Will it ever stop? Girl in avi on Pilchuck

www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_0104...nche_TP.dcd8632.html

Yet more carnage - young 13 yr old girl this time.

I just came across that article myself, how horrible. Being so young this is truly a tragic accident/ loss.

.

Depressing. What a tragedy for her family and friends. That makes 9 deaths in a little over a month. Is it because we are looking that we see so much news about avalanches? Does the average person just zone it out? I'm still amazed when I question friends or co-workers about their snowshoe/hiking plans if they are aware of conditions or if they have proper avalanche gear - typically, it hadn't crossed their minds.

This one really confuses me, albeit few details are out.

All I've been able to gather is that they got hit by a naturally triggered avalanche coming down an ENE slope just before Lake 22? What else could possibly have avalanched? My gut feeling is if they had beacons and knew how to use them (probably 1% of all snowshoers), the buried would probably have survived, but that would be equivalent to keeping an AED in your home for a 30-yo who has some undiagnosed freak heart condition.

If some friends of mine wanted me to take them to Lake 22 yesterday, I probably would have. And if they didn't have beacons / know how to use them, we wouldn't have taken any, though would have had a few shovels. Heck, the entire trail is below 2500 feet and mostly timbered. Forecast was considerable below 5000 ft -- good -- it means that we'll actually be able to snowshoe rather than hike. On paper, sounds reasonable.

I'd certainly be aware of the potential of that big slope... but would I stop when we got to it? What if I couldn't see its exact location because it was foggy? Would I succomb to we're-almost-there human factors? Would I have spread people out through the section?

Would I pick up on any local signs of instability? Heavy snowfall? Rain? Rapid warming? Treebombs? Signs of recent avys?

Why did the slope go when it did? Did a super-sensitive slab get triggered remotely from a hundred feet below?

Whereas with some of the other recent avy fatalities, I could say that I would not have gone here, would have avoided this, would have chosen a different route, etc., this one so far just appears to be bum luck, like a once-in-100-years event that turned up way early.

All good questions, Gary.
I believe those kinds of questions are the reason the folks at the avalanche center are so earnest in investigating and reporting on each and every accident; so we can learn from each one and get those questions answered. My guess is, with a little patience, we'll be able to get the answers to at least some of your questions by reading about the accident on the NWAC website in a few weeks.