Inbounds slide at Jackson Hole

[dbostedo]

Saw this on Facebook... 5 people buried (or partially buried) near the Thunder lift, but all rescued and OK thank goodness :

https://www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/town_county/article_7b8810af-e141-5ad7-9522-193d424f8cdd.html

 

[SBrown]

wow

 

[Tricia]

Wow. As was said in another thread, even when things are planned and mitigated.....

 

[dbostedo]

I'm always curious to know what kind of analysis goes on with patrol when there's an in-bounds slide... do they have long anaylsis meetings? Do they change how they look at the terrain in question? Etc.

 

[Tricia]

I'm always curious to know what kind of analysis goes on with patrol when there's an in-bounds slide... do they have long anaylsis meetings? Do they change how they look at the terrain in question? Etc.

I think this bowl is one of the areas that they give a lot of attention to for many reasons, not the least of which is how the snow loads.
@TPJ or @Bob Peters or @HarkinBanks Banks likely have more reliable information than I do.

 

[Lorenzzo]

So I was there today. According to ski patrol there were two groups, one prospecting unconsolidated in bounds and the other, fairly novice skiers just cruising on a gentle cat track which crossed the slope below the other group. The woman who was completely buried and lucky to be alive was one of those meandering down the cat track. Hard to imagine that risk from the perspective of an inexperienced skier. This is based on an unofficial from a couple of patrollers so no warrants as to its accuracy.

 

[Ken_R]

So I was there today. According to ski patrol there were two groups, one prospecting unconsolidated in bounds and the other, fairly novice skiers just cruising on a gentle cat track which crossed the slope below the other group. The woman who was completely buried and lucky to be alive was one of those meandering down the cat track. Hard to imagine that risk from the perspective of an inexperienced skier. This is based on an unofficial from a couple of patrollers so no warrants as to its accuracy.

Makes sense. The "easiest" way down traverses right under the slope. I mean, you can give the steep slope enough of a wide berth to not be caught since the run from the saddle is quite wide but no one would expect a slide happening there. Those moving slow or stopped are easy pickin's for the slide. It looked pretty darn big!

 

[clong83]

Makes sense. The "easiest" way down traverses right under the slope. I mean, you can give the steep slope enough of a wide berth to not be caught since the run from the saddle is quite wide but no one would expect a slide happening there. Those moving slow or stopped are easy pickin's for the slide. It looked pretty darn big!

A bit unrelated, but I think this is why the backside at Taos is always so slow to get open despite decent early snow. Avalanche concerns from Highline Ridge would potentially hurt anyone on the cat track connecting front side to back, so until they get around to blasting up there it stays closed.

Sounds like a similar terrain feature here.

 

[ella_g]

@dbostedo they do have really long analysis meetings and then they release a very long report, which includes among other things all the avy mitigation they've done in that area since the beginning of the season, with incredible detail. I had no idea that they documented everything so carefully etc. Happy to send you the full report if you're interested. They also meet with people involved, in this case there were ski club kids & coaches, you can imagine an endless array of meetings to determine future protocols etc. And each age group is now meeting with ski patrol, there's parent meetings etc.

@Lorenzzo , kind of funny how even if you were there you heard like 20 different unrelated versions of what happened, it took days to get the straight story ...

 

[dbostedo]

@ella_g If the report is allowed to be shared, sure, I'd like to see it. Can you PM me the file?

 

[Coach13]

Wow. As was said in another thread, even when things are planned and mitigated.....

Yes, things happen regardless of prep. Luckily things turned out okay.

 

[ella_g]

@dbostedo it's a public file, and interesting on a whole lot of different levels ... will send it now, not sure if all the graphs will come through

 

[dbostedo]

Thanks @ella_g ... I haven't read it yet, but it's a pretty small file, so I'm posting it here too for anyone else that wants it.

 

[dbostedo]

^^^
Read it now.... very neat and interesting to see and read (especially since this was minor and no one was hurt).