The second half of January resulted in nearly 2 weeks of Crested Butte Avalanche Center forecasts with a rating of at least considerable. Even if you weren’t paying attention to the forecasts, the signs were everywhere and in plain view from highway 135 as well as the ski area- new slides every day.
Read more
Tony Saracelli was the quiet confident sort. Despite his Italian heritage, he was not the boisterous kind. He was humble beyond words. And liked to share his world with others. A pizza delivery guy by night and ski bum by day, Tony was a fantastic ski partner and took precautions to keep everyone safe – more pre-cautions than I have seen the average backcountry skier take. He was far too well aware of how dangerous backcountry skiing could be. But he was incredibly generous and loved skiing more than life.
Read more
I kept saying the line made me uncomfortable, that we’d find more mature snow further down the ridge. You could see that the snow in that particular gully had been less affected by solar radiation, and could therefore be less stable. What I didn’t explain was that the wind-loaded gully was the classic thing we should be avoiding right now given the history of remote triggers in similar terrain throughout the season. We were already venturing out on more risky terrain, why not ski the safest line possible given we had choices? But, somehow that never made it out of my mouth. Why? Because I was upset that my friends wanted to ski something we had previously all agreed on was unsafe. Instead, I just found myself feeling bad for being the one who was trying to change everyone’s mind.
Read more
The typical scenario: a group of snowmobilers are highmarking in questionable conditions, one gets stuck, another goes to help, the avalanche occurs, and no one has any gear. It happens over and over. The good news, I think, is that snowmobilers as a rule are more prepared today than they were at the turn of the century.
Read more
We are revisiting this post to remind backcountry enthusiasts that dangerous conditions can lurk in the backcountry, even early season. This year’s storms have dropped bits of snow that have stuck around on north-facing aspects that will likely create similar problems in the snowpack as we encountered in this report below. Be aware, be safe, and have fun in your backcountry travels this winter!
Read more
We decided to continue to approach them, and see if they needed help. There were two skiers, one injured and one not. They explained that they had approached from the other side and that their first skier to drop in to the line, Josh Barilar, had gotten caught up on some wet slough which had steered him into the rock wall that lined the side of the chute. He then fell into the moat, the deep gap that forms between snow and rock walls. His ski was broken and he had a severe laceration on his leg which squirted blood out every time they tried to move him. In fact I could see the splatter of blood on the rock wall.
Read more
“Dumb things” is probably a little bit of a strong statement for what I hope these blog posts will be. Perhaps “Avalanche mistakes I’ve made and the lessons I’ve learned from them” would have been a more appropriate title, but missing the eye-catching alliterative aspects of this one. Part 1 can be found here, and part 2 is here. It is my hope that these posts will at the very least offer something to the reader to learn from, since near misses are less talked about…
Read more
Heuristic traps are something that every backcountry skier needs to know about, and be very aware of when making decisions in the backcountry. Frank and I have both admittedly fallen prey to these at times, and any backcountry skier who denies that they haven’t would be a liar. However, you can minimize their impacts, and being aware of HOW you think and make decisions (metacognition) can help reduce heuristic traps. In my mind, it’s a topic we can’t talk enough about, because these heuristic traps are always there and the brain works in ways that keep making them happen.
Read more
We are bringing back “Snow Safety Sundays”! Every Sunday evening at 6 pm, we will feature an article or video related to snow safety that we find useful, to be posted through our Facebook and Twitter social media platforms, using the hashtag #snowsafetysunday. These articles will range from the basics to more complex decision making problems. But, we will post things that EVERYONE can learn from.
Read more