Colorado avalanche death during avalanche course

[raisingarizona]

well.......sh&t.

https://www.outtherecolorado.com/avalanche-death-occurred-during-an-avalanche-safety-course/

 

[SBrown]

Yep. "Shit" is right.

 

[François Pugh]

Hmmm. Maybe I'll just take the on-line course.

 

[pete]

sad story.

Read a lot of area's in Co are higher risk for back country:

https://www.steamboatpilot.com/news...m_medium=push_notification&utm_source=browser


https://avalanche.state.co.us/forecasts/backcountry-avalanche/steamboat-flat-tops/

 

[Tricia]

This is terribly sad news out of Colorado.
A man from Longmont Colorado died Saturday while taking an avalanche safety course in Silverton.

Six skiers were swept away in the avalanche, 5 walked away, except one. Peter Marshall, a 40 year old man from Longmont, the first avalanche fatality of the year in Colorado.

Condolences to his family.

See Denver Post story here

 

[Plai]

Merge with https://www.pugski.com/threads/colorado-avalanche-death-during-avalanche-course.13337/ ?
And delete my post?

 

[jmeb]

Really tragic and tough. I will read the CIAC report when it comes out with great interest.

I know lots of people who have used Silverton Avy school and have had nothing but great things to say.

FYI -- Colorado Sun is now up and running and has much higher quality writing, and less paywall-ness than the Post: https://coloradosun.com/2019/01/07/silverton-avalanche-peter-marshall-safety-course/

 

[James]

Sad. Jan 6 is a bad day for the school. From the Colo Sun article an intern was killed skiing on the same day in 2015.

 

[Wooley12]

I lost a friend in an avy on another Red Mt. a couple of years back. He'd just taken an advanced avy class on his way to becoming a ski mountaineering guide. Went for a 1500' climb up 45+ deg before going to work and stepped onto a pocket of windblown. I asked a friend who has 1000+ days of guiding what he thought had happened. He looked at me kind of cold stoic and said "I wasn't there." It's always a loss.

 

[jmeb]

He looked at me kind of cold stoic and said "I wasn't there."

Sign of someone who gets it. Awesome quote.

Traveling in avalanche terrain is a shitty feedback environment. You only notice when you get unlucky. All the times you got lucky register as "I made a good decision".

 

[karlo]

Really tragic and tough. I will read the CIAC report when it comes ou

https://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/acc/acc_report.php?accfm=rep&acc_id=685

 

[Primoz]

Traveling in avalanche terrain is a shitty feedback environment. You only notice when you get unlucky. All the times you got lucky register as "I made a good decision".

I'm not sure I agree with this "all the times you got lucky" thing. As sometimes you actually do make good decision and nothing happened because of that good decision. But on the other side, especially considering there's never, and I mean NEVER, 100% safe terrain from avalanches, unless there's no snow of course, you can also consider this as luck. As even with all the right decisions, you can still be unlucky and get hurt. So maybe you are actually right.

 

[jmeb]

https://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/acc/acc_report.php?accfm=rep&acc_id=685

Yep -- saw that. Imagine it will be some time until we have the full accident report though. Thats where the real "how did this come about" lessons are.

 

[François Pugh]

How did this come about? I would like to see the full report, but until then my suspicion is skiing back country when avalanche risk was high. I've been extremely reckless in my younger days, skiing where I shouldn't have been skiing, skiing terrain beyond my abilities, skiing at ludricrous speed, skiing back country alone no gear other than skis boots, poles and clothing, not even a phone or radio, doing all of these things at once. One thing I never did though, was ski back country when avalanche risk was high.

 

[jmeb]

How did this come about? I would like to see the full report, but until then my suspicion is skiing back country when avalanche risk was high. I've been extremely reckless in my younger days, skiing where I shouldn't have been skiing, skiing terrain beyond my abilities, skiing at ludricrous speed, skiing back country alone no gear other than skis boots, poles and clothing, not even a phone or radio, doing all of these things at once. One thing I never did though, was ski back country when avalanche risk was high.

I'd wait for a full report before making any presumptions or judgements. This was an Avy level 2 class. Which means participants are expected to have 35+ days of logged bc travel before participating (ie. with forecast, trip plans, observations, etc all recorded in a book.) Plus a level 1. Plus guided by staff from one of the most experienced avalanche schools in America.

Comparisons of what you did in your extremely reckless younger days are probably misplaced.

And for the record, the day of the incident the forecast was "Moderate" at all elevations in the forecast zone. In Colorado, it very rarely goes belows moderate between December and April. Thats a 2 out of 5 on the scale. The following day, with additional snow, it was "Considerable" (3 out of 5.) It was never "High" (4 out of 5) around the time of this incident.

Interestingly, the avalanche problem for the day was persistent slab, on all aspects except SW and S. The avalanche in question was on a S aspect.

 

[François Pugh]

Thanks for the information jmeb, I had been inundated by high risk warnings in BC Canada on the news and weather stations, which probably influenced me into thinking it was high. I'll try not to get all my exercise from jumping to conclusions from here on.

 

[dbostedo]

I'm not sure I agree with this "all the times you got lucky" thing. As sometimes you actually do make good decision and nothing happened because of that good decision. But on the other side, especially considering there's never, and I mean NEVER, 100% safe terrain from avalanches, unless there's no snow of course, you can also consider this as luck. As even with all the right decisions, you can still be unlucky and get hurt. So maybe you are actually right.

He wasn't saying that every time you were safe you got lucky. He was saying that there are bound to be some times when you just got lucky, but you don't know whether you did or not. And you might just assume that you made good decisions, rather than got lucky.

 

[Mike King]

The full report is out and makes for sober reading. The victim was buried 3 meters deep (10 feet) and it took them 50 minutes to extract him.

https://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/acc/acc_report.php?accfm=inv&acc_id=685&view=public

The instructor has to be incredibly affected by this.

Mike

 

[Ken_R]

The full report is out and makes for sober reading. The victim was buried 3 meters deep (10 feet) and it took them 50 minutes to extract him.

https://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/acc/acc_report.php?accfm=inv&acc_id=685&view=public

The instructor has to be incredibly affected by this.

Mike

Looks like it was the second Avalanche that was deadly. Such a sketchy snowpack right now. What a horrible situation.

 

[James]

Seems like an excellent report with an attempt to educate rather than just say what happened.