Home > Trip Reports > Mar 21, Table Carnage

Mar 21, Table Carnage

3/15/09
5853
12
Posted by curmudgeon on 3/22/09 11:48am
Clem and I skied the single slope in this picture that had not slid ...

 

(3-24: edited to link to high res version)
Impressive picture Tim. I don't think I have ever seen Table go wall to wall with that depth of slab. Did you get a look at the Arm or White Salmon?...Just got back from Valhalla. 100cm over the week.

Here's another view with different lighting. I sure enjoyed the outing - the sightseeing was at least as good as the turns. Thanks, Tim.

Where were those photos taken from?

Wow! That's something. Do you know when it went?

Tim, you spelt mountain wrong! Here is a picture of you ripping White Salmon before the cycle...

I heard a haunting story (rumor) of a 6' crown that went wall to wall on Table and on the Arm on the same cycle back in the record year of 98-99. Anyone else remember such story or have a picture of the monster crown?

Brownc9- I have the Feb. 14, 1999 slide on Shuksan Arm burned into my brain. My wife and I almost lost our lives that day, Valentines day. The crown was 15' in places and we watched from start to finish, taking out an old growth tree. And, in horror, screaming "get out of the valley", we watched a man perish as he looked back at blocks the size of buses and much larger envelope him. He was found in September the following year, not the year of the slide. Another, younger man was killed around the corner, directly under the "monster". I used to have an internet link to the event, but it has gone by the wayside. I'll try to find it. We have old Hi-8 video footage of the aftermath and crownline. Needless to say, I never take the low traverse off of chair 8 under the Arm anymore. PS- It was huge, but didn't go wall to wall. If it had, I wouldn't be typing this...Edit to add this from the 98/99 snowpack summary. The actual incident link is a dead link.     

    A brief "break" from sustained heavy snowfall occurred on the 13th and 14th of February, especially in the Mt. Baker area when "only" 5 and 3 inches of new snowfall, respectively, were reported. With some brief clearing, this gave skiers and snowboarders their first chance since late January to leave the area and head for the untracked and uncontrolled terrain along Shuksan Arm in the Mt. Baker Wilderness. By this time, over 320 inches of new snow had been reported since mid-January at the base of Mt Baker. While most avalanches continued to be reported as primarily involving only the most recently deposited snow, a very large slab avalanche occurred adjacent to Mt Baker ski area on Sunday afternoon, February 14th. This was a 12–15 foot slab that released from a large north to northeast exposure convex roll (at about the 5800 ft level) above "Rumble Gully", a notorious slide chute just beyond the east boundary of the ski area. Once releasing, the slide immediately caught and buried a snowboarder who was traversing just below the upper breakover. The avalanche then continued across and over an upper bench where it initiated several smaller fractures and entrained more surface snow. It then proceeded down into lower "Rumble Gully" and the runout adjacent to the base of the Shuksan Arm chair where it caught and buried a skier. Mark traveled to Mt Baker on the day after the accident to investigate the slide site with the ski patrol director, and to take photos of the area. Along with the reports from the patrol director, he has since prepared a more detailed accident description, which is available on the NWAC web site, along with selected photos of the slide. In any case, this massive avalanche buried and killed a snow boarder and a skier. The boarder was found after 3 hours of probing, while the skier has still not been found and is presumed buried under 10-20 feet or more of debris. As a result of this avalanche incident and intermittent highway pass closures of both Stevens and Snoqualmie Passes due to avalanches and high avalanche danger, newsmedia interest in avalanches exploded and NWAC forecasters were consulted for a variety of television, radio and newspaper interviews. These newsmedia contacts included interviews with national newspapers like USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times, national or international television broadcasts like CNN, CBS Evening News, the BBC; and considerable exposure on Northwest television, newspaper and radio programming.

Found the link that works. http://www.nwac.us/documents/accidents/1998-1999/mbk_accident_report21499.htm  Not the best pictures, but here is one. I actually skied the upper left face that morning...

author=telemack link=topic=12780.msg53232#msg53232 date=1237781656]
Where were those photos taken from?


Both pictures were taken near the outlet of the Upper Baglley Lake.

author=jcocci link=topic=12780.msg53233#msg53233 date=1237781825]
Wow! That's something. Do you know when it went?


There are several layers that went at different times.  It snowed 5' from Saturday March 14th to Tuesday.  With wind.  I skied the area Wednesday and saw several crowns on the Arm.  Enough to make the area seem very attractive to me!  Then it rained a bit Thursday and Friday.  More releases.  Friday it snowed and blew, which produced some fresh releases for us to contemplate on Saturday.  Much of the debris in Bagley Basin was muted by later snow, much was fresh. And aspect was not much of a factor -- the south facing Rock Garden area went just as big.

author=TobyT link=topic=12780.msg53234#msg53234 date=1237782799]
Tim, you spelt mountain wrong! Here is a picture of you ripping White Salmon before the cycle...


Fixed it.  Hey, Toby -- your getting even better as a ski photographer.  This is about the first shot I even saw of myself that didn;t make me winch!  I'll take a 8x12!!!

Do we get a VML TR?

You got it Tim. You may like a couple of others I took. Check out the picasa link if you still have it. I put some pics up today. e-mail me if you don't have it still. VML will be on there as well.

There was another huge slide that came out of the Herman Saddle area. We were checking out the carnage for sight seeing purposes and ran into a guy who said he'd been skiing the area for 25 years and had never seen anything like it.

Re: Valentines Day slide 1999

This event was the catalyst that changed the OB rules at Mt. Baker and might have been the luckiest day of my life.  The gate access via chair 8 was getting bombarded all morning...with nearly a foot of snow and blue bird skies, it was a dream day for riders.  I was a bit more naive with snow safety back then, but anywho, my friend and I cycled the OB off of chair 8 all morning and then all of a sudden my friend was having some struggles riding. It turned out that a bolt on his brand new bindings broke in half (what's the chance of that?).  While he walked down to get it fixed, I caught chair 8 again to get in one more run before meeting him. 

As I was getting off the chair I heard this load POP, sounded like a rifle shot.  Then what I saw I will never forget.  The Beast looked like it took a huge breath and gravity took over.  It was weird seeing the face appear to expand and crack at the same time...there was one block of ice that was bigger than a school bus.  Then the goosebumps happened.  As I one-footed over to the gate I knew that anyone in the bowl would have little chance at survival.  It turned out that it was close to lunch time and there were only two people in there (from later reports) but most of the morning there were as few as 6 and as many as 12+.  Had my friend's bolt not broke, we would have been in there as I've gone through the timing a hundred times in my mind. 

My recollection of the fracture dimensions may be a bit off, but I recall the crown being huge, maybe 10 feet (very distinct and visible from Chair 8) and ran about 800-1000 feet wide.


Does anyone know the exact date of the slides off of Table? 

Go Zags!!

In 1999, Valenties Day I finally convinced my old man to come to Mount Baker for the weekend. The conditions were stellar. My brother, Old man, and Ben Manfredi went out to the BC every single fun for 2 days straight. In fact, I broke the low trail out there through about a foot or so of new snow the previous day.

When the avi calved off, we had all just skied out to the bottom just escaping with mere seconds. I went back up and we all joined the probe line. Along with another guy on the line, together we found what we thought was someone. I yelled at my dad to dig, but told him neither of us was sure. Turned out it was the kid that got buried (other dug up branches or other hard things).

That day is burned into memory. Interesting to hear other perspectives. Not a lot of good memories of that day.

Reply to this TR

6172
mar-21-table-carnage
curmudgeon
2009-03-22 18:48:11