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Monique

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What does this mean?
The alpha angle was 22 degrees, which is close to the maximum distance an avalanche in this path can run.
 

James

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Guessing you draw a line from start to toe and that's the hypotenuse. Vertical drop and horizontal distance make the other sides.

Here:
"Alpha angle is the incline of an imaginary line drawn between the start zone of a slide (its crown, or highest point) and the farthest toe of the resulting debris field. Alpha angles for “100 year” avalanches (i.e. the big ones) are typically in the 18- to 20-degree range, depending on the specific mountain range and other factors. Unless you have site-specific data showing otherwise, assuming a slide will go no farther than 18 degrees in a runout is generally the safe bet."
IMG_6214.JPG

https://backcountrymagazine.com/stories/mountain-skills-alpha-angle/
 

Monique

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Guessing you draw a line from start to toe and that's the hypotenuse. Vertical drop and horizontal distance make the other sides.

Here:
"Alpha angle is the incline of an imaginary line drawn between the start zone of a slide (its crown, or highest point) and the farthest toe of the resulting debris field. Alpha angles for “100 year” avalanches (i.e. the big ones) are typically in the 18- to 20-degree range, depending on the specific mountain range and other factors. Unless you have site-specific data showing otherwise, assuming a slide will go no farther than 18 degrees in a runout is generally the safe bet."
View attachment 70474
https://backcountrymagazine.com/stories/mountain-skills-alpha-angle/

Thanks (sorry for not googling before asking). I was confused by an angle being described as a distance. This makes sense.
 

Doby Man

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I just read somewhere that underestimating danger can cause injury or death. Who knew?
I just figure that, in turn, an overestimation of my abilities will even out those odds.

I also just read that a skier gets killed in an avalanche every 48 hours.
I don’t know who he is but I want the same doctor he has.
 

raisingarizona

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40 minutes from burial to ambulance is pretty good. The trauma was just from the snow tumbling? Doesn't say anything about hitting trees or rocks.

Wha?

The force and power of a slide (especially of this size) is enough to take your lower torso and wrap it all up around your neck. It’s not just some light tumbling snow, it’s a force that you don’t ever want to experience.
 

raisingarizona

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Jones Pass incident report is out. It is even more damning for the snowcat operation than most imagined.

https://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/acc/acc_report.php?acc_id=709&accfm=inv&view=public

Holy sheet. I didn’t think they had clients that day. This takes the accident to a whole different level imo. It’s one thing to take those risks among very experienced peers but taking clients that may be completely clueless is kind of F-d up.

Sometimes you just gotta call it. Maybe this operation was in a desperate situation barely hanging on financially? Maybe the decision makers felt pressured to get their paying customers a worthy experience. Maybe they are all pretty young and don’t have the experience themselves to know when to say no? I certainly don’t know but these are questions that pop into my mind.

I’ve been out with young guides before and I definitely questioned their abilities and bag of knowledge. Not necessarily out loud but I sure wouldn’t take their opinion as gospel. I think a good lesson here is even with a guided service you should have at least some knowledge to become part of the safety conversation and if you don’t at least know to cancel during days of extreme danger.

This season was nuts with inbounds incidents and incidents that included professionals.
 
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jmeb

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Maybe this operation was in a desperate situation barely hanging on financially? Maybe the decision makers felt pressured to get their paying customers a worthy experience. Maybe they are all pretty young and don’t have the experience themselves to know when to say no?

If anything its the pressured to get customers out. Powder Addiction seems to be doing just fine from what I've seen. The guides in question, including the one who passed away, are not young reckless folk. Decades of experience among them. But that didn't save them from making wrong decisions in a 100-year avalanche cycle.
 

Jerez

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The guides in question, including the one who passed away, are not young reckless folk. Decades of experience among them. But that didn't save them from making wrong decisions in a 100-year avalanche cycle.
This my takeaway. Knowledge and experience and good intentions are not enough to keep you safe. Not sure what the other necessary ingredient is... humility an outside check on decisionmaking? A pill to suppress the amygdal? None of us is immune. Lawrence Gonzales's book "Deep Survival" explores the phenomenon across many environments from landing fighter jets on a carrier to deciding to launch kayaks despite raging flood danger. This is deeply ingrained if counterintuitive human behavior.
 

raisingarizona

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This my takeaway. Knowledge and experience and good intentions are not enough to keep you safe. Not sure what the other necessary ingredient is... humility an outside check on decisionmaking? A pill to suppress the amygdal? None of us is immune. Lawrence Gonzales's book "Deep Survival" explores the phenomenon across many environments from landing fighter jets on a carrier to deciding to launch kayaks despite raging flood danger. This is deeply ingrained if counterintuitive human behavior.

I love that book!
 

SBrown

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Does anyone know if any other cat operators (or other backcountry guiding services) operated that day?
 

4ster

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I’ve been out with young guides before and I definitely questioned their abilities and bag of knowledge. Not necessarily out loud but I sure wouldn’t take their opinion as gospel
Amen to that! Not necessarily in regard to this incident but I have had similar experiences.
Question everything, always.
 

Primoz

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If anything its the pressured to get customers out. Powder Addiction seems to be doing just fine from what I've seen. The guides in question, including the one who passed away, are not young reckless folk.
Based on my experience, main thing in this sort of business (probably others too) is not safety first, but business and happy client first. We all know avalanches don't happen very frequently and you need quite a bit of bad luck to get caught, and pretty much all guides I know, and I know quite few depend a lot on this "good luck"... like it or not. Personally I even understand this and don't blame them for that. I understand they have bills to pay and I understand it's really hard to tell to client, who fly in from far just for few days of skiing, that today we will drink beer, stay inside and not go skiing as conditions are not good. For most of guides this means day that is not paid, and for most of clients it means one day less on skis... one day less out of those very few they paid for to be skiing in that year.
I understand that, but that means I'm actually the one that decides where we will ski, when I go out skiing with those friends that are guides, as their perception is so scre*wed up by business, that they have problems switching over when skiing just for fun, and most of time I make better/safer deciding then they do :) Luckily most of them know this too, so we still have cool days out :) And in my experience younger guys are actually better as they are still scared of nature, older ones with 20+ years of experience are pretty much immortal, so you can think how their decision making is.
 

jmeb

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I understand you're experience @Primoz. However, I disagree that is the case with this particular operation in general -- decision making on this day not withstanding. Please keep in mind that some of us actually know the guides and operation in question as they guide in an area we frequently backcountry ski and drink in the same bars we hang out in afterwards.

Most of their clientele are day skiers from Denver. Not people who are going to sit in a bar snowed out during the day.

The familiarity heuristic was big here.
 
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James

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Seems to me that when the SnowCat heading up got blocked by an 8ft, 2.4m, avalanche debris toe, it was a sign to go under 25 degrees with no steeps above? Or call it for the day.
 

jmeb

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Seems to me that when the SnowCat heading up got blocked by an 8ft, 2.44m, avalanche debris toe, it was a sign to go under 25 degrees with no steeps above? Or call it for the day.

I think this is what they were sort of intending to do. The failure is that they thought they were out of range of steep terrain above. However, we were in a 100-year avalanche cycle when paths were going further than they have since anyone still around has been skiing. Not appreciating was fatal.
 

DanoT

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Generally one problem that shouldn't be overlooked in the guide's decision making process is the clientele that they are dealing with: often successful business types who are predominately type A personalities more used to giving orders than taking them, creating even more pressure to be out there doing what they paid for.
 

HardDaysNight

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Generally one problem that shouldn't be overlooked in the guide's decision making process is the clientele that they are dealing with: often successful business types who are predominately type A personalities more used to giving orders than taking them, creating even more pressure to be out there doing what they paid for.

Very valid point. A major reason resorts like Deer Valley are so dangerous. I’ve christened this The Master of the Universe Syndrome. Three skiers have killed themselves there this season.
 

Mike King

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Well, I only skied with Powder Addiction once years ago in terrible (low snowfall, breakable crust, hardback) conditions so I cannot really comment on those particular guides, but I do think that some of the generalizations about guides and their desire to satisfy clients is not necessarily generally true. I've skied with several cat operations and extensively heli-skied, as well as been on a guided ski touring trip in the Himalaya. Almost all of these guides have passed at least their ACMG, AMGA, or IFMGA certification in ski guiding if not a complete mountain guide certification. And none of those guides has shown the least amount of stretching the envelope to get the goods, even when I've paid nearly 5 figures for the trip and haven't been able to travel for 3 of them due to storm conditions. They place their clients and their own safety first even at the expense of pissing someone off and losing long-term business. In fact, I think that the reason that some of these places offer credits to their guests, in the form of actual cash in some cases, for not being able to deliver the promised vertical is because they do NOT want to put the guide in the pressure cooker of delivering the revenue despite the conditions.

It's interesting to hear tale of the ACMG certification exam. Basically, the candidate has to lead a ski tour under very stressful conditions, often in terrible weather (the worse the better) with exhaustion and is evaluated on their risk management and decision-making. It is not easy at all, and I think serves to place the guides in the right frame of mind for their career in leading backcountry ski experiences.

All that being said, spending as much time in the terrain that these guides did likely opened them to the heuristic traps that befall all those who deal in low probability/high consequence endeavors. Like NASA with the Challenger accident, just because nothing has blown up in this program doesn't mean it cannot. This accident is a great lesson to us all about our own responsibility to be educated about the dangers of backcountry skiing so that we can be a meaningful part of the decision making process, even if you are on a heli, cat, or other guided trip.

Mike
 

raisingarizona

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Generally one problem that shouldn't be overlooked in the guide's decision making process is the clientele that they are dealing with: often successful business types who are predominately type A personalities more used to giving orders than taking them, creating even more pressure to be out there doing what they paid for.

For some maybe, but a good guide let’s any client know that they ( the guide ) is in charge and they don’t let anyone push them around, especially when people’s lives are in danger.
 

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