Mount Rainier Rescue..>5-10-11

www.king5.com/news/slideshows/Rescue-on-...vasse-121585619.html

This King5 report identifies the skier as Tucker Taffe, 33, of Utah. He is described as experienced. A comment by "joncollet" said:

Tucker was an amazing man and a more experienced backcountry skier than anyone I know. A couple years back he raced in the Wasatch Powderkeg, a randonee race through Little and Big Cottonwood canyons. He was so far in the lead in his division that he got off course for about 10 minutes, back tracked, and still won the race. Needless to say, it was a privilege to be able to say you even stayed close to Tucker, whether on skin track, single track or boot pack. Friends of his affectionately called him "The King of the Wasatch," as he was constantly and quietly skiing the mountains he loved and lived in. Few have lived as passionately as Tucker Taffe. I'll always remember wine tasting with you in Oregon, your reluctant little house parties, and that beautiful forehand on the disc golf course (who's going to put GD in his place now?) We'll miss you dearly good friend. LONG LIVE THE KING!

My condolences to Tucker's family and friends.

This is, to my knowledge, the first confirmed fatality of a skier due to a crevasse fall in the history of the Washington Cascades. This topic has come up before on TAY, and I can't recall any other confirmed fatalities of this type. In April 2008, Kevin LeFleur disappeared during a ski ascent of Mt Baker. Since his body was never found, friends believe that he may have fallen into a crevasse. I looked at the risks of glacier skiing in my NSAS presentation in the fall of 2008. You can find it here:

alpenglow.org/skiing/high-route-tips/part6-glaciers.html

The spring of 2008 was unusually cold and snowy, but not as cold and snowy as this spring. I suspect that these conditions may lead to more crevasse incidents, because recent fresh snow masks the existence or size of crevasses. There were several incidents in 2008, described at the link above. I wonder if we've been spared more incidents this year just because the weather has been so foul that relatively few trips have been done.

Keep your guard up out there and go prepared.

Thanks for the cool data Lowell.

Embarassed to admit this, but I was, at times, extremely reckless throughout winter-spring 2007-2008. Don't want to get into the why, but anyway, until Kevin LaFleur disappeared, I had been tossing about the idea of soloing Baker via Coleman-Deming. Just because it seemed "parky"... as in "walk in the parky". For all I know, his disappearance saved my life, because I realise how easily it could have been me.

This isn't a reflection on what Tucker did or didn't do, because I wasn't there, and no matter how sharp I can be at times, I do understand the pain of loss. For some reason, crevasse fall accidents always make me feel very ashamed of my past behaviour; especially when I should know better.

Hope Tucker's family finds peace some day.

This is, to my knowledge, the first confirmed fatality of a skier due to a crevasse fall in the history of the Washington Cascades. This topic has come up before on TAY, and I can't recall any other confirmed fatalities of this type.

Just to clarify, you must mean not merely a fall that ends up carrying the victim into a crevasse, but where the initial cause of the fall is the crevasse?

Just to clarify, you must mean not merely a fall that ends up carrying the victim into a crevasse, but where the initial cause of the fall is the crevasse?

Yeah, I'll leave it at that. Do you know of fatal incidents in which a skier fell and then slid into a crevasse? I'm not aware of any. Obviously my original statement is a huge strawman. But I've read a vast amount of history about Washington skiing and haven't encountered any references to crevasse fatalities involving skiers.

Fatalities, no, I'm not aware of any off the top of my head. (Two years ago a ranger skied straight into a crevasse just above Emmons Flats -- a mere day after we had been there and two days before we were returning there, gulp -- but I recall the rescue was immediate -- as would be expected given the location! -- and sounded like injuries for which a full recovery was expected.)

Seems like Lee Adams last year was descending on foot, on a rope team, not skiing.

Does Rainier track summit permits by skiers vs non-skiers? (I recall such info is requested on the permit, but somehow I doubt it's tallied up.) If so, would be interested to try to keep track of crevasse falls for skiers vs non-skiers, but then again the skiers probably seek out smoother less technical terrain, so that probably wouldn't work, unless it was limited to the Emmons during prime ski season.

Regardless, my condolences to the family. This one hits really hard for those of us who tour during the winter and early spring in entirely non-glaciated terrain, then come out to the PNW for late spring and summer.
Also, although I've skied many different parts of Rainier below ~10k, above that I've been on only the relatively tame Emmons, but my understanding is that the upper Nisqually can be pretty nasty? Is the deep snowpack making it more appealing to skiers now, but with monster crevasses lurking beneath snowbridges that are not as safe as they seem?

...
Seems like Lee Adams last year was descending on foot, on a rope team, not skiing.
...

Lee was cramponing on the descent in the uphill position on a three person rope team. The two other team members were much less experienced than Lee. The first person slipped wasn't able to self-arrest before falling into an open crevasse, pulling the other rope team member and Lee into the crevasse as well. The crevasse was deep and the weight of two companions pulled Lee into the crevasse at high speed -- impacting the far wall with fatal results.

Both deaths are sad losses -- travelling on glaciers always involves risk than can't be completely eliminated, on skis, on foot, roped or unroped.

I wonder how the "death/injury by crevasse fall" statistics stack up compared to "death/injury by auto accident driving to/from the mountains"