Scenarios 1

You've taken time off work, traveled all day to get there for 4 days in some yurt of choice. Not your home court all you know is its been snowing off and on all week, conditions are considerable, 6" of fresh overnight, lightly snowing in the morning. Feeling great after a great breakfast, and feeling good after a group meeting... some new faces, some familiar with experience levels spanning the range. An hour later your approaching the top, the group is cautious and a couple pits are dug... with a mixed bag of interpretations.... much discussion over shear quality. The group is already splintering... Some say no.... one other says yes, you feel confident. The line is calling your name and you have a partner, you really want to ski that line...

Great one, Koda.

I fear I would not be a popular participant in that scenario.

Being both a snowpack coward and a geezer, I would most likely lobby for skiing mellow angle stuff for the first day also spent more time to continue to analyze and snow pack, especially given the “not in your home court” factor. And I’d try to find a partner with a similar accord.

Of course the stats seem to point out that is the exception of my “most likely” description above, is often the factor that gets us in the end. So my lack of bravery and youthful impatience may not help me much.

Am I following the rules?

If so, then I go with the more conservative votes.
If not, I ski it.

This is an example of a scenario I have been in on destination trips more than one occasion, I’ve never found a proper way to work out other than being ultimately prepared to tour alone. Never had to and there has always been at least one other person in the group that shows experience with which I relate to or trust. Thankfully, all of my yurt/hut/destination trips with larger groups have all had good skiing, good communication, good company all around even if the group splits up by ability.

I think this scenario might elude to the post “what I fear most”. I see that many in the community prefer to stay away from skiing with large groups…. 3 or 4 max depending on personal preference. While I agree this makes sense, I don’t see this practical 100% of the time (yurt or destination trips are an example… especially for those new and seeking to meet more partners/touring friends).  Destination trips aside... How does one mitigate the problem of unexpected large groups? …say when you show up and find X invited Y on the fly with another in tow… How do people handle organizing day trip outings when there are more than enough qualified friends?

I think this scenario might elude to the post “what I fear most”. I see that many in the community prefer to stay away from skiing with large groups…. 3 or 4 max depending on personal preference. While I agree this makes sense, I don’t see this practical 100% of the time (yurt or destination trips are an example… especially for those new and seeking to meet more partners/touring friends).  Destination trips aside... How does one mitigate the problem of unexpected large groups? …say when you show up and find X invited Y on the fly with another in tow… How do people handle organizing day trip outings when there are more than enough qualified friends?

I generally opt out of groups larger than 2-4 people if stability is a significant issue and if "safe" terrain is not a realistic expectation. In fact, because of the relatively small scale of terrain that is winter-accessible in the Cascades I generally prefer groups of not over 4, anyway.

Even on a hut trip when conditions are hazardous it should be possible to diplomatically split the group using safety as the criteria. Of course that may mean that the most avalanche savvy skiers would not ski together for the benefit of those with less experience. You can always ski with different groups on different days.

I think this scenario might elude to the post “what I fear most”. I see that many in the community prefer to stay away from skiing with large groups…. 3 or 4 max depending on personal preference. While I agree this makes sense, I don’t see this practical 100% of the time (yurt or destination trips are an example… especially for those new and seeking to meet more partners/touring friends).  Destination trips aside... How does one mitigate the problem of unexpected large groups? …say when you show up and find X invited Y on the fly with another in tow… How do people handle organizing day trip outings when there are more than enough qualified friends?

I thought about this while looking at otter's Personal Rules.

I have this come up a lot. 2 or 3 head for a trip, bump into a carload here, another carload there and before you know it you got a real circus going. I usually deal the matter long these lines:

“Folks I love people and there's nothing wrong with all of us heading out to ski the same general area; but I gotta tell ya I hate big ski groups. They are way hard too manage; too much work getting track of everyone.
So unless someone's got a better idea, let's just figure that for "ski group" purposes, this is (X # ) of smaller individually operating groups comprised of the folks that rode in each car together. Each group can go and do what they decide to and take can keep in track of each other.”

Usually everyone looks somewhat relived and readily agrees. Once in a while one says “No, wait, I want to be with so-and-so”, the change is made and we’re back to 2 to 4 member groups planning out the day’s tour.