast recapped the day well here and I only regret not having a camera to take some shots.
In an effort to feed the need Saturday, I went out all geared up for another EV lap, keeping in mind I would most likely be turning back and skiing in-bounds with a fully loaded pack. After some quality lift chair time I reached the top of Sourdough and decided I’d keep my self busy with some beacon training and to check the snow to see if the drop in temperature had improved the snow pack.
After beacon basin, I searched to find areas which represented the terrain I had been skiing yesterday and just as I had expected, the snow was still rotten — super rotten. Below are pics from a “hasty pit” I dug in a north-east facing tree’d area similar to the terrain and aspect where I had encountered the most activity two days prior.
Looking at the photos, you do not need to be a snow scientist to understand what is causing the high risk conditions in our surrounding area. Keep in mind, this photo was taken on a treed northeastern slope, the same aspect as many tree lines in EV.
The photo above with the shovel clearly illustrates the newly fallen snow on a super consolidated layer created by warm temps and wind supported by an extremely faceted snow layer. After digging and looking at the snow I was convinced to turn around.
With the newly fallen snow Saturday night / Sunday morning, it will be hard to resist heading out for some fresh turns. The already crazy high avalanche danger persists. This pit shows that even in the trees and in areas we may think are safe, we aren’t. Stay inside the ropes for now…
1/20/12 Tele Line Revisit
Crazy swings in temperature last few days. 13 below to 40 above in a couple of days with a rain snow mix yesterday in town. Switched to snow to the valley floor sometime Thursday night and woke to two inches on my deck with warm temperatures again.
Went with my buddy Paulie out to Tele Line where we had skied the last storms’ snow on supportable crust, bypassing anything steep(30+ degrees)and north facing again. The constant weather factor for the last few days has been the jet stream wind, up again and howling on the ridges out of the northwest. Same deal today as the next front intensified around 12:30 and started dumping a heavy wet, Pac-Northwest style snow. Nice storm skin as the only two other travelers were ahead of us and disappeared into the white out above the poma.
Hitting the point, the winds were calm again as on Wednesday, and the east-facing run was slathered in twenty cms of dense new snow up top. Did a quick hasty pit, similar shallow pack as Wednesday with the new snow supported by the crust underneath. I went first, skiied through the initial rock pillows and ditched it the trees early and waited for Paulie. No activity. Paulie dropped and met me in a cluster of dense old growth. The upper section skied well and the dense snow was nice supportive powder turns of the year. Bliss.
As we entered the middle section, things changed dramatically. We leapfrogged down to the traverse out, staying next to the ridgeline. Paulie let me know he was triggering whoomphing and propagating cracks in areas that I had skied. The thirty pound differential between us was enough to make the difference and allow him to punch through the saturated crust and trigger failure. We regrouped and went farther into the old stands. Entering lower elevations and into the rain/snow mix layer from the night before, the dense new snow wasn’t adhering to the increasingly saturated melt freeze crust. Bottom line the lower we got, the higher the avalanche danger became. We were able to traverse out in cracking boot top on ground dense snow to the aspens. If we get the snow predicted on Saturday and the pack on the Benchie traverse out becomes deep enough to slide, the traverse out could be treatcherous.The aspens down low were extremely sensitive, and shooting cracks and small slab collapses were all over, even worse than the cracking on Wednesday. Again Paulie, being a beast, was triggering areas I didn’t all the way to the bus.
Snow Pack Discussion.
After Paulie triggered the whoomphing and cracking in the middle elevations of Tele Line, we staged at some trees and I crept out and dug a hasty pit. (Yep it’s a bona fide real pit with NO SAW, it actually has a place in the world of snow science.) On the go assessment. A lot going on in the 60cm snowpack. Bottom 20 cms, 3 mm loose facets. Next, a five mm melt-freeze crust, pencil hard. Following this, fifteen cms of smaller loose facets, 2 mm. On top of this, another four to five mm melt-freeze crust again, finger hard, increasingly saturated as elevations lowered. Topping the cake was the 20-25 dense wet snow in the spot I was at, a sheltered spot, east facing around the middle of the line. (the depth of new snow varied drastically in different aspects and elevations. We were on a eastern aspect, with a good view of north east.) All propagating fractures were easily Q1 shears, but didn’t run any distance.
Paulie was collapsing the crust from mid elevations down and the storm snow was running on the collapsed crust on loose facets below. Danger was even higher today, than it has been in the last few days, especially in lower elevations N-E aspects. Didn’t get to test any W aspects at any elevation recently, but I assume similar types of results. We saw evidence of slab releases in NE aspects at 9500 ft and below. Temps have cooled off since the storm moved through and have skies cleared. Hopefully this will lock up some of the moisture and settle things, but this is just spray(a new phrase I learned today).
Concerned about Saturday, weekend crowds and the lure of pow will have intrepid souls venturing back there in very high danger. Hope all goes well, please let us know if you are out and see anything. Be safe. EVI
1/18/12 Trip Report from Colby D. and Crew Snow Pit Study Equals No Go
Wanted to share this trip report from reader Colby D.:
On our way out we stopped at the BCA park n did some practice digs. We saw Paul there and said he made it out to East Vail earlier but decided to come back (red flag 1). Decided to go anyway. Once we started to go through the windloaded areas I jumped off the track to give it a feel. I felt the snow dropping with every step and in my tracks you could see almost 2 inch air pockets on both sides (red flag 2). So we quick dug a pit. Again I am not a pro and didn’t have a saw so it was a janky pit but it had all the signs saying don’t go. the top footish in the first pit didn’t even hold up and make it to a compression test, second one did but fractured on the first hit from the wrist. that alone was enough to convince us not to go but then we noticed bellow where we had stepped of our splits there were fracture marks to (red flag 3). This on top of the fact there had been slide action in the area, we hit a few fun turns through mushy trees where the snow was heavy but had no problems.
Had a single binocular which was super cool to look at the snow crystals with
you can see the soft sugar snow under the hard layer half way up then the top is windloaded, also some punch tests
First column attempt, we didn’t have a saw so we cut it as clean as we could but it fractured before even the first set of compression tests.
Since we decided against east vail yesterday from the top we decided to hike a run we do fairly often with the dogs. I think people refer to it as half chute. regardless we were gonna hike up through the woods as we have an established boot pack and you’re never in any high risk areas. It was a rugged hike and it seemed wicked warm today. the snow was super sticky and heavy. Once we got to the top the snow had gotten lighter so we decided to dig around and check the snow out. We had already broken the top zone into mellow sluff slides in the trees on two prior occasions so we were wondering if it was much different than the area we dug yesterday.
the pups loving the deep snow
As we started clearing out the area there was a small fracture.
I increased the contrast on this shot and you can easily see the different layers, harder on top, softer underneath. Shitty but we came to this area because there is little consequence with the crappy pack.
Kinda tough to tell what;s going on here but the bottom block slide of the sugar pile above it on the 7th wrist compression. Further proving the consequential areas of east vail could leave you having a real bad day.
Brian and Goomba getting read to drop. The snow was super heavy, but it was fun and a good workout.
Thanks to Colby and his crew for the report and pics. We appreciate it andalways welcome outside content and comments-EVI
1/18/12 EV Thursday Where’s the Snow? High Avi Danger Continues
Big storm was supposedly headed our way. The jet is on us and it looked promising for last night. The blob NOAA showed us coming in from the Northwest made giddy as a schoolgirl. Huge and dipping below AK towards us, finally in a more west to east pattern. Bring it. I went to bed with powder dreams dancing in my head.
Woke up to another swing and a miss, somehow it went from 1000 percent chance of snow and a blizzard warning to really nothing. All bark no bite. A reoccurring theme this year, not sure how NOAA got it so wrong. Again. Now Saturday looks better, but, but honestly I give up on getting excited for storms that NOAA predicts for us this year.
Wednesday saw the temperatures and humidity rise with the incoming front. The recent new snow down lower in the aspens by our second run had begun to settle and were cracking, although not propagating more than a few feet as we plowed through it. A great indicator that even at lower elevations in the trees, the possibility of avalanching is on the rise. Rapid change in any piece of the avalanche puzzle weather, wind, temperature is always a warning sign for increasing avalanche danger.
Cracks in the Trees
Winds are still up, and the loading continues. 21 is open today, so the skin out won’t be as long. Two yesterday and my legs are feeling it. Might be taking the day off and writing hate mail to NOAA. Be careful out there, anything in the North facing, wind loaded aspects that haven’t ripped have a good chance of going at all elevations. Really a strange year so far to say the least.
1/18/12 Trip Report: Tele Line
Day off from Troy’s today and I was eager to get back out to EV to see what the ten inches and jet stream winds had done to the north facing aspects of East Vail. I definitely was concerned and I had a feeling that Avi rating was easily considerable as CAIC had reported, and probably more like high danger specifically in EV due to what had been occurring weather/wind wise over the last two days. If I was heading out I was going to make damn sure I was in good company. I was. I met up with our snow science and event coordinator Luke, along with Haines heli guide extraordinaire Will at the Visti. Solid.
Spooky day all around. The constant sound of the bombs tossed by Vail Ski patrol resonated over the howling ridge top winds. The bruised, purple grey clouds thickened and lowered all day over the scoured moonscape of the Gore. Small tendrils of snow touched the tops of the peaks, but nothing from the predicted blizzard yet.
Geared up at Two Elk and we were off. The skin up to chair twenty-one was spent catching up with Will, hadn’t skied with him since Valdez. Luke and I skinned listening to stories of Haines spines, helicopters, film crews and Oakland Raiders Cheerleaders that were so over the top they had to be true.(Check out This is My Year to see what Will, Xavier De La Rue and crew and SEABA have been up to) Our storm day was rolling along. The high winds had transformed the rippling ridge lines and angular faces of the Gore Range into a peppery black, brown and white moonscape as all the storm snow that wasn”t locked down was now in Kansas.
Up behind chair twenty-one, we get our first indicator of how things are gonna be . Patrol holds us up at the backside of the lift. Blasting over in Red Square, Wayne the patroller says, fifteen minute wait. No problem, EVI has nothing but total respect for patrol, so we hung out.
I turned to check out the area behind the lift that drops into Mushroom Bowl a saw a good size slide had ripped out with Patrol’s two pound bomb. Another patroller and a Vail photographer were perched on top a hanging block checking it out. 150 ft wide, two to three feet deep winds slab failing on the old snow/new snow interface, a knife hard, wind scoured crust. It ran over the roll and into the trees. Same place behind the path to China Wall that ripped a week ago. It’s a great test slope as the 3o plus westerly winds load it fiercely. Luke Will and I took notice and headed out as soon as they let us. Wind loading was, no doubt, going to be a factor on our route decision.
Behind Orient Express
Top of the World and we started poking around. Small cracking as Will checked out skier’s left off the top, left side of Abe’s. Punchy thigh deep on the windward, north facing Benchmark side. On the ridge top and the lee side of the ridge, it was scoured and bushes and rocks poking through, by far the thinnest I’ve ever seen EV on the Top of the World in January. We all took a look over the ridge, assessed it, then we talked about it. We decided we didn’t want to mess with the loading in the left side of Abe’s, even though other tracks were already in the far skier’s left trees of the run. We all felt pretty sure it was going to rip, probably at the first rollover that steepened to 35 degrees and had the punchy wind slab(80 plus cms)There are small shelf cliffs that make a great trigger points off the top and this area releases often after storms.
The decision was made to go ski the more sheltered and lower angle East facing run off Joint Point, the Tele Line. The snow pack was going to be shallower over there due to the East facing sunhit and lack of windload. It was coated and blank and looked like a better option.
Scooted down the ridge to the corner at Joint point. Dug a hasty pit. The snow pack was weak of course, but very shallow, 30 cms and had new snow over a condensed crust over 2 mm facets. Better than off the top of Benchmark. Pulled out the handle of Little Pepe, and offered the drop to Will. Skipping over the stepdown, snow coated rocks, Will took off down the left side. The snow held with variable boot top to knee fresh on a thin pack. Luke dropped next, me last. Regrouped and leapfrogged down the pitch. Powder??? Dense, wind affected but yes, it counts. Finally, after all this wait. Thank you baby Jesus( I had to work the ten inch day morning).
Made our way down through soft snow on tops of the dead grasses to the aspen cut over, ignoring the now familiar sound of rock grinding edge (my route involved twenty-five yards of ski hiking a new sport) and picked our way to the bus. The out is still a pain in the ass. Nice trip and at the bus we all agreed that we made the best of what was available and headed in to town, John pulling up at the moment we stepped out of our skis.
Second round I met up with Tom and Stew from Snowell at the Poma shack and with the first run info we all decided to roll back to Tele Line. Had gotten a text on the Visti from J that his group (just after us in the morning) had skied left side Benchmark(Abrahams’) and had ripped out a quarter of the bowl while poking around on the edge. It broke below them and no one was caught. Eager to see the aftermath, I hustled ahead to the TOTW and rolled over the edge to see a 100 ft wide eighteen inch to two foot crown starting from the ridge over the Mushroom Rock area, stepping down. It rolled past the flats and through the second cliff band, to the next flats. Again the interface betweenpencil/ knife hard scoured scarp covered with the recent windslab was the culprit, triggered by the weight of a skier at the cliffs. HS-AS-R2-D2-I (look it up on Google).
Benchmark slide photo (courtesy of Tom Birmingham)
Checking It Out
Second Tele line was just as good as the first. Both Tom and Stew seemed glad to get the first run monkey off their backs for the season. Again the East face held the snow and no activity and blissfully out of the wind. Thanks to them for letting me tag along with their group and for the pictures.
EV Time Machine
So the snow has fallen and we are on the cusp of the “Full On” EV season. Too many red flags for us to venture back into EV today with the peaks flagging hard and the obvious avi activity in the back bowls off Two Elks. Took Martin’s advice and rolled up on a perfect powder day in the untouched Beacon Park. Scraped the rust off my single and multiple burial skills and waxed the time to under 3 minutes. Try and hold your breath for 3 minutes, imagine it being a lot worse when you/your buddies are buried and counting on each other to rescue them/you in time.
Hopefully, the two groups of skiers that braved the obvious warning signs and B-Lined back to EV or Mushie today are super dialed in. After meeting up with some of the crew, it was a no brainer to let the potential human avi bombs go do their work sans EVI. Besides, it was a perfect blue day to go rip Colorado’s finest packed pow.
We had a ton of fun ripping the front side and staying out of the danger zone. Sometimes you have to make your own decision to hang it up. I ultimately made the personal decision to not risk my season or my life based on my observations and gut feeling on the day. Tomorrow is another day and you can bet if all adds up to a safe drop, we’ll be back there doing what we do best!
Now that I’m safe and all cozy in my abode, I was digging through some folders and came across some notable pix from the snowmageddon season of 2010-2011. Just take a gander at these pics from 1/16/2011 and compare them to the pix in the Benchie Pit post… huge difference, enjoy.
1/17/12 Boom Goes the Dynamite
Pass it to the man and boom goes the dynamite! Finally, a no doubter. The last of the MLK weekenders returned their stuff at Troy’s ski shop today as the snow fell and the weather was in and out all day. ( the best shop by far in the valley, especially for fat ski lovers, shameless plug here). I had a couple of 303er’s bitching that the storm “had passed through and is over Winter Park now.” Obviously, if you didn’t know, the weather patterns and storms are synced to the vacation plans of our guests. I would have to guess the two had Winter Park plans for a mid-week escape from the Front Range. “Marge, cancel my appointments, Goddammit I’m gonna go ski Mary Jane.” Who was I to crap on their sandwich? Inside I chuckled a little, as the storm was barely even there as these guys departed back down the hill around noon. Now it’s 11 pm here in EV and the wind and snow continues( I’m sure it’s dumping at Winter Park, too, it’s o.k guys).
On a much more serious note, the accumulation is getting there, upwards of ten inches up top by now with significant wind loading. I didn’t head out today, so I have no new beta on what is going on in EV. I do, however, have a good idea what tomorrow will bring. Hopefully the arenas we need to rip will release naturally tonight during the storm, but that really is just hoping. Throwing out the black flag guys all aspects elevations, which means if you are planning to head out you need to have your stuff wired tight. I’ll go out on a limb and predict that we will see significant avalanche activity in the next 24-48 hours based on the weak base, the new fresh snow availible for transport and the forecast for 30 to 40 mph winds. Boom.
It’s zero to a hundred in a day, and by being lulled in to complacency by months of no snow, this is a dangerous time for us backcountry travelers still getting the feet wet in the midst of a storm on a bad snow pack. Let’s look out for each other out there and use good protocol. Deep breath, ready, go.
Fear and Loathing 1/13/12
The day after my showdown in Old Man’s I was back out in the mix. Not for the great skiing, but for a dubious anniversary. EV lost a great skier on this day some years ago in King Tut’s during one of the biggest seven-day cycles I’ve ever seen. I wandered up on the accident in a different party and ended up recovering Gus with a good friend of mine. A sobering reminder that there is a fine line between pushing it and pushing it too far. It was the first pack of the day and other friends rounded out the locals only group.
I was seriously spooked from yesterdays verification of a trigger happy snowpack, and was all about a crappy Mushie run. I let everyone know about what had transpired the day before and let them make up their own minds. We had come in separate groups and a group of geared up quickly and stood ready at the small tree platform above the skier’s left entrance of Abraham’s. I couldn’t resist the urge to spot them and see what was going to go down. I called coming and skied up to them, happy to let someone test the left side of Abe’s first. A shelf like cliff guards the entrance and is a prime spot to trigger a release. I’ve seen it break and flush at the exact spot.
They dropped, cut left into the denser tree slots. Both were able to cut left and then descend without incident. Other groups joined me at the spot and then took turns skiing similar lines. Nothing. It sounds crazy, but I was a little disappointed. All this build up from yesterday and I ended up crying wolf. I realized that I had let yeaterday’s incident and the fact of Gus’ tragic aniversary skew my judgement and assesment of a different day, different conditions in a very different area. The human factor by far, both the positive and negative aspects, is the most variable of all.
After six people had gone, Big J wanted to bring up the rear, so I gathered myself and dropped over the shelf cliff and into the left hand slot of Abe’s. The snow was at the knee and a little wind whipped, the fear of punching through in the back of my mind. It was evergreen slalom, and had to be wary of catching a non-exposed part of a tree or log.
The evergreens anchored the snow pack and combined with a day of settlement, the snowpack seemed to be a little calmer.
Aired over the little choke and into the flats and to my ski partners, happy to have gotton the first Abe’s out of the way. A few deep pow turns, thankfully without incident on a perfect day was just what I needed. Big J and I took our time and skied out with Brenden stopping along the way to enjoy the day and remenisce. I caught a glimpse on the way out of Old Man’s and turned away quickly, wanting to be in the moment and put it a literally and figuratively behind.
Friends…
East Vail Institute 