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November 24, 2003, three way peak

11/24/03
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Posted by sag on 11/24/03 11:15pm
A buddy and I went up to crystal yesterday to reap a few of the bennys of new snow and a chairlift. After lunch (about 12:30) he cruised up through the trees towards three way peak to see if we could find some freshies. We came out of the trees at the fist roll below what is normaly the traverse below three way peak and dug a quick pit, shovel shear colapsed without effort so we  then dug out a rutchblock. About 130cm to the ground according to the measures on my ski pole. Stepping onto the block it slid at ground level.Freaked out we snuck back into the trees and back in bounds.If your headed to the area Please be carefull.
Good info, Stefan.
Thanks.

Great info, thanks.  Did you notice anyone traversing into Crystal Basin from the ski area (any tracks in the bowl).  I wonder if they have done any avy work back there yet?  Do you know if the south back has even "opened" to lift skiers yet?

No tracks through the bowl that we could see, I did not see any signs of control, but visability was not good enough to see the whole bowl.  I don't think southback has opened at all, but if it has opened before it was not opened yesterday.

Thanks for the update. I spoke to a couple of guys from the Patrol who expressed the same conditions in A Basin - releases going to ground. North and South backcountry have not opened yet this season.  High Campbell Basin sure was nice on Monday.  Did you ski Damn Fine Forest or Lizard Back Ridge ?

Zap

After a few runs last Saturday the 21st I decided my legs were to tired to ski in the area. Therefore, using common sense I decided to skin from chair 4 to some of the rolling knolls near 3 way (FFF) for some easy powder turns. In the Silver Basin I saw saw a group of at least 10 gun-ho skiers and one boarder. They had music and a party atmosphere! They put an awesome safe skin track up the North facing Silver Basin bowl. They skied the whole South basin, other than the far SE side of the basin (MY way out). When I mean skied- I mean TRACKED OUT the entire basin! There were tracks on tracks they skied it so much. I have to hand it to them they must have made over 15 passes up the skin track to track it out that much. I abondoned my thoughts of skiing the FFF due to gut feeling avy hazards and borrowed their skin track to elevate myself the top of the King.
The top of Silver King was very wind blown on the North West Exposure. So much that it appeared to me that it was down to the ice base. The SE exposure from the top had an inch wind layer and 8 inches of soft under the slab. My choice was ice or slab on decent. The slab was skied and broken already, so I chose that as the safest way down. After 100 vft. the slab was completely gone and a wonderful 15 inches of hissing dream powder greeted my Super Mountains. I skied through the trees all the way to the groomed valley floor in the flats above 4.  ;D
Sunday Crystal employed a Helicopter to drop bombs on the whole SouthBack. It was hard to view the results from the chair after the bombs flew. Quite honestly-I did not realize on Saturday the area was that sensitive. Although I assesed and avoided 3-way due to wind slab and the 3 foot depth of snow on the crust. The rest of Silver basin appeared safe because it was nearly completely skied out. I felt uncomfortable with the SE wind slabbing on the summit of the King. That was then now we have a lot of snow on top of the previous factors with warming in the near future.
Be really avy savvy!
Final Thought-The best way to keep out of an avy is to never get in one!

I meant Silver Basin (Crystal is the next Basin to the south I believe).  Wow, so it was torn up by some motivated folks.  Interesting.  Thanks for the update above - that's the info I was looking for.

I like to thank the poachers for packing down SE side of King.  Every year somebody does and its alot of work.  By the way, for the people who were back there, has an exist trail been cut yet?  I mean the quarter mile or so of flats that go over 2 large ponds (not henskin lake).   Must have been alot of work for the lone boarder unless its a split board.  Well I'll be back there is sometime this weekend to check it out and brush up on snow analysis techniques.

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november-24-2003-three-way-peak
sag
2003-11-25 07:15:52