Boarders at Crystal Mountain

[sobo]

Split from the recent "Hikers at snowlake" thread in the Climber's Board:

 

Then there's this...

 

We've been pinged. The plane has sighted a recent avalanche in the area where these guys would likely be boarding.

 

I can't go, as I'm going under the knife Friday and I have pre-op tomorrow.

I fear for these guys...

It now appears that the search for these three has been suspended indefinitely. There is talk of going back up to search the BC slopes later this summer.

[AlpineK]

That's too bad. Most folks skiing around there don't get that far away from the road, but there are a lot of slopes to ski on. I've seen some good looking runs dropping over towards the east side.

[sobo]

There really *are* a lot of nice looking bowls up there that drop into the Morse and Union Creeks drainages. But they're pretty scary looking, too, from an avi-perspective.

 

There is talk circulating of our unit being assigned to search from Norse Peak south to Morse Creek next summer.

 

My condolences go out to the family and friends of these three guys.

[Gary_Yngve]

climax avalanche from one of those bowls:

 

[pindude]

Yikes. I just heard first-hand, from one of just a handful of searchers that came from the Spokane area, that the size of one of the avy debris piles was at least 20' deep. Good pic Gary, but it's hard to tell...how deep is this one?

 

Sobo, good luck on the pending op. Please let us know over here on the far side of the Cascade Curtain when the spring/summer search is organized.

 

Condolences to the boarders' families and friends.

[sobo]

Steve,

Will do. At this time it's just "talk", but if/when it firms up, we'll let you folks at SMR know.

[selkirk]

A sad ending. My condolences to the friends and family.

[Gary_Yngve]

This avy wasn't so deep because the deposition was spread out over so large an area (not a terrain trap). On average, about 3-4 feet deep. It certainly had some power, considering it took out that 50' tall 6" wide fir. Where the depth was greater was where the deposition had abutted against trees and piled up, to probably 6-8 feet deep.

 

The blocks were icy and chunky, much reminescent of walking through talus. If we had to do a probe line through there, I would have wanted a steel one-piece probe, as my fancy carbon-fiber collapsable one would probably have been wrecked by the end of the day.

 

One theory is that a smaller avy took out the three, and the following day, a climax avy covered up any remaining signs.