Baker Avalanche on Sat. April 15

He reappeared at the bottom of the slope, just above the entrance to canyon proper. He was partially buried, but quickly got out and began looking for his skis, one of which I don't think he ever found. By this time, they had a snowcat down there, but I don't think it really did anything. So there wasn't really any rescue.

Hmmm....well you must have missed the beginning of the fun. Which included a boarder dropping the chute (the first one of the group of 11) and getting buried about 3 feet under and wrapped around a tree. That is why the snowcat was down there....they evacuated the recovered boarder and were going to transport him to the hospital as he was a little banged up. So, yeah the first guy down got buried and then I was surprised that the other 10 didn't turn and hike back out to chair 8 as they triggered some more sloughs on their way down. Anyways, the patroller that was half buried got caught in some snow activity that was launched from above while attempting to rescue guy number one.

Hopefully this will clear some things up. I am reposting this from my posts on the TGR forum:

Friday was the highest avy danger I ahve ever seen at Baker, one skier was burried on gables up to his neck, and a two foot slab was triggured by a skier in elf chutes. Saturday, controlwork gave significant results. A snowboarder employed by the mountian was caught in a slide in elf chuts and blew out his knee. The mtn then closed down the boundires (This very rarely happens) Sunday, an employee sent a slide over the icefall near chair one, another employee was partialy burried on elf chutes, and another crew consisting of locals and an mtn employee triggured one slide on the "safety line" on shuskan arm, and triggured a second larger slide on the second knob on the arm the following run, this slide ran all the way over the high traverse into rumble gully.

Unfortunatly it has been confirmed. there was an incident on "stoneman" First skier dropped in skied it to the bottom. Second skier droped in it broke, aproximately 2~3 foot deep crown, ran full length. Skier was found at the trees at the bottom. Trama.

Tobias Lee, IFSA North American tour competitor, brother of Elijah Lee, IFSA World Tour consistent top 10er... Originally out of AK, floating around Baker and Tahoe. The worst part about this whole incident is that Elijah was the one that found his brother Tobias.

In the eight years that I have been at Baker this was if not the worst, avy conditons I have ever seen, than it was definatly tied with the worst. I personally beleave that Baker is one of the only true experts only mountians in N.A. and being such, people should expect to be on there toes both inbounds and in the BC. As with any area, even in high avy conditions there is always safe areas to ski and safe ways to ski. So personally I dont think that the area should have been closed friday, even thou the conditons where worse than, than they where on the days that they had closed.

I personally went out with patrol on control Sat. morning and saw first hand exactly how patrol readies the mountian, this combined with the two other mornings that I have gone out with the cat operators, and the maintance crews I can attest to the fact that the mountain does everything possible to get the mountian ready on time, and ensure to ensure the safety of its customers. However it is in the mountians, and as we all know nothing is ever for sure, guarenteed or 100% safe or certain.

My self and Hop made some very consious decisions to not ski certain areas of the backcountry, even thou numerous other groops where dooing so. This was / is a HIGHLY unussually avy cycle for this area, and quite frankly fooled most of the long time employees and locals. Normally when a storm comes in wet, it bonds very well to the base layer, and in the worst case it bonds fairly well after 24 hours. This is the PNW and we are well known for our bomber costal snow pack.

However this storm was VERY VERY Different. The snow came in wet, and did not bond to the previous layer (consolidated firm snow with high moisture content), secondly we got 4 feet of snow in under 3 days, with progresivevly colder temps the first 24 hours, than a temp spike the second day, followed by even colder temps, the third day warmed with temps in the ocasionaly apear sun topping out at 55F however a realtively cold breeze out of the N. made conditons feal much colder than they where. By the third day the conditons had not only not improved, but the added snow, and wind and ocasional sun breaks severly increased the avy danger. Lines such as the Safety line on the arm even whent, when a skier triggured a small pocket in the sun and that in turn trigured a biger slide abouve the pocket that ran to the valley, but didnt triggure a secondary slide on the slope bellow that is well know for sliding on high danger days.

I hope that this helps to paint a better picture of the very unussual and dangerous conditions that we experianced. I dont know why they skied the line they did yesterday, and I am not going to make any conclusions or judgements about it, as I feal that both of the Lee's had a very good understanding of the mountains and avy conditons. But this might shed soem light on the situation.
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Also there was another skier, that had been hanging halfway down the slope for about half an hour, who then attempted to sideslip the gully. He fell and did many ungraceful spinarounds, but seemed generally uninjured.

Taht was an unrealted incident, and was a food service employee that was imediatly releaved of his job atthe mtn imediatly following the incident. He definatly had some "issues"

Where on Herman is Stoneman? Is it a recognizably sketchy line? Was anyone else out on Herman, Table, etc.? What are the lethal details of the snowpack, besides lots of new snow?

Where on Herman is Stoneman?  Is it a recognizably sketchy line?  Was anyone else out on Herman, Table, etc.?  What are the lethal details of the snowpack, besides lots of new snow?

Standing in the Back lot of the ski area, looking up, to the right of the ridge on herman is Widowmaker, the VERY steep and Spined run down fro mteh top of Heramn, this seldom, gets skied, maybe once every few years. looking to the right of this past the bown behind herman is another peak that has a large, steep and very obvious chute, this is Stoneman. It gets skied multiple times each winter.

Bascially we got 4 feet of fresh snow sitting ontop of the rain/ slush layrer from the prior tow weeks. This never really developed a strong bond, and that combined with some wind loading and ocasionaly, but very intense and quick thermal warming from sun breaks created the potentail for slabs, on all aspects, and wet slides on south exposures.

Friday, numerous slabs where triggured ranging from 1 to 3 feet out on the "elbow" these where even trigured by just aproaching the slope. In other words you did not even need to ski cut the slopes trigger point to get them to go, jsut gotten close would get the slopes to move. Sat and Sunday ski cuts on Elbow resulted in easy trigurs of slabs ranging from 18in to 24. The slide on the safety line was triggured by a skier dropping off of a cornice making a single turn on the lower lookers left corner of a steepetr face, this small slab caused a larger sympathetic slide on the same slope that borke abouve the first pocket, Crown from my vantage point apeared to be aproximately 2~3 feet. Aprox 125 feet across. This side went over the bench bellow and caused a very small secondary slide on the steep slope abouve the icefalls on the arm. I am very suprised that this didnt casue this entire slope to go as it is usually very easily trigured by ski cuts.

I did not witness the second slide on the arm, located on the second knob.

for the record, cheap date was ski cut, didn't go, and was skied by several people. aslo, another group put tracks down a ways out on the arm, without incident. if i remember correctly, both of these groups began thier decent fairly early in the day (compaired to the group on elf chutes).