Jury Rules in Favor of Vail in Avalanche Death

[coskigirl]

I would be interested in seeing the actual jury instructions and how the jury answered each question.

I agree.

 

[tball]

^^^ Agreed, and I'll add this is a great example of how we are really hurt by the death of newspapers. It seems unlikely anyone is going to dig that deep in their reporting.

Karen Crummy who did extensive reporting on this case is no longer with the Denver Post. It appears all of the reporting for the free mountain dailies and the Denver Post is now being done by one guy, Randy Wyrick of the Vail Daily. It seems like the days of multiple reporters competing to produce the best stories are long gone.

Long live Pugski and other Internet forums!

 

[Seldomski]

Well it seems to me that many resorts have their secret stashes that the locals know. These areas require effort beyond what a typical unguided tourist would undertake to find. Does the resort need to ensure these areas are safe and access is limited as necessary? It seems to me that the act of protecting them would in effect ruin them. They would be ruined by:

1) Calling attention to their existence with signage that the tourists can read and follow. Would a 'no hiking' sign with boot prints next to it actually decrease the number of people attempting it? You can't just sign it and not have some level of consequence and enforcement for it to be effective.
2) Bring avalanche control measures to untracked areas
3) Result in permanent closure of such areas since they are cost prohibitive to effectively mitigate/close/patrol/etc. Why keep this tiny slice open when 99% of visitors don't access it and it's likely to be a liability if the wrong person follows the leader?

My thought is the resorts/law need to formally categorize such areas as 'inbounds backcountry' or 'secret stashes.' Essentially if a skier arrives upon a trail in a convoluted manner (hiking, skinning, traversing more than xx meters), the resort has more limited duties to protect such 'adventurous' skiers.

 

[SBrown]

^^^ Agreed, and I'll add this is a great example of how we are really hurt by the death of newspapers. It seems unlikely anyone is going to dig that deep in their reporting.

Karen Crummy who did extensive reporting on this case is no longer with the Denver Post. It appears all of the reporting for the free mountain dailies and the Denver Post is now being done by one guy, Randy Wyrick of the Vail Daily. It seems like the days of multiple reporters competing to produce the best stories are long gone.

Long live Pugski and other Internet forums!

Totally off topic but related to this post: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/873054240/the-colorado-sun

 

[DanoT]

@jmeb I think it's really hard to make a case that doing no avalanche mitigation on Prima Cornice met any reasonable standard of care. I'm not a snow professional, but I've never seen any run like that open without mitigation. Especially given the extremely dangerous snowpack and forecast for high avalanche danger that day it just makes no sense. I'd love to hear how it makes sense if you or anyone have any thoughts.

For context, here's an excerpt from a Denver Post article about how Vail misled investigators about the mitigation work

The snow conditions leading up to Jan. 22 were “horrendous” due to a lack of snow and rotted snow layers that left the snow base weak, ski patrol supervisor William Mattison said in his deposition.

“We were waiting for avalanches to occur,” he said. “We knew that … once it did snow, it was going to be bad.”

Yet, Vail’s daily avalanche-mitigation reports do not show that any control measures were done on Prima Cornice prior to Jan. 22.
​

While I have no first hand knowledge of Prima Cornice, IMO in general closing an avy gate or roping off a run until avy mitigation can be carried out is a reasonable standard of care. It would seem that Vail made a mistake in not closing the second lower gate but then as I understand it the terrain below that gate is not avy prone.

To me the statement by the patrol supervisor about the horrendous conditions due to lack of snow prior to Jan.22 may in fact be the reason for a lack of avy mitigation in Dec. and Jan. as there may have been not enough snow to blast. Also Vail claimed that the avy gate had been closed not for avy conditions but rather lack of snow so presumably the run was closed for days or even weeks prior to the "biggest dump of the season" and it only switched to a avy closure due to the storm, so knowing that the gate was already closed (as per my assumption), patrol may have made the area less of a priority that morning....but they should have also closed the lower gate if they thought people would take risks on a high avy day and duck the upper gate closure.

 

[jmeb]

@jmeb I think it's really hard to make a case that doing no avalanche mitigation on Prima Cornice met any reasonable standard of care. I'm not a snow professional, but I've never seen any run like that open without mitigation. Especially given the extremely dangerous snowpack and forecast for high avalanche danger that day it just makes no sense. I'd love to hear how it makes sense if you or anyone have any thoughts.

For context, here's an excerpt from a Denver Post article about how Vail misled investigators about the mitigation work

The snow conditions leading up to Jan. 22 were “horrendous” due to a lack of snow and rotted snow layers that left the snow base weak, ski patrol supervisor William Mattison said in his deposition.

“We were waiting for avalanches to occur,” he said. “We knew that … once it did snow, it was going to be bad.”

Yet, Vail’s daily avalanche-mitigation reports do not show that any control measures were done on Prima Cornice prior to Jan. 22.
​

The part of the run Vail intended to be open did not avalanche, so haranguing their control of non-open slopes seems a bit unnecessary to me.

That said, my take based on the described conditions would be:

- You're unlikely to use bombs on a shallow snowpack in fragmented terrain terrain like prima cornice.
- The most likely avalanche mitigation in that scenario to avoid unnecessary use of explosives (themselves dangerous), your mitigation is likely going to be a combination of ski cuts and then patrollers side-stepping.
- Unlikely that every ski / ski cut done by patrol gets recorded.
- Side stepping a zone is incredibly labor intensive, and if you have avy concerns you're probably gonna be on belay for a bit too. In a crappy snow year like 11-12, with fresh snow, Vail is probably trying to open tons of terrain. Setting aside a number of patrollers to side-step a small zone is probably not a priority.

If I had to make a wager, I bet that some patrollers had skied/ski cut Prima Cornice that year. They are skiers and powder hounds after all. But likely Vail had no record of it so had to rescind any statement that they made about doing work.

I think the biggest lesson for Vail here is that you don't trust skiers to just ski down from whatever entrance is open. They will go uphill, they will traverse, they will do anything on the grey-area of within acceptable practice for freshies. Vail probably should've set up a rope line, or put up a no uphill hiking sing, or just not opened the lower part.

 

[jmeb]

While I have no first hand knowledge of Prima Cornice, IMO in general closing an avy gate or roping off a run until avy mitigation can be carried out is a reasonable standard of care. It would seem that Vail made a mistake in not closing the second lower gate but then as I understand it the terrain below that gate is not avy prone.

To me the statement by the patrol supervisor about the horrendous conditions due to lack of snow prior to Jan.22 may in fact be the reason for a lack of avy mitigation in Dec. and Jan. as there may have been not enough snow to blast. Also Vail claimed that the avy gate had been closed not for avy conditions but rather lack of snow so presumably the run was closed for days or even weeks prior to the "biggest dump of the season" and it only switched to a avy closure due to the storm, so knowing that the gate was already closed (as per my assumption), patrol may have made the area less of a priority that morning....but they should have also closed the lower gate if they thought people would take risks on a high avy day and duck the upper gate closure.

Agree with all of this. Having skied Prima a couple of times, and looking at the CalTopo Slope overlay right now, I would say the terrain by the lower gate can certainly avalanche. However, this terrain is
- a) significantly smaller than the likely avalanche zone from the upper gate and
- b) skier compaction is itself a form of avalanche mitigation. If the lower gate had already been open for the season and got skied a good bit, the biggest risk of the fresh snow was likely a storm slab. While these can be serious, they are not of the scale of what happened with a soft slab release on old layers on the ground.

 

[jmeb]

This is a very interesting snowpit from the crown. An almost entirely unconsolidated but shallow-ish snowpack (read feels bottomless until rocks), with a huge layer of depth hoar between 10-40cm where the avalanche broke.

If the areas below the lower gate had been skied a good bit before the overnight snowfall, there is no way the snowpack would look anything similar to this pit.

 

[tball]

It would seem that Vail made a mistake in not closing the second lower gate but then as I understand it the terrain below that gate is not avy prone.

The part of the run Vail intended to be open did not avalanche, so haranguing their control of non-open slopes seems a bit unnecessary to me.

The terrain below the lower gate that was open is also highly avy prone. It's terrifying to me that that was open without with apparently no mitigation.

From what I've seen at other resorts, if they want to preserve the snowpack then boot packing is done, usually starting in November. Compaction by skiers after there is enough snow isn't sufficient. I don't know if Vail has a boot packing program, but they didn't boot pack Prima Cornice in the fall of 2011 or it would have been mentioned.

At other ski areas where I'm familiar with current mitigation techniques, if they don't boot pack terrain like Prima Cornice they bomb the crap out of it without regard for the preservation of snowpack. A-basin and maybe others use a compaction machine.

I don't think skier compaction itself is enough to integrate the weak layers below. As highlighted in the reporting and CAIC report, those layers were particularly bad that year. Here's the snowpack summary from the CAIC report:

The Colorado snowpack during the fall of 2011 and early winter of 2012 formed from a few small snowstorms during an extended period of dry, cold weather. The snowpack was generally thin, with the deepest snow cover on north to east aspects. The snow on the ground between mid-October and mid-January formed into a very weak layer of depth hoar crystals.

We performed a snow profile on January 23rd about 100 vertical feet below the crown face of the avalanche. The snow layers included a hard layer of old depth hoar near the ground. This layer was about 9 cm thick. Above this hard layer was about 50 cm of well-developed and very weak, faceted snow grains and depth hoar. Above the depth hoar, there was a 35 cm thick soft slab, formed during two snowstorms (Martin Luther King weekend and the storm on January 21-22). The slab included several layers of small facets, near-surface facets, and decomposing precipitation particles.​

There was a 9 cm thick hard layer of old depth hoar near the ground!

I'm no avalanche mitigation expert, but it seems unlikely skier compaction is going break that. There is a reason A-basin uses this beast for compaction:


http://arapahoebasin.blogspot.com/2018/01/compaction-roller-in-montezuma-bowl.html

 

[jmeb]

There was a 9 cm thick hard layer of old depth hoar near the ground!

This is the layer that the snow slid on top of.

Look at that snowpit profile. It is all Fist soft until the lower 10cm. That is exactly the kind of layers that can be integrated by skier compaction.

If we were talking about a snowpack with hard layers bridging across softer ones making skier compaction tough, I'd agree with you that you need more than skier compaction.

Skier compaction in the backcountry is sort of BS cause you rarely get enough tracks to make it work. But at a resort like Vail on the Frontside? You can skier compact a slope the size of lower bits of Prima cornice in a few hours of regular skiing.

You're talking about zuma bowl vs below treeline sheltered terrain. Entirely different snowpacks. The reason they use that beast in zuma is because you a) have a huge area to cover) and b) are likely to have windslabs that make it hard for a skier alone to compact. The patroller standing there is perfect evidence how different of snowpacks we're talking about. He's obviously standing on a relatively hard layer, probably a few fingers. Put him in a snowpack of mostly Fist-soft snow, and that dude is sinking up to his waist.

Sort of think it might be worth taking at least an AIARE 1 at least before sitting in such judgement of a professional avalanche mitigation group.

 

[SBrown]

The terrain below the lower gate that was open is also highly avy prone. It's terrifying to me that that was open with apparently no mitigation....

It's the only thing steep enough at Vail to slide, isn't it @UGASkiDawg? Vail has no experience with mitigation. (that was a joke. mostly)

 

[cosmoliu]

Well it seems to me that many resorts have their secret stashes that the locals know. These areas require effort beyond what a typical unguided tourist would undertake to find. Does the resort need to ensure these areas are safe and access is limited as necessary? It seems to me that the act of protecting them would in effect ruin them.

This, and the recurring theme in this thread of individual responsibility remind me of a day I had at Snowbird about 15 yrs ago. It had been snowing 6-8" each day for several days and mid-week I hooked up with a local husband/wife couple who took me to many of their favorite spots. Nothing super secret, but certainly places on the Gad side of the Cirque Traverse I hadn't ventured into on my own. After several sh*t-eating-grin worthy runs, the wife turned to me and asked, "You do have a beacon on, right?" As a relative newbie to powder experiences, I had to admit that the thought of owning one had never crossed my mind. And it gave me a quick, big reality check. And these days we seem to know so much more about avalanche risk than we did back then.

Sorry for the slight hijack.

 

[tball]

- You're unlikely to use bombs on a shallow snowpack in fragmented terrain terrain like prima cornice.
- The most likely avalanche mitigation in that scenario to avoid unnecessary use of explosives (themselves dangerous), your mitigation is likely going to be a combination of ski cuts and then patrollers side-stepping.
- Unlikely that every ski / ski cut done by patrol gets recorded.
- Side stepping a zone is incredibly labor intensive, and if you have avy concerns you're probably gonna be on belay for a bit too. In a crappy snow year like 11-12, with fresh snow, Vail is probably trying to open tons of terrain. Setting aside a number of patrollers to side-step a small zone is probably not a priority.

I just strongly disagree about the use of explosives. On terrain similar Prima Cornice, always see bombs used for mitigation. Bomb craters and gunpowder are everywhere. I don't think slipping or stepping every pocket is practical, let alone safe, especially on rocky and cliffy steeps like Prima Cornice.

I agree ski cuts were probably done that were not recorded, at least after it was somewhat skiable. It seems likely any use of explosives would need to be recorded. I sure hope so.

I just don't see how any ski cuts or sidestepping could be sufficient to get all the way to the bottom of a snowpack that deep to break up that 9 cm thick hard bottom layer. That's my understanding why boot packing is started very early in the season and is done without skis.

Here are some videos showing boot packing at Aspen Highlands for those not familiar:

 

[jmeb]

I understand your concerns, but a lot of what you're saying just doesn't jive at all with what I've learned in avy classes, or from talking closely with my buddy who worked on patrol for years, or lots of time backcountry skiing with experience folk with avy 2s and 3s.

1. This is a shallow snowpack we're talking about. 100cm sounds like a lot, but it is 3ft. It is shallow by snowpack standards. That is a snowpack you can easily affect if it is all still soft. Which the snowpit profile above makes clear it was. (For reference "Fist soft" means you can easily put your fist into a profile. Its the softing ranking snowpits have. It doesn't translate to "blower" but it does mean incredibly unsupportive. ie. your will sink if you stand in it.)
2. Most every snowpack in CO has a layer of facets at the bottom, esp if you ski on N or NE facing slopes during a year. Every season you are skiing on hard facets at the bottom of the snowpack. They alone are not the problem in this case. The slide was on the interface between them and a layer of unconsolidate, fist-soft snow. You don't remove this layer by boot packing or explosives. What you do is get a bigger, more supportive layers on top that make this layer less reactive. This layer is a feature of our climate (the fact that the ground is always 32 degrees, and you have lots of cold air above it facets the bottom layers), not something you can completely remove.
3. Please stop comparing open bowls (Zuma, Highlands) and their mitigation strategies to the relatively small, much more featured, and below-treeline terrain of Prima Cornice. One is a 7ac area at about 10600, Highlands bowl is 77acres at 12200, Zuma is ~110acres at 12300). Yes, some of the fundamentals apply between these areas, but the realities of their snowpack (due to huge differences in wind, sun affect, slope connectedness, etc) are worlds apart.
4. Bombing is an option. But bombing is a last choice and is typically used when it is harder for individuals to trigger an avalanche. Furthermore, stepping/slide slipping is more practical then bombing in highly featured terrain like Prima Cornice where you would need tons of bombs to make a reasonable attempt to trigger all the pockets. Ski cutting is a more effective strategy here.

The avalanche in this incident wasn't that large, R3 (Medium to path) and D2. This isn't the case of a whole slope ripping out, connecting various pods of the snowpack. It's skiers unluckily striking a trigger that ripped a pod, and then they were tragically strained through trees.

I'll let this thread revert to non-technical avalanche discussion. If someone with more experience in snowpack development and avalanche mitigation wants to correct me, I'm happy to learn.

 

[Jully]

I think the biggest lesson for Vail here is that you don't trust skiers to just ski down from whatever entrance is open. They will go uphill, they will traverse, they will do anything on the grey-area of within acceptable practice for freshies. Vail probably should've set up a rope line, or put up a no uphill hiking sing, or just not opened the lower part.

I think this is a really important outcome of this tragedy (I hope). Does anyone know what Vail does now with the area? Do they rope it? Close both gates always? I've been following the thread, and don't think I've seen the answer (apologies if I missed it!).

The dual gate setup, pics, and location in the middle of the resort actually reminds me a bit of Blueslip Bowl at Park City (though Blueslip is a good bit tamer, but similar set up with multiple gates at similar heights accessing different parts of the bowl, combo of denser trees on one side and more open bowl on the other). Often one gate it open while others are closed, but the few times I've been at PC there are always ropes preventing you from going too far over. I have not skied PC prior to Vail's takeover though, but I assume this was always their practice.

 

[tball]

3. Please stop comparing open bowls (Zuma, Highlands) and their mitigation strategies to the relatively small, much more featured, and below-treeline terrain of Prima Cornice. One is a 7ac area at about 10600, Highlands bowl is 77acres at 12200, Zuma is ~110acres at 12300). Yes, some of the fundamentals apply between these areas, but the realities of their snowpack (due to huge differences in wind, sun affect, slope connectedness, etc) are worlds apart.

I'll defer to your greater expertise on the snowpack. On the terrain, I'll point out this slide was triggered and slid in a fairly good size treeless bowl-like area. It seems likely much of that open area was created by previous slides. Does anyone know the history of how Prima Cornice came to be? That was just slightly before this old guy's time skiing there.

While I don't have your backcountry snowpack expertise, have seen how mitigation is done inbounds on similar terrain for more than three decades skiing in CO. I maintain that bombing and directed skiing would be a given on this terrain most elsewhere and it still terrifies me that little mitigation was done on Prima Cornice. I'm assuming this was a mistake and hope it has been rectified.

Does anyone know what Vail does now with the area? Do they rope it? Close both gates always?

Yes, they changed the policy to always open and close both gates:
https://www.vaildaily.com/news/vail-resorts-announces-prima-cornice-gate-closure-change/

My feeling is the gate closure policy is not what needed changing, rather the avalanche mitigation was the problem.

If someone with more experience in snowpack development and avalanche mitigation wants to correct me, I'm happy to learn.

I agree. I wish there were more reporting and open discussion about the avalanche mitigation in this case. I agree with the CO Supreme Court ruling that avalanches are an inherent risk of skiing. Unfortunately, that ruling also shut down all information and any expert testimony on the subject.

 

[tball]

The avalanche in this incident wasn't that large, R3 (Medium to path) and D2. This isn't the case of a whole slope ripping out, connecting various pods of the snowpack. It's skiers unluckily striking a trigger that ripped a pod, and then they were tragically strained through trees.

I think the path looks relatively large compared to the size of the Prima Cornice run. From the CAIC report:



The majority of the slide path is accessible from the lower gate without hiking. They shouldn't be opening a run without doing mitigation work on the snow hanging above.

For context, here's an image showing the approximate location of the upper and lower gates that I grabbed from the Vail Daily video posted above.

 

[dbostedo]

A couple of other "eye level" views of the Prima Cornice, from FATMAP. You can somewhat better see the difference in elevation between the upper and lower gates, and the slope involved in the second, profile, view. (Although the mapped on satellite tree image looks weird in profile.)

 

[tball]

^^^ I'll just add the two black lines on those images don't indicate two different runs. Many skiers come in the lower gate, turn right, and end up skiing the black line on skiers right that's in the middle of the slide path. No hiking required, you just lose the turns at the top without hiking. It's all Prima Cornice.

 

[dbostedo]

^^^ I'll just add the two black lines on those images don't indicate two different runs. Many skiers come in the lower gate, turn right, and end up skiing the black line on skiers right that's in the middle of the slide path. No hiking required, you just lose the turns at the top without hiking. It's all Prima Cornice.

Where the black lines diverge, is actually closer to the lower gate I think. There is no line coming in from the upper gate, which would be more like under "M" in "FATMAP" at the top.