February 24, 2013 Heather Ridge Avalanche

Thank you. If your impressions of the incident have changed in a few months, please consider posting an epilogue in a few months. Sometimes it can take a few days/weeks to really piece together how things went down.

Heal well - a fully unstable knee sounds worse than a tweak. The seasons are long; you'll get some no matter how long it takes for things to heal.


I'm not sure that there's any way to really avoid the trap that Chamois brings up. "This worked, so let's try something similar" is a rational way to explore. The trick is to temper it in an unknowable way. If you accept that you're going to screw up sometimes, a defense-in-depth strategy helps to mitigate the consequences: www.akavalanches.com/PDFs/04cAllSnowpackIIIStabilityNNotes.pdf

By skiing somewhat apart from the group, it sounds like you arranged for only one party member to be caught in a substantial slide. If the group intended to ski the slope, perhaps by triggering it first, you actually took one for the team.


Thanks again!

Thank you for your write up and glad you come out of it in one piece. One key point, the profiles are not meant to determine go/no go, just assess the status of slabs in the snowpack.

Terrain selection should be done in the planning before going out and reassessment based on conditions and updated hazard. The evidence of wind affect with the Considerable rating link back to the Travel Recommendations, which call for,'...cautious route finding, and conservative decision making essential.' Also the Likelihood of Avalanches, '...human triggered avalanches likely.'

Creating options based on the forecast help select terrain appropriate for the conditions prevent surprises and give the group a margin of safety in their route selection. Here is an example: alpineinstitute.blogspot.com/2009/03/tou...vigation-part-2.html

Heal well!

and launched myself off a steep rollover. 

This is the one line that stands out to me. I am guessing you don't mean literally "catching air" and landing hard, but just jumped in straight down the fall line. Which always is fun btw.

Perhaps a quick ski cut could have prevented the ride. I like ski cutting any area that looks sketchy to me rather then jumping in and assuming my analysis along the way was 100% right.

Just that last second precaution that I have made routine since my second tour in 1985, when my bro and I climbed Alpy in May on a misty day. Made it to the top, got warmed up and dry and while doing that the sun came out. Headed over to Nash and looked at my bro and said mayb a ski cut??? BTW - we are 19 yo kids w/o beacons/shovels/probes cause we don't know better.........yet.

Bro cuts the lower entrance and sure enough the whole thing wet slabs but he skis above it as it starts to slowly run down Upper. Comes to rest at the Snake entrance bench about 10 feet deep. We subsequently started to learn about avalanches and buy our gear (still use my old Ortovox from '85).

Just a thought as part of the pre-ski routine. That slab reminds me of two other scary days - one in '87 where the same bro cut a very similar slope as in your situation above me and slabbed me while I was in the middle of the slab. Very weird experience to move while the snow around is you is seemingly remaining solid. Then the break up of the slab as I slid with it ultimately leaving me buried to my neck.

Second 90 or so on Rainier in Edith creek area.

Thanks for the information -- I hope your knee and shoulder heal up strong.

Hi Will (and ski party). Thank you for your write up. I am sorry to hear about your accident and i hope you heal up quickly. You and your friends will come away wiser. I wonder how many times i have exhibited the same behavior and gotten away with it? Maybe Lady Luck has been my only defense? Your story spurs some self-reflection on my own decision making and behavior as a group member.
While 3 days in a valley just a little west of you we found conditions that warranted concern and wise travel practices close to ridge lines, steep convex rollers, and other wind affected terrain. Layers of concern were in storm snow and also 2-3 mm buried surface hoar.
Peace

WOW-- glad you made it out alive!

Snowpits are not even close to "everything"..  Lots of observed (or should have) indicators:  lots of new snow; wind slab--lots of wind--cornices tell you where snow has been transported from and to).  With out being a  snow scientist, I know that slabs can form from heat do to the crystals banging together (how is that for non-scientific) --sometimes).  I always ask what are the consequences if I'm wrong (after all you are in charge of your own hypothesis/decision makings..).   

Wind slab can be a very localized thing.  I try to ski test/ cut before I drop in very far and I try to keep in mind who might  be above me and below me including the skin out to the car (good safe route fiinding super important if there is any question of stability--learning to pick up on visual indicators will possibly allow you to trump any pit information suggesting stability).

Lots of pictures out there showing slides in treed areas (questionable about how good trees are for "anchoring"--sometimes that "localized" snow/slab loading happens in trees--I don't really know why though--ok, because it can be a localized thing). 

If you are doing the group thing...one at a time and good vis./watching.  Don't have everybody meet in the exact same spot (somebody has to be able to search if....).

As I recall , the majority of fatalities have occured on slides of something like 500 to 600 feet.  You don't have to be in the big tracks to have problems. 

I always tone it back a bit out in the sticks--lower angle "test" runs make me think I might have an "understanding" of the angle of repose (along with ski cutting of course..).

My two cents...

Thanks for your write-up.. SKI TO LIVE ANOTHER DAY!