Crystal 12/18/12

Good reporting Joe. I think you pretty much nailed the facts on the Northway Avalanche. Peter and I were in front with two other skiers when we heard the "whomp" and turned around to see the avalanche. I kept my eyes on the girl who was buried to her neck in the flow when I spotted her. She disappeared under the snow and behind some trees so I really couldn't tell where she ended up but we turned around immediately and headed into the slide path to turn beacons on and start probing. I don't think the crowd on the following side of the slide knew what happened since they just stood on the ski path for a few moments without moving. This story ended well but I think there was quite a bit of luck involved. The girl wasn't wearing a beacon and was found by probing the uphill side of all of the trees in the path. Beacon searches were almost useless and provided many false positive readings. Even though many of us shouted to turn beacons to "search", I suspect that there were beacons left on transmit that created the false signals.
Peter and I were both getting readings at the bottom of the slide which was incredibly frustrating.
The search was frantic and I think that you are correct that it was about 10 minutes before she was located. The digging itself took at least 5 minutes more.
I heard her say that she was able to push her arm out to get some air so the snow must not have consolidated to much.
The usual lessons can be taken from this:
We felt since we were on the road out that we were out of any danger - not so.
Always have your beacon turned on.
Practice getting your beacon out and searching.
Probing seems completely futile when you are doing it.
Beacons are worthless if everyone in the area doesn't have there beacon in "search" mode.
I think this story has a happy ending largely by chance.

Any other thoughts on this?

Thank goodness there were people there to save her and everyone got home safe today. Crystal needs to step up to the plate on a day like yesterday. Once again Crystal wasn't prepared for the crowds. Same thing happenned last year. Lifts openning late,no ropes and minimal shuttle service.One would have to question why they don't concentrate on opening Northway before Campbell to accomodate more skiable terrain. Snow was great but what an insult to open North and not have lift running.

Not defending Crystal Mt or their management, but when you get the heavy snowfall within the past few days, it takes a tremendous effort to open the "Whole" mountain. I worked as a Lift Op for a few years. Just the amount of shoveling the chairs out takes hours. Then you must consider the avy work. Give the folks a break. They bust their humps to open the mountain. Do you know why? Because the employees want to get out and get the powder as much as the paying public.

If you don't believe me, work as a Lift Op for one season, especially a season with heavy snowfall. Just ask the Lift Ops at Baker what they go through each season.

Crystal newbie so can't really comment on the service, although it did seem like quite a cluster with everyone trying to gauge when N. Way would open from 10 AM and getting mixed signals from staff. The snow quality and untracked lines were probably some of the best I've ever had so definitely worth the crowds, getting run into a few times, etc. Met a guy named Steve on the GV lift that knew the mtn well and he was nice enough to show me around some of the less beaten areas. Also learned to not attempt going directly right off the high Campbell chair....that could have been ugly, but escaped with mild embarrassment and a face plant.  

One interesting pt to note was around 2 PM I was about to board Queens and the liftie mentioned that N. Way was open. So I went and lined up with about 100 others for the rope to drop. As the patroller was dropping the rope he also mentioned that we would need to take 'I-5' to the road and catch the shuttle, thumb it back up. Not being familiar with the resort I spoke to a few people, mentioned I was skiing solo and they were Ok with me joining their group. We trekked out a bit further and started to descend through deep, untracked that I thought was going towards I-5. However, someone in the group was still optimistic that NW would open so we ended up at that chair. A few dudes asked if I wanted to head down to the 'old N. Way' chair, but not having avy gear nor knowing the terrain did not feel comfortable. So we're at the N. W chair, prob 2:45ish along with a few patrollers and lifties that are giving us some options....which at 1st did not include riding the chair back up. But after about 10 mins of waiting there and several radio communications they decided to start the lift and gave us a ride up. After 15 of us departed the lift, with a few more circulating near the top patrol said conditions were still too dangerous and lift would be closed for remainder of day. Speculating that word of the avalanche was received when we were at NW lift so they decided to give us a ride up and another option down. Great to hear the girl was rescued and tragedy averted.

"Also learned to not attempt going directly right off the high Campbell chair"

That is why the Lift Ops set up the orange markers.....

Since the mountaintop was closed today, added some video of yesterday.
Video