TAY reports and avy hazard, a heuristic trap?

I'm much less experienced than most of the posters here. And my decision to head to Paradise Saturday was at least somewhat influenced by the glowing reports from earlier in the week. But I didn't take the glowing reports as evidence that it would be safe. Instead I took them as evidence that surface conditions could be very nice. I was hearing "These are far from typical mid-June snow conditions" - with both positive and potential negative implications.

As I said in my TR post, we do have a special thing about skiing the Nisqually Chute around Fathers' Day. So we were certainly aiming for that.

By 10 AM, we could already see one significant slab across the Nisqually Basin - similar altitude and exposure to the line we were hoping to ski. That started our discussion about whether our objective was safe. We were clear about two things: We wouldn't ski the chute if it hadn't been safely skied by someone else first (in general, I'm more into "second tracks" than first). And we said we'd dig a pit regardless (even if someone else skied the chute safely before us).

But the call wasn't even close. When we arrived near the top of the chute, a scary-looking slide had already been triggered. We dug our pit - but only so we could gain some experience recognizing dangerous conditions.

I'm glad my 15-yr old son saw all this happen. In general, he's all about the steeps. But he was very clear about what he thought was safe on Saturday. His call: "Nothing over 30 degrees is safe today. Let's ski the low-angle route down the snowfield and find some jumps to mess around on down near the bottom." I'm also making sure he reads all of these threads.

Lowell, I agree with your assessment. The trip reports of some of the fine skiing being had had me" frothing at the mouth" to get out there and not miss out on the action.

I am definitely guilty of planning my trips based upon the TR's of others and frequently find myself in the mindset , " they had no problems " so I should have no problems regarding avy danger.

Thanks for making me think about it and I guess the lesson I'm taking out of this is that I should base my risk assessment on the actual conditions on the ground and in the sky and not on what others have done.

I think that there is a continuing, serious problem with folks thinking that they can judge avi conditions from day-old Internet information -- TAY or NWAC.

Caveat: I haven't got much avy experience, but lack of experience has never stopped me from trying to sound educated in the past, so why start now?

That's hitting the nail on the head. I know many of you have Tremper's "Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain," so I'll just point to Figure 10-4 (p 260) and assume you're following along. When we rely on information collected from home, we're relying on 1-2 day old information -- and therefore our assessment is really an assessment of what the risk was YESTERDAY. When conditions change rapidly, it's very important to reassess frequently. In all conditions it's important to make one's own assessments.

Watching threads here, reading books, and learning from other avy education resources, I'm absolutely astonished to discover one fact -- in virtually every accident, at least one person had vocalized concern prior to the accident. Even in the climber's death on Muir last week, one member of the party of four had stayed home due to concerns about the weather. Rule #1 in the mountains - if one member of the party thinks it's unsafe, it's unsafe.

My decisions were more influenced by the good weather window, which was apparently preceded by a couple days of on/off sun breaks. Several of the reports indicated melt freeze metamorphism. And indeed there was, but it just wasn't enough, for long enough. Sometimes spring dumps bond fairly well to the underlying consolidated layer, of course timing is a critical issue especially with June sun; and such dumps should be given time to settle. Even with high avi conditions, one can mitigate the danger by choice of slope angle/aspect etc... With the lack of NWAC, one has to go out and poke around. I was perhaps a little too ambitious last weekend with Rainier, but one can easily sit in an armchair all season analyze, and be critical of other peoples adventures, with 20/20 hindsight. I definitely could have set out a little earlier, I remmember a TR last month of some folks who skied the Kautz while an avalanche warning was in effect with FRZ levels above 14k. They did leave at 11pm but they also cut some big lanches. I thought there was enough M/F and acceptable FRZ levels this time to justify a later start, although looking back, I was clearly wrong.
I was thinking in an avi mind set throughout my trip. I knew when I got out of my car, and stomped the snow in the Paradise parking lot, that there would be considerable avi potential. The Thumb was the riskiest  slope, the upper mountain was too cold for wet slides, and the danger could be avoided, controlled lower down on the Wilson. The Thumb does not receive sun until mid-morning, so it had a little less time to bake in morning sun, it is also surrounded by rock walls, which with the sun of previous days allowed the snow to cook more with thermal radiation, emitted by the rock walls, allowing for faster metamorphism than other slopes.

The question posed is a good reminder to keep on your toes.
There are so many tours out there now that there is access.
As we all know this season has been unseasonably cooler than most others. So upper mountain activities above 7000 feet are going to be a little slower to go through the spring cycle than past years. I have been surprised at reports of the Inter Glacier being so stable, it is perennially mushy this time of year due to the more Northerly aspect and elevation. I want to do Ruth or Inter Glacier, but I have not heard about the typical slide activity from other reports that are usual for this time of year. So is it a positive use of TAY reports? ???
At least I'm still out there, on the lower elevation slopes where I have seen, mostly a solid base and a few small sluff slides.
I am not surprised of what I am hearing about avalanches up higher, what I am surprised about are the decisions to subject oneself into that type of terrain. And in some cases actively go into a red zone knowing the danger and potentially subjecting others below to your decisions.

I passed up climbing a slope that would lead to nearly the top of Governors Ridge, because of the warm weather and one cornice exposure. I thought of ways to get around the problem, but in the end passed to do other stuff. There were two other old tracks in the chute, who felt more comfortable than I did about that.

Maybe I'm to conservative, but I'll stick to the steep chutes on lower elevation stuff until things settle out, but then there are the crevasses later. I think it is good to read the reports and get a plan, but ultimately it takes going out to the field to test the conditions, and realistically knowing that there is a cycle process and what stage it is in combined with current weather helps dramatically. Not relying on a trip report that is a day old, and others risks are subjective to yours.

From the other thread...

Lowell,  I thought I'd respond since Kyle and I were looking at Baker (Easton glcr.) as early as the 8 & 9 because the forecast then said sunny all weekend.  We were a bit worried about too much sun on a S exposure so we kept an eye on freezing levels, which appeared to be just shy of where things climbed to in May.  After hearing a report of rain at 6100' from Thursday, and checking the weather and seeing partly sunny Saturday with clearing Friday, we decided to set it in stone and try for it.  We had a great weather window (which sounds like you guys hit really nicely too - we contemplated going up Sherman - next time).  As far as I knew, with the recent storm as of the beginning of last week, and a warming cycle, we were thinking not to drop too far in to the C-S cascades.  So this time I guess the answer is no to using tr's to persuade us.

However, we do use tr's on here frequently to gauge other trips we've gone on, gain a feel for the conditions there, and I feel that you're on to something in saying that it could possibly be a danger for this community to use TAY as they might NWAC.  This was one time it wasn't such an influence, but it definitely has been.

After reading back through my original post, I wanted to add that we also based our decision on the fact that Baker hadn't gotten very many sunbreaks, therefore hopefully preserving the conditions - possibly another false sense of security.  After reading the reports from Rainier this last warming cycle though, we lucked out on our weather window.  As Sunday proved, there was some mass warming on Baker Sunday after it heated a bit on Saturday.  One death was reported and scary enough, it was about a football field from where we were camped, only the following day after we departed.  I feel that it is also important to note that once at the top of Baker, one skier said he heard whompfing on the Roman Wall.  I know my ambition to ski the R.W. in primo conditions, and then actually booting up it and analyzing the pack and the weather hel;ped me to easily (and ignorantly) overlook his warning.  Another climber warned us on the way up how notorious the RW was for slides and then we saw minimal sluff as we skied down (about 2 pm).  However, I do not think I would have skied it on Sunday - especially with the danger of the crevasses right at the bottom of the wall, and one gradually opening crack in the middle.