Avalanche danger inbounds

[jmeb]

Both the avalanches that day occurred on precisely the features you're supposed to avoid on "low" days. One was perfectly pitched (for avalanche) strainer trees. The other was a (closed -- as determined in the Colorado courts) roll-over on 38-degree (aka avalanche prime time) terrain. They fit the current definition of "low" that @Analisa gave.

Patrol could share information. But it likely exposes them to all sorts of risks. Highest amongst them is mis-interpretation for people who do not understand the science of avalanches, avalanche forecasting or avalanche control. The uncertainties in all those sciences are large, but people tend to take experts as if they are certain.

Everyone hates when the weather forecaster is wrong. Gives them all kinds of crap about it. Imagine if it was something with the consequences of an avalanche.

 

[tball]

Both the avalanches that day occurred on precisely the features you're supposed to avoid on "low" days. One was perfectly pitched (for avalanche) strainer trees. The other was a (closed -- as determined in the Colorado courts) roll-over on 38-degree (aka avalanche prime time) terrain. They fit the current definition of "low" that @Analisa gave.

Sorry, I'm confused. The avalanche risk is low, except on some inbounds terrain? Terrain that is routinely skied?

I just think it would be nice if the heightened avalanche risk and what terrain to avoid was mentioned on the daily snow report, particularly on an extremely dangerous day.

Let's not get into the legalities of the Vail case here. The appeal is ongoing, and patrollers speaking the truth have yet to testify, like this gentleman. There's a thread over here where I'd love to discuss if anyone likes.

On sharing information, I don't get how more information is good for backcountry skiers but not for inbounds skiers.

There's a backcountry avalanche forecast. Why not an inbounds avalanche forecast? Inbounds skiers are no less capable of understanding, and I think many of us would love to take courses on the nuances of inbounds avalanche safety if offered.

 

[Analisa]

On January 22, 2012, both Taft Conlin and Christopher Norris died in different inbounds slides in Colorado. It was a crazy high-risk day.

Conlin case is different. Died in terrain that was closed, but still accessible. I have lots of opinions about the gate closures and making them more effective. I also have a lot of thoughts about avalanche education for kids that age - like Jackson Hole area schools got approved to teach avalanche awareness alongside middle school weather and AIARE1 curriculum alongside high school physics. Friends of mine who grew up skiing are pretty humbled by the ropes they ducked following other skiers when they were younger and didn’t know what the repercussions could’ve been.

But even if they were both on standard runs, I disagree that the risks of skiing inbounds that day were crazy high. Ratings like that imply that natural avalanches are likely and triggered slides are almost certain. Avalanche sizes on high risk days would’ve likely caused damage to resort infrastructure, like lift lines? How many other people skied avalanche terrain that day with no issues? Could risk factors cross from low to moderate? More plausible, but the accident rates still seem low for that to be the case.

 

[tball]

@Analisa, I'll address your other points after skiing today, but please watch this video from the same run on the same day where Christopher Norris died inbounds on open terrain at Mary Jane:


Would you consider that crazy high avalanche risk inbounds?

When this is happening on the entire slope I think it's impossible to argue it's not high risk, even by backcountry standards (from 1:11 in the video):

I also think it's wrong to apply backcountry avalanche risk standards inbounds. We are skiing inbounds to avoid the backcountry avalanche risk. An inbounds avalanche risk rating should be relative to the typical risks we see inbounds, not in the backcountry IMO.

 

[4ster]

When this is happening on the entire slope I think it's impossible to argue it's not, even by backcountry standards (from 1:11 in the video):

Are you suggesting that ski areas just close when it snows(JK)? It does seem to be headed that way & rightly so seeing the way the masses treat the environment like an amusement park.

As an old curmudgeon who learned about skiing and traveling in the mountains from the euro sages of a different era, how about people take a little responsibility for themselves, learn some skills, practice proper etiquette & make some safe decisions. Slamming your board sideways into a deep slab of snow is not too smart unless you’re looking for results. Then I come along & have to deal with the mess he left. Resort skiing has changed dramatically in the last 5 years. It is not Disneyland yet people treat it as such.

 

[Analisa]

@Analisa, Would you consider that crazy high avalanche risk inbounds?

I also think it's wrong to apply backcountry avalanche risk standards inbounds. We are skiing inbounds to avoid the backcountry avalanche risk. An inbounds avalanche risk rating should be relative to the typical risks we see inbounds, not in the backcountry IMO.

I think it's tough to have a productive conversation without a standardized scale based on objective criteria. Without it, we can go back and forth arguing our own relative & subjective points of view, but I'd rather not. I use the backcountry scale since it's the only professionally-approved, standardized scale to reference. I think a recreational skier inbounds avalanche forecast would be incredibly difficult to provide. Not only does the average skier need to be able to digest all of the pieces and parts of a backcountry forecast, but they also need to understand the control work done and the implications on safety. It's not just "days" that are high or low risk, but slope aspects and elevation bands. When I first started skiing, if someone had told me "enjoy your day and PS there's some wind slabbing on N, NW, and W aspects that's been mostly mitigated by avalanche control, but be careful on leeward slopes between 30-50 degrees" it wouldn't have meant anything. The way ski patrol manages it is by saying "it's possible, but low" and closing down terrain that doesn't meet that specification.

As I mentioned before, are some low days riskier than others? Yes. They all lie on a continuum. Likewise, I take the precaution of strapping my beacon on if the backcountry risk is rated as high, the snowfall for a given day is measured in feet rather than inches, or the resort social pages say anything along the lines of "watch for treewells and ski with a buddy." I trust that the patrol has done their part to keep me safe, but if I own the gear and reckon there's very little cost to an extra precaution.

I can't tell much from the video you posted, but CAIC's recap also reflects it's a pretty freak accident. Slope was shallow and rode 30 feet (slides less than 150' are still considered sluffs based on the rating scales). A downed tree funneled snow to make a small terrain trap. The skier was solo and his friends reported him missing hours later, at the end of the ski day. Dying in a small-sized avalanche is probably rarer than dying in an inbounds slide of any size - and almost half are roof avalanche fatalities (and the remainder are largely solo travelers + terrain traps). What bothers me the most is looking at the snowpit analysis and notes on instability. It sounds like CAIC was able to identify a problematic snowpack, but the resort didn't close it despite notes that it was skied by patrol. Is the slide terrain just very limited where most snow movement would just sluff a little ways and pose little threat to skiers or did they miss something?

 

[tball]

Is the slide terrain just very limited where most snow movement would just sluff a little ways and pose little threat to skiers or did they miss something?

The Winter Park case is an excellent example of why I think ski areas should provide some warning when the inbounds avalanche danger is high, as it was the day of Christopher Norris died.

I don't think there is an argument it wasn't high by any standards. No backcountry skier in their right mind would be skiing the slope Christoper Norris did that day, and there was minimal mitigation done.

The Mary Jane Ski Patrol didn't miss anything. There was just little they could do other than warn guests of the hazardous conditions, IMO. Unfortunately, they are not provided a way to do so. Ski areas want to maintain the "Disneyland" perception when that's not the reality.

Trestle (aka Topher's) Trees at Mary Jane isn't a marked run. It's a large area of trees between two runs. It's very steep with lots of features, outcroppings, cliffs, and pillows. We used to call it "Pillow Patch" back before Christopher "Topher" Sendry (a different Christopher) sadly died in a tree well there in 1995. Others called it "Mushroom Patch."

I've skied Topher's Trees a zillion times. I grew up skiing Mary Jane and on that day in '95 my friends and I skied Topher's constantly in an effort to help search while patrol and S&R were probing for Christopher Sendry. It was some of the best and saddest skiing I've done. Berthoud Pass was closed for a couple days and we used the excuse to skip work and ski bottomless powder, sadly knowing there was a missing skier out there.

The problem with Topher's Trees is they can't close it. There are two unsigned main entrances, but you can enter from pretty much anywhere along two runs and they don't have ropes lining the runs. Skiing the trees between the runs is just what you do at Mary Jane on a powder day. It's one of the things that make the Jane amazing.

The other problem with Topher's is I don't believe they can't mitigate it. There are too many treed areas at Mary Jane with too many features that can slide when the conditions are that extreme.

So when mitigation and closures are not practical, short of closing the ski area what is patrol to do? I think warning guests of the hazard is the right thing to do, if not legally, certainly morally. They knew the conditions were hazardous. Just put a warning on the snow report and whiteboards. Why not?

I'd love to know what patrollers think, and if anyone knows if practices have changed at Mary Jane since that tragic day. I haven't noticed, but am not there as much as I used to be.

 

[mdf]

The year I bought my beacon the Jackson Hole snow conditions web page said (approximately) "The ski patrol suggests that anyone skiing double black terrain this year should wear an avalanche beacon." They had recently had an in-bounds slide.

 

[pais alto]

I'd love to know what patrollers think...

You’re probably not going to love this, but I think @Analisa is right.

Where I work, and I suspect this is true for most places, if the avy danger is “high” within the area, the area will be closed.

 

[dbostedo]

The problem with Topher's Trees is they can't close it. There are two unsigned main entrances, but you can enter from pretty much anywhere along two runs and they don't have ropes lining the runs. Skiing the trees between the runs is just what you do at Mary Jane on a powder day. It's one of the things that make the Jane amazing.

There's no reason they couldn't completely rope it off in that case. I'm afraid that seems much more likely to me. If I'm running the resort, and I agree with you that there is danger in those trees, and it can't be mitigated, I'm just closing off the trees. I'm not going to try to institute a program of education and take on the additional liability.

 

[tball]

^^^ Well, they knew of the hazardous conditions (from the testimony) and didn't close it that day.

Note that in Colorado, as determined in this case, there is no duty for a ski area to close any dangerous run nor to do any avalanche mitigation, whatsoever.

In Colorado, we ski completely at our own risk, which is why I believe we should have all the information to assess those risks, including the same inbounds avalanche forecasts and mitigation information patrol uses. Again, why not?

Otherwise, put a duty on the Colorado ski area to provide avalanche mitigation to a reasonable care standard as Utah does, per the Canyons lawsuit. Canyons proved they met that standard and rightfully prevailed. That case would be thrown out in CO today with the WP "inherent risk "ruling even if Canyons did zero mitigation.

I think ski areas should be legally required to either inform us or protect us in Colorado. Neither is the case now.

 

[tball]

Where I work, and I suspect this is true for most places, if the avy danger is “high” within the area, the area will be closed.

To your point and on the positive side, I think they may have things in place where they can close that whole side of the mountain now.

It's not practical to run ropes along the runs to close all the trees, but I think they may be leaving a rope up along the east side of Derailer to close MJ's entire backside. That would allow them to focus mitigation efforts on the front side that has a different exposure and where the trees have fewer terrain features that are avalanche prone.

I know they use the Derailer rope to close off the whole backside early season and in the spring at times when the freeze-thaw makes it dangerous or the snow gets too thin. @Freaq or @Magi do you know if they are closing the backside or otherwise changed procedure back there on high avalanche risk days? I hope so!

 

[JeffB]

I think ski areas should be legally required to either inform us or protect us in Colorado. Neither is the case now.

This is an interesting discussion. Especially for the destination, recreational skier like me who, frankly, has never considered inbounds avalanche danger.

With that said, my frame of reference is the beach. We have a place within a resort on the water and spend as much time there as many of you all do on ski resort property. The public is not allowed on the beach itself, but paying guests and owners are. There are no lifeguards, even at the pools. All the resort does is put up flags to warn of the danger or relative lack thereof based on ocean conditions. Green, yellow, red, double red. Double red means fairly dangerous conditions, but the water is still open for those who want to use it. There is a purple flag too for stinging jelly annoyances. And the last flag is beach closed to all swimmers, but it generally takes a named storm to see that flag. And if you're stupid enough to violate that one, it's the Sheriff's office and not the resort that will deal with you.

Every couple of years someone drowns in red or double red flag conditions. It's gut wrenching, especially when the victim is a child, as we unfortunately saw in the recent past. The typical cause of the drownings is riptides. People get caught in them, freak out, and wear themselves out trying to fight against it. It's disconcerting to get caught in one, I can tell you. A practiced eye can look for them and sometimes see them, or see the conditions develop that will cause one when the afternoon wind picks up. But they are fundamentally unpredictable.

There is no resort liability whatsoever in the event the worst happens. Just the flags and personal responsibility. Or parent responsibility. Or bystander risk taking to try to help someone in need. And I'm ok with that.

I'm not equating common rip currents with avalanches per se, but it seems to me that, as a function of total tourist visits it's really rare in both situations. At least at the ski resort there are very professional patrolers out there for us, many times risking themselves for the multitudes who have no concept whatsoever of what they do, much less how many hours of their lives they devote to being the best they can at it.

Nothing can ever take the risk away at the beach from all manner of living and non-living things. The resort can't mark off areas of rip current. They move and change. They can last for minutes or hours. They are many times under the surf and unseen. And even if they tried to educate about all this, the once-per-year family from Ohio down for July 4th week isn't going to be able to evaluate much more than a basic color code, or want to go through lessons about currents, wind, and surf conditions, or do survival swim training, and probably doesn't much care about all that unless they become a sad but incredibly rare statistic on a per capita basis. So, the resort puts up flags, erring on the side of too much caution, and people can make a choice to get in the water or not. And for people who want to learn about all these aspects of water safety, there are tons of resources available. Such is life.

 

[jmeb]

@JeffB -- I think the analogy is pretty apt. Experienced and trained ocean goers know the unpredictability of rips. They learn how to read water and recreate safely even when they may exist. Yet they are always changing and unpredictable.

The same is true for avalanches and avalanche terrain, inbounds or out.

I could get behind a general rating system used by resorts to indicate the overall danger on a given day in that resorts terrain. Maybe with simple tips like "don't duck ropes in unopen terrain." or "watch for small windloaded features."

I don't think a "mitigation" report would be useful to the vast majority of consumers. If you simply list all avalanche paths on the mountain (which then need to be named and mapped for skiers -- it won't correspond to trails), and provide the latest mitigation attempt and results, you still haven't given a user a very good picture of what to expect on that slope. To make an educated decision on the safety of a particular slope would require significantly more information. Currently, we place this responsibility on patrol who has watched a slope evolve over the course of a season, knows its entire mitigation history, and knows the avalanche problems present on a particular slope.

If you ski a lot of inbounds avalanche terrain, reading a good book on avalanches or taking an avalanche course really isn't a bad idea. The techniques for reading terrain, reading snow and weather, recognizing consequences, and skiing appropriately are the same in the backcountry and inbounds. Its just the types of avalanche problems you're dealing with vary. It's rare you're dealing with persistent or deep persistent slab inbounds (save tragic accidents like the Taos avalanche.) You're mostly dealing with storm slab and wind slab issues which are well served by a general conditions flag.

I set off a number of small wind slabs on open terrain this past weekend. None of them surprised me -- I saw them and put some intentionally hard turns in places to set them off. There would be no realistic for patrol to remove all of those hazards, save skiing out all the most fun terrain.

 

[mdf]

All the resort does is put up flags to warn of the danger or relative lack thereof based on ocean conditions. Green, yellow, red, double red.

I used to go to Hawaii fairly often for work (I know, cue the violins.... but we lost that contract, so that is over.) The problem with that system is that the expensive resort in Wailea just put up permanent (metal!) red flags. The public beach parks up in working-class Kihea did swap out their flags, though.

 

[mdf]

simple tips like "don't duck ropes in unopen terrain."

This is a big education gap. Many eastern skiers just don't get that ropes are a big deal in the West. I have poached closed trails at Stowe with a clear conscience, I would NEVER duck a rope in the Rockies, Sierras, etc....

 

[tball]

I don't think a "mitigation" report would be useful to the vast majority of consumers.

True, but the vast majority of guests at a resort don't ski avi terrain.

A tiny fraction of guests are interested and capable of skiing avalanche-prone terrain, especially on a powder day. We are already being encouraged or required to wear beacons inbounds, which is a great thing. Just give us the information to make better avi decisions too.

This doesn't have to be complicated or expensive for the ski areas. The avalanche forecast and route history must already be disseminated somehow to patrollers. Just give us access to that information as it exists. If it's handwritten, take pictures of it and post it online.

Ski patrols should also have a blog like Al's Blog where they are free to discuss this stuff in detail. I bet they would be happy to if allowed. Give a class or webinar a couple of times a year to let us know how it works and to ask questions. Record it and post it online. This is standard and easy stuff if ski areas were motivated, or preferably required.

It's rare you're dealing with persistent or deep persistent slab inbounds (save tragic accidents like the Taos avalanche.)

I disagree. I worry about deep slabs as much as anything.

A number of inbounds incidents and fatalities were persistent slabs. In addition to Taos, there have been inbounds fatalities on open terrain at Snowbird, Jackson Hole, and Canyons from deep slabs, just off the top of my head.

There's also the guy that was extraordinarily lucky to survive a deep slab avalanche at A-basin in 2013:


Deep slab avalanches are a big motivator why I want to see mitigation reports rather than have blind faith in ski patrol. It sure seems deep slabs are something they have struggled to get right for a long time. True?

Deep slabs are also an area where the mitigation practices vary significantly from my observations afar. There's boot packing. There's compaction rolling. And, there's bomb the crap out of it. Did I miss anything?

It seems like bombing the crap out of it might not work all the time, but it's is also the most common technique. Is that observation off base? I'd love to know with more transparency into the black box.

What did patrol do to mitigate the deep slab in October, November, and December long before the terrain was open? I know Aspen Highlands boot packs pretty much everything. No one else seems to go to that much trouble. Why is that?

I'd like to be able to choose my inbounds avi terrain based on how control work was done. Or, in the case of Vail's Prima Cornice, that any reasonable control work has been done at all. Again, Colorado law doesn't require that ski areas do any avalanche control.

 

[Sibhusky]

As far as I've seen here, they just bomb the crap out of things. Or close them.

 

[jmeb]

The single largest mitigation for persistent slabs is the fact most avalanche terrain inbounds sees significant skier traffic. It completely alters the snowpack and heavily reduces persistent slabs. Go dig a pit inbounds vs out of bounds and you’ll see what I mean. Of course terrain that opens late, like highlands bowl or the ridge at Loveland, needs different mitigation strategies.

Of the last three fatal inbounds avalanches in Colorado, none of them have been a persistent or deep persistent. Two storm slabs and one wet slab according to the CIAC. And Colorado has the most persistent slab prone snowpack in North America.

They may be what some worry about, but data doesn’t suggest they are the most common problem.

 

[tball]

The single largest mitigation for persistent slabs is the fact most avalanche terrain inbounds sees significant skier traffic. It completely alters the snowpack and heavily reduces persistent slabs.

Absolutely.

That's why recently opened terrain is so much riskier. Most of the recent inbounds avalanche fatalities have occurred on recently opened terrain. Those slides are frequently on persistent slabs as in Taos, Snowbird, Jackson Hole, and Canyons. Patrol thinks they mitigated the slope, they open it, then a guest triggers a slide.

There is an obvious common denominator of the hazard of recently opened terrain. Taos has put an exclamation point on that fact, sadly, if it wasn't obvious enough already.

Maybe ski areas should warn guests that recently opened terrain may not be as safe as they hope. Mitigation is inexact, but resorts want guests to believe it's Disneyland.

Or, maybe the first few days or week an avalanche-prone run is open guests should be required to have full gear, a partner, and training in companion rescue.

At least be transparent about the conditions. When somebody shows up at a resort they don't know if a run opened yesterday or a month ago. Skier traffic matters and should inform the choice of which runs to avoid if someone prefers to be more cautious.

I'd like resorts to publish when each run opened and its history of opening and closing for mitigation, in addition to what mitigation techniques were used on a slope since early season. Ski patrol has records of all that. Why not share that information so we can make informed choices?