Paradise Last weekend

[choss_crawler]

I'm just trying to figure out this whole backcountry thing out, so help me out here. Last weekend we went to paradise and hiked about half way to Camp muir to take some runs. We were eyeing the eastern slope off the ridge which the trail runs up(close to pan bowl). Anyways, I dug a pit and deemed the slope safe to ride (hard pack about 3 feet down under the softer stuff). So this group walks up and tells my friend that we are completely stupid and its a death wish to ride that slope. Were these guys just complete tool bags???

 

Did anybody make it up there on sunday??? Any opinions on the avalanche danger on the east facing stuff???

[AlpineK]

It depends on what the transition between layers is like, whether the new snow was windloaded, is the slope concave or convex, ect.

 

We weren't skiing anywhere near the big R, but things seemed pretty stable.

[ashw_justin]

I saw stable snow last weekend. There didn't appear to be any sliding layers or slabs. Rainier is extremely susceptible to avy conditions because there are more chances for sketchy layers to form (sun exposure comb. with temp. fluctuations around freezing) and for slab layers to form (strong winds). That said, if you dig appropriately and frequently without finding either of these, then that is reasonable evidence that skiing there is in fact not a death wish. Also you skied it and didn't die (another reason to believe that your assessment was correct).

[choss_crawler]

Thanks, we actually didn't end up hitting that run. Kind of pussed out after those guys came by.

 

Is it safe to assume that the lighter snow from this last storm will generally get packed enough after a couple more feet of snow??? I am sure it has already formed a harder top layer from wind and sun with soft underneath. Should we worry about this unstable layer all season long??? Or does it generally stabilize after enough snowfall on top?

[JoshK]

I go by two rules:

 

1.) Err on the side of caution. This one is pretty obvious and it seems you did that.

 

2.) Assume people giving you random beta are stupid. They may be, or they may not be, but that is why we have skills and brains - to figure out things for ourselves. I like to keep those decisions between me and my partner(s) unless I know that I am getting the information from a reliable source.

 

-josh

[Geek_the_Greek]

There are very few, if any, 'rules of thumb' in avalanche assessment that will guarantee safety. (I suppose staying home works.) If you haven't taken a comprehensive avalanche class, assume you know very little and should not trust your judgement. If this is the case, your best bet may be to just stay on top of the local avalanche forecast info, and generally stay away from anything remotely steep unless the danger rating is 'low'.

 

The kicker is that you will almost always get away with poor decisions. Bruce Tremper says ( Staying Alive in Avalance Terrain ) that slopes are generally stable 95% of the time. So if you know nothing, you can ski anything, and will be fine 19 times out of 20. I'm not sure that that 95% figure was derived in any sort of scientific way (maybe it's more like 89%, or 97%, in reality), but I'm not going to question someone with 20 years of experience doing this professionally. So in this manner, we all get away with bad decisions most of the time. I'm sure I've done it (skied slopes that could have slid) before, and I guess I just didn't get unlucky.

 

So no offense, Ashw, but your "you skied it and didn't die, so it was the right decision" advice is crap. Poor decisions are made all the time, and usually we get away with them. You will never know whether or not slopes you skied 'could have' slid or not. But you probably don't want to be hoping for that 19 out of 20 chance everytime you go out. So I agree with JoshK's beta: advice from random gapers out there is not to be trusted (it may or may not be correct), and you can't go wrong with an overly conservative approach.

[RocNoggin]

Is it safe to assume that the lighter snow from this last storm will generally get packed enough after a couple more feet of snow??? I am sure it has already formed a harder top layer from wind and sun with soft underneath. Should we worry about this unstable layer all season long??? Or does it generally stabilize after enough snowfall on top?

 

generally, dont expect any one thing to happen every time. it may stabilize or it may not, that is why you need to do assesments every time you go into the BC. and yes, you do need to worry about this layer all season long...and every other layer that may develope throughout the season. you never know which layer, old or new, might be the one that has reached its holding capacity and then gives out on you.

 

take an avy class so you can learn to trust your own judgement.

[JoshK]

The 19 out of 20 figure is very interesting. It's why so many snowboarders (ok, ok, a few skiers to ) with zero backcountry experience never get hurt while out of bounds in a place they have no business being. The chances are it won't happen *most* of the time, but 95% odds are pretty shitty when we are talking about your life.

[JayB]

Exhibit A being the recent slide-fatality near Berthoud Pass.

[Toast]

I think what's relevant is whether there's enough cohesion to form a slab, and whether there's enough weakness between layers beneath it to slide.

 

The hard pack you found 3' under is probably similar to what I ran into near Stevens Pass. I can't talk to the specifics of what you encountered, so I'll talk about what I found, a hardened ice layer about 1" thick and very well bonded (i.e. cohesively strong.) What worried me was what sat beneath, totally unconsolidated snow/ice crystals with no strength.

 

On the hike up, we heard audible whumps, lots of them and very eerie. That was essentially that hard plate collapsing 3' under us. If we were on a steep slope and that happened, that whole sheet would have slid atop the weak layer beneath. For our party and where we were, we decided to stay off of steep open slopes and kept to well anchored terrain in the trees.

 

I think any strength that builds in that 3' of snow above the hard plate will be a relief as it will be more predictable. As it is now, that thing you thought was hard pack, is really a fragile egg shell and very unpredictable.

[Dustin_B]

I'm sure the person that told you his opinion was only trying to keep you safe, he wasn't trying to keep you from having fun. Maybe his advice was legit, maybe it wasn't, but he was just keeping an open line of communication which is what we all should be doing all the time.

 

A danger with digging pits is misreading what your find, so it can be dangerous (and I'd say downright stupid) to trust your life solely on what you 'read' from the pit. The human, terrain, and weather factors together are more important than the pit and these are the factors you should be making your decision on. The snowpack analysis is only a small piece of the puzzle in helping you make your decision.

[Norman_Clyde]

It's unfortunate, but advice from strangers is so variable as to be useless. Some of the people urging caution may have a lot of experience and know much more than average, but there is just as much chance that they are just past newbiedom, think they're hot stuff, and get a rise out of playing the seasoned veteran.

 

I agree that a trip to Muir in current conditions poses many potential risks and that one pit may not tell them all. I personally have not taken an avy course, only read Tremper's book and followed the CSAC updates (which are a good way to keep sharp on the varied factors contributing to avy risk), plus done some BC travel (not a whole lot). So I may be one of those who has just enough knowledge to fool himself. But I'd say that most of the way up to Muir is low risk and it's not impossible to determine a relatively safe path up Pan Point, then avoid wind loaded slopes and terrain traps above that.

 

I just re-read the original post. It sounds like you all were looking to ski the eastern aspect of Alta Vista. If this is the slope you mean, it is probably one of the riskier slopes in that area, with an aspect that encourages slab formation and inhibits sun-warmed settling. Also, it will tend to be corniced due to prevailing winds. When I last looked at it, in April, it had continuous cornice across the rim. At that time it was dangerous even to approach the edge.

Edited December 8, 2005 by Norman_Clyde

[choss_crawler]

It definitely seemed consolidated from the hard pack down, unless there was a softer layer way down there. I definitely didn't hear the whumps though.

 

I know the cornice you are refering to, we were going to drop above and to the skiiers left of that where there was no cornice.

 

It's hard to stray from the ski area mentality of "hit anything and everything". But I guess thats the bitch about backcountry, we don't have the ski patrol controlling avalanches for us.

 

But then again dealing with crowds sucks.

[wolfs]

xpost that may be relevant:

http://www.turns-all-year.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=tr0512;action=display;num=1133763392

Note particularly 5th reply that reported seeing a natural or sympathetic release very close to an unknown solo skier.

I'd say that strangers' evaluations of temporal snow conditions I generally ignore; if you're going to use any kind of pit information, dig your own, most of the information you gain from a pit is extremely tactile.

What might be worth giving perhaps some credence to if coming from a stranger is the less temporal knowledge about stability history of particular slopes. Like others have said, the E slopes of Alta Vista and the steeper E slopes anywhere from McClure to PanPoint happen to have such a history.

Toast: Interesting you encountered whumpfing @ stevens Sunday 12/4; I noticed nothing like that (was in Tye Pk area).

[Camilo]

Brushing off some random person's opinions of avy conditions isn't the smartest thing to do. That person could know an awful lot more about avy conditions than you do. The best thing to do, in my humble opinion, is to ask why they're giving that particular assessment. If they give you some good reasons, you can add that to your own observations and let it help you make your decision. If they spout off some crap like "it just snowed a lot," then you should ignore them. Just my 2 cents.

[allsetcobrajet]

I agree that further questioning of the random passerby is necessary. However, I'm relatively new to backcountry skiing and sometimes worry that if I ask a somewhat basic beta question to an experienced skier out there, they'll say "Dude, if you don't know, you shouldn't be out here" or something like that. But in reality, every experienced backcountry skier I've talked to this season near Baker has been very helpful.

[crazy_t]

Hi Choss C. Some words, hopefully helpful. With your initial posting, the situation is too hazy and ambiguous; there are not enough facts; especially not for people responding to a post on a website to sort things out for you. "Facts" can be misleading too. What is clearly missing is experience assessing terrain, and snowpack. You "dug a pit and deemed the slope safe to ride (hard pack about 3 feet down under the softer stuff). " That's pretty loose; your language and lack of critical info maybe belies a pretty elementary understanding of snow science. It kind of seems like the other party rattled you and in hindsight you wouldn't mind support proving them wrong, or right. If I were you, I'd take this experience as a lesson to get training and the info you need to be able to make reliable assessments for yourself.

 

Get the book Snow Sense if you don't have it already, and work with it until you understand it (you can save the snow metamorphism section for later; it might be a bit much now, not helpful yet, I'm not sure).

 

Take an avalanche awareness class This winter. Gary Brill's are great, especially for the NW skier. You could likely run by your initial scenario with him to get more insight. But taking a level 1 course gives you the information you need to be able to gain experience, and be a more reliable member of a backcountry team (not a leader).

 

Get out with people more experienced than you, who are safe. Watching their process and protocols in the backcountry while safely expanding your experience is critical. Go with people with whom you have mutual respect, know are safe, and can have a good time. Taking a level 1 course 1st will make you a more eligible partner.

 

With time you will begin to know where your experience lies, and select appropriate objectives and conditions on your own.

 

I don't mean to have a teacher vibe (although I've taught avy classes), but think that picking up random bits of advice extrapolated from a limited presentation of your experience might be misleading or dangerous. Red flags I saw were your language; a somewhat ambiguous description of the slope, and the fact that others swayed you after you had made your initial assessment. That area above Paradise is subject to wind (generally from the S and W, which may load E facing slopes); has local terrain traps (gullies and rocks, and some of the slopes are connected to much bigger ones), and is exposed in general to weather and sun. A few feet of powder on a hard crust may be OK in one spot, but subject to sliding 10' away. Learn about terrain, snowpack and weather, and how it affects stability throughout avalanche terrain; travel using safe techniques uphill and downhill, and err always on the conservative side, at least until you have more experience.

 

Backcountry is where it's at; part of the satisfaction comes from safely and successfully combining your experience with your goals, aesthetic and objective.

Edited December 12, 2005 by crazy_t