Avy @ Crystal Mt

Crystal has posted a long, first person account of the avalanche incident for the interested reader.

"Bear ass naked with my ID taped to my forehead"

That statement alone says it all! When that happens (no matter what the situation) you're not have fun.

Thanks for the link Keith, thanks for the well written account Mark (a speedy recovery too) and rest assure, I will make better decisions in the BC because of your accident.

Also, thank you Crystal Patrol for doing what you do and doing it so well.

Wow lucky to be alive and a great cautionary tale for how experienced BC users can rationalize sub-newbie decision making.

Though the author of the account claims that it represents behavior he basically never engages in, I wonder if that claim can actually be trusted.  I don't say this as an indictment of character, but rather as the fruit of an insidious pattern of thinking wherein benign results are passively assumed to justify bad choice.  This pattern of thought hides from us, or at least deemphasizes, the unwise things we do.

Pointing 4 fingers at myself as well: I too often am fooled, or fool myself, in the following manner:

I make a suspect series of choices that, carefully examined, have clear potential to lead to some sort of catastrophic cascading failure.  Each individual choice might not be a major problem in itself, but the sum total of them is as potentially disastrous as doing one hugely-wrong, very obviously dangerous thing.  The general motive is hedonism – I want my ski-porn moments.  This desire can justify a series of “minor” poor choices much more easily that one big, obvious poor choice, even if the potential for a bad result is ultimately the same.

After the fact I retrospectively (though not purposefully or engaged - this is a back of the mind sort of process) connect the dots that seem to justify the series of bad choices as logical.  Okay, it had been skied just right over there, people were close by if something did happen, I certainly didn’t need that helmet and extra layer, and it all worked out fine so I what I did must have been okay.

I report out the positive aspects to others: dude it was epic!  They smile and validate me and my decision making (out of stoke, or go-along-to-get-along, or whatever).

Then, history unconsciously revised, I move forward without holding in mind that risks were taken and luck just happened to be on my side that day.

If I was involved in a similar incident I think I too would report that I never took risks like I did that day.  But something deep down tells me that I probably sometimes have and have just occluded these occurrences as outlined above.

Anyway the lessons I take away are very important, and I thank Mark for them (and get well soon and fully!):

1) Don’t let wants override needs (I want powder, I need to be around for my kids).

2) Don’t let risks stack one on top of another – that first bad choice should not be made because it can then silently validate a second and third (this is how commercial jets, and BC skiers, go down in flames).

3) Past performance is no guarantee of future conditions.

4) And for me the hardest one – make your own choices no matter how high the winds of stoke-talk fan the flames of pow-fever.

Good stuff Hank, The psychological aspect is the component that gets often overlooked. What brain is running this show?

I wish Mark a speedy recovery, he is a real nice guy who's really very positive and loves to ski.
I got his letter through friends on an email chain a couple weeks ago. I waited to see if this letter became public knowledge before I tossed a couple things out, since it is after the fact. A couple things I wanted to add is that there did not seem to be any mention of doing a ski cut, or a pit before he skied the chute. Secondly, I found out he entered the slope about midway in the chute and did not take it from the top, which is really easy to do, if you hike to the top instead of doing the "Dirty Dog Traverse" (often people traverse around to avoid a 100ft hike instead of going up)
which puts one about 2/3rds of the way in every chute. I like to control the chutes from the top, rather than from the middle, that way I'm only riding the top section if something goes wrong.
Usually, at least in nearly every slide I started or have been in started from the top. Not to say that they don't get triggered when the sweet spot activates a ways from the top or even near the toe of the slope, but that has been my field experience. Bottom line it's safer to take a slope from the top to control one's destiny.

The other thing is a subject that may get some debate. Mark suggests to have a cell phone in an easy to get place (top pocket). There have been studies that suggest that cell phones that are turned on interfere with the signal given off by your avy transceiver and mask the signal of the transceiver. If anyone knows more about this please advise.
This article suggests this problem.
I have tested this out at home and had no problems locating the beacon with an active cell phone next to the beacon. So I'm divided on this concept. Maybe I need to keep the phone off and turn it on if I need it?

Those were a couple bites I picked the ski cutting or testing being the most important and the beacon/cell phone issue another.

Get health fast, thanks for the lesson Mark.

Here's to a speedy recovery.

The first person account is very informative and useful, but I found the accident summary prepared by Crystal patrol and NWAC to be just as, if not more, helpful in understanding and learning from this incident.

www.nwac.us/accidents/