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Topic: 12,16,2010- White Pass, Washington (Read 9086 times)
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Snowolf
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« Last Edit: 01/24/11, 01:34 AM by Snowolf »
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savegondor
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Very informative and thought provoking discussion.
Here's what I got out of it.
1) Pits---- problem I have with pits is that to dig one that truly represents the slope I'm testing , I usually have to put myself in a dangerous situation to be truly representative. Many times I've dug a pit in a safe positon and found the slope 50' lower to be completely different due to wind effects or lack of wind effect.
2) NWAC report.... I used to read them religously before I went out... I've recently stopped doing so because most of the time I find the variances in terrain and micro-climate so variable that the report doesn't jive and I don't want to be influenced by it. I'm not saying report is bad or wrong or useless ( far from it) but as long as you are following the weather, snowfall amount, wind directions etc., I prefer to make my own judgement ( which may be wrong) but my point is I don't want to be influenced by it .
3) Solo travel... I won't do it unless its' extrmely benign terrain and I used to pass judgement on those that did and tell 'em so. I guess I've decided that it's their right to go solo and their right to accept the consequence.
4) WP= looks rad now....... me going soon.Yessir!!!!!!!!!
That's plain wrong. There's no excuse not to check nwac and dig a pit. It's just lazy. Because regardless of micro climatic zones there's still SOME valuable info to be gleamed from any pit (unless you bisect a cornice or something stupid like that). And that info might save your life. what's the alternative, a lame ass ski cut? Talk about worthless.
This week a snowpit just about anywhere is going to tell you how well new snow is bonding to that old rain crust... and how much or whether that rain event got rid of some facet layers that were widely found throughout the Cascade range. Call it MACRO data, but it's still vital. Best of all, it slows down your impulsive desire to drop the slot before checking it out first.
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skykilo
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I'll have to *cough* side with Scotsman on this one. Avy forecasts can be valuable, but they're far from absolutely necessary and they can introduce bias. And I could argue with you until I'm blue in the face about whether it's necessary to dig a pit to see how new snow is bonding with a crust. Do you ever pay attention to how the snow reacts when you make a kick turn on a roll in a place of relative safety?
A more general question to a broader skiing public: what's with all the dogma? I resent all these perceived necessities. Partner, beacon, shovel, probe, avalung, airbag... there is always a way to enjoy backcountry skiing in relative safety, regardless of the hazard rating or how many of these safety THINGS a skier has. The most important safety tool is the brain and that's not being used when one is citing by rote what is and isn't acceptable without a whole lot of qualification.
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Marcus
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The most important safety tool is the brain and that's not being used when one is citing by rote what is and isn't acceptable without a whole lot of qualification.
Amen. Well said Sky.
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Stefan
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I can't wait for the day when having dynamite will be one of the standard essentials to be considered a qualified backcountry skier.
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ron j
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I can't wait for the day when having dynamite will be one of the standard essentials to be considered a qualified backcountry skier.
BACKCOUNTRY BOMB 
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"When I stop having fun I'm turnin' around"
“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.” - Niels Bohr
"If a given person makes it a priority not to die in an avalanche, he or she stands a very good chance of living a long, happy life in the mountains." - Jill Fredston
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Splitboard Graham
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what i'm taking from this thread: continually reevaluate information internally, externally, and interpersonally (when applicable) using whichever methods and metrics one finds most useful. Continually reevaluate the efficacy of chosen methods, metrics, and tools. staying alive in the mountains is an art and a science. get explosive handling permit...
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davidG
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... The most important safety tool is the brain and that's not being used when one is citing by rote what is and isn't acceptable without a whole lot of qualification.
Amen, for sure. So, the next time I see someone digging a pit i'll just remind them what a waste of snow it is..
and a nod to doc_i for the tgr link
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"Maybe we should ban hikers from anywhere that there is a potential threat to surface water?" [courtesy Newtrout, 2011]
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markharf
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get explosive handling permit...
May I suggest.....Bolivia, where you can buy TNT sticks in hardware stores along with detonators, fuses and little bags of fertilizer to intensify the effect. Often enough, there's grain alcohol and a certain green leaf available too, just in case of failures of nerve. It's kind've similar to Kentucky back in the seventies, except that the leafy substance was different.
This aside, I find myself digging far less full pits these days, but constantly stomping on switchbacks, scooping hand pits, and studying the attempts of other skiers to bury themselves and their partners. But I still read the NWAC forecasts, since they include perspectives which I find valuable--including historical and current information about areas where I'm not skiing today, but might be skiing next week.
Mark
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Passenger
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Musings from one with too much time on his hands.
The discussion on the relative safety between groups and individual skiers is flawed in that it compares the best practices of the individual to the worst practices of a group. It is true that a cautious individual can be safe but once he ventures much beyond meadow skipping the situation changes. If you are on a slope with powder snow you are by definition in avalanche terrain. Without a partner you have no backup and your decisions had better be 100 percent right 100 percent of the time.
The season before last my partner and I were involved in a full burial avalanche. If results are the final arbitrator then we made a bad decision that day however in our defense I would say that I don’t know a single skier who would not have skied that slope. The slope we were on was in fact bomber, it was an adjacent slope that went sympathetically and covered my partner at the end of his run. I would like to now give a shameless plug to BCA and the Tracker beacon. Our almost religious adherence to the points I made in the previous post plus a lot of luck saved his life. Things can suddenly go terribly wrong and when they do it’s not a game and it’s not matching wits on the internet. You are either prepared or you are not. Hopefully this discussion can be a catalyst to get people thinking. Defend your positions but not at the expense of closing your mind to new ideas.
The skiing today was incredible. I can’t remember when quality powder has held up this long after a storm in the PNW.
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savegondor
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Amen. Well said Sky.
Well said.... but perhaps total B.S. I would think it a fairly simple and universal truth that more information is better than less. So dig a pit and take 5 minutes on the NWAC site. It's not hard, and the cost is low: that someone drops in your line before you. But that's also good avi control in my view, albeit potentially tragic.
I think digging a pit also has a valuable psychological benefit related to what I wrote above. IT SLOWS YOU DOWN. gives you time to think. I know I'm reading between the lines but I detect a psychological problem I'll name as being 'too hasty'. I respect Scotsman but the argument against digging a pit smacks only of impatience.
I don't know how many times digging a pit has cut down significantly on my own hubris and given a wake up call.
The cost-benefit analysis is solid. It's still unquestionably wise to carefully study the weather data on-line and dig a pit and do your snowtests in the area in which you are skiing. The notion that it is often dangerous to try and choose a representative area for a pit is true...but again...reading between the lines I think we are again talking about laziness here. A bc rider should do the best they can to find a safe place to study the snow and they WILL likely learn something valuable. And that's never bad.
So yes there are universal truths we should perhaps adopt...because hubris often produces 'nuances' and 'qualifications' that sound good but are pure crap. I'm a BA in Philosophy and I should know as a personal expert in the art of B.S.
Safety in the BC is as much a psychological game as it is an intellectual analysis. Our brains can and will do a lot problematic analysis with the raw data as influenced by our own agendas, desires, and excitement. This thread has become more about the psychological element and I'm arguing that slowing down to dig a pit and read the weather data may do nothing if not slow down your heart rate enough to make more sensible decisions. While the Scotsman stops to dig that pit near that desirable slope he may not find much if any valuable information but he might also have time to remember other details he noticed on the hike up that may indicate a 'no-go' on this ski run.
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« Last Edit: 12/24/10, 07:49 AM by savegondor »
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Joedabaker
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I agree with Sky too.
When I am totally unfamiliar with an areas snowpack history a pit is a good idea to get some background data.
But if I am on the mountain 3-4 days a week digging a pit for my mental state is just a waste of energy. I am not against learning by any means, but there is a lot learned by having a lot of experiences. Dig all the pits you want if that makes you comfortable. But I would think that the real savvy tend to dig a lot of Hasty or micro pits to identify the hazards.
Just the other day I was in familiar 35 plus degree terrain that had variable depths of wind deposits. I dug a 2'x2' hasty pit and isolated a block of snow to the crust. Anything below the crust is irrelevant, unless there has been some deep faceting. I did my tap testing and found the snow well bonded to the ice layer, bomber. But 3cm above the terrific bond there was a shear factor that made me uncomfortable, so I decided to not cross the exposed slope and ski below the slope. It may not have reacted, but why put myself in that situation? One may question why I even traveled below the slope and thought that I may kick the toe out from the bottom. But in my experience that tendency with that bond is pretty darn low unless the slope gets significantly weighted. I have not read an NWAC avy report in weeks, but I can make assessments on my own based on experience. The NWAC reports are helpful insight that help build a base of experience and a great tool, but when one gets enough experience it is not a tool I need to go to all the time to build my database of experience.
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If it's called common sense, why isn't it more common?
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Jim Oker
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Stomping above kick turns and steep rollovers while ascending can give good info, as noted above, but if the layer of concern is deep enough, a hasty pit will be a lot more informative. I wouldn't want to rely on ski cuts alone, but they strike me as being a good "last sanity check" when other assessments say "go," at least in some cases (where I think I have a good idea of where a slide may be more likely to start such as a convexity and I also think I can ski quickly to a safe zone w/o being sucked down if I start something). Stomping and cuts (and pole probes) can quickly gather limited info across a wide area, whereas pits (even hasty) give more info but unless you're digging all day, much fewer sample points. NWAC helps me keep up on changes which is nice as I'm not out on most weekdays but of course it's just the thin start of info gathering. I'm sure I could stand to be more hard core in doing assessments and categorizing sheers with standard up-to-date terms and all that, but I agree that it's more crucial to keep thinking and watch for biases and mental shortcuts. Whatever your tools, erring on the side of your reasonable doubts seems like a generally good plan.
Anyone, however, who is enjoying good backcountry powder turns and also thinks they can squeeze out ALL (or even almost all) risk of being a slide victim is fooling themself. Anyone who can judge another's actions in a complex situation from a brief web posting (w/o having been there themselves) is either a lot more insightful than me or is fooling themself.
If you ski with groups that lead you to make decisions you judge unwise in retrospect, find new partners or learn to change the group dynamic. I will tour alone, but much prefer skiing in small groups, both for fun and for safety. I suspect the decision-making benefits are kind of a wash (some pros in terms of insights I would not have had alone, some cons in terms of peer pressure and the Abilene Paradox), but I'm certain that in case of injury, burial (whether in a slide or a tree well), or possibly even gear failure, I'll be better off with others around (and yes, at Muir on a sunny May Saturday, that doesn't require me to have my own partners with me).
Thanks for the reminder to check out WP, snowolf.
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« Last Edit: 12/24/10, 10:34 AM by Jim Oker »
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Passenger
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I vote for Jim Oker as having the best post on this thread.
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pcg
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I don’t know a single skier who would not have skied that slope. The slope we were on was in fact bomber, it was an adjacent slope that went sympathetically and covered my partner at the end of his run.
Another good reminder - Tremper stresses the importance of being aware not only of the safety of the slope you are on, but of where you will end up, and that you should carefully assess the terrain so that you avoid going into the potential runout path of another slope whose stability you have not determined to be safe.
Great thread. Thanks for everyone's contributions.
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« Last Edit: 12/24/10, 01:00 PM by pcg »
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CookieMonster
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This is one of the best discussions I've ever read here. Thanks for all the great info.
***
1. Ski cuts are a perfectly valid method of testing snowpack instability.
2. Skiing is also a perfectly valid method of testing snowpack instability.
3. It is better to rely on local observations without using the bulletin than it is to rely on the bulletin without local observations. Obviously, this only applies to observers with the right mix of skill and experience.
4. The bulletin provides valuable perspective and clean information, but all the remarks about the general applicability of the bulletin are also absolutely right.
5. All information can have a positive or negative impact on our beliefs about instability and its parameters.
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savegondor
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This is one of the best discussions I've ever read here. Thanks for all the great info.
***
3. It is better to rely on local observations without using the bulletin than it is to rely on the bulletin without local observations. Obviously, this only applies to observers with the right mix of skill and experience.
I do like the summary of one through five. one and two are perhaps hilarious in the tragic consequences they might incur. But I still don't get this insisting from several posters about the usefulness of NOT looking at some data i.e. nwac reports or pit tests.
take the ski cut for example. It *might* tell you that a slope is unsafe but by itself will never tell you if the slope IS safe. so it's usefulness is at best extremely limited to confirming data one already knows from other forms of research that everybody should be doing: shovel test, some sort of pit, reading the nwac weather data and relevant telemetry, etc. By itself it's pretty worthless. And yet I suspect some of the posters above are using it to the exclusion of these other well accepted methods...what? combine your ski-cut test with local knowledge and call it good?
the reason I call this out as stupid (like the above top five) and am so passionate about doing so, is that should people start excluding any data sets from their evaluation process people are going to end up not just horribly wrong but dead. (sorry Marcus the these 'spats' are valuable to keep going) all we need is a big storm and an avalanche cycle and someone that doesn't consider all of the easily accessible information (i.e. nwac telemetry that shows a brief but huge spike in temperatures high up at midnight) and someone ski cuts themselves right into the middle of a slab.
1. Ski cuts are a perfectly valid method of testing snowpack instability. (not perfect, and not sufficient, and hardly useful...but valid, yes.)
2. Skiing is also a perfectly valid method of testing snowpack instability. (um yeah..your death would be a good confirmation of instability wouldn't it?)
3. It is better to rely on local observations without using the bulletin than it is to rely on the bulletin without local observations. Obviously, this only applies to observers with the right mix of skill and experience. (there is no good reason to exlude any information that is easily accessible...therefore this statement might be valid and yet unwise).
4. The bulletin provides valuable perspective and clean information, but all the remarks about the general applicability of the bulletin are also absolutely right. (yes)
5. All information can have a positive or negative impact on our beliefs about instability and its parameters. (not really. it's brains, skill, experience and interpretation that matter...it's not the data's fault...it can neither save us or hurt us...it's our interpretation that matters...and in the case of this thread, our hubris)
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Marcus
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(sorry Marcus the these 'spats' are valuable to keep going)
Not at all -- this is great stuff. I think you may have misinterpreted my "amen" for Sky as a condemnation of all the stuff you're talking about, which isn't the case at all. I was more emphasizing my agreement with the fact that the brain is the most important thing to bring to the party.
The only thing that matters to me, re: the "spats", is that they don't swing down into the mud. By all means, debate away, and Merry Christmas, Happy etc, Tra la la.
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Joedabaker
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BTW Happy Holidays to all!
Not all science is exact and perfect. I get what you are saying about utilizing as much info as possible. I can't tell you the amount of geophysical projects I worked that were cut and dry science according to the engineers and ended up being a cluster of additional costs due to broken science.
Last year we dug a pit on the upper reach of a bowl and determined the snow condition to be a green light. We had over 100 years of cumulative backcountry experience in the group.
I Skied right below the pit area and the whole bowl broke loose with a 2ft crown 100 feet wide. There were even two sets of ski tracks already in the bowl from some other party before us.
Had I done a ski cut it would have given me better results than the pit gave me.
At least I would not have been caught in the middle of a near catastrophe where I had no choice, but had to out run while 10 truckloads of cement 15ft high chased me down the slope.
I really am a big advocate of the NWAC avy reports. I just don't use them as a go to tool. The NWAC avalanche reports come out pretty late in the day too. By the time the report is out we are already on the hill doing our thing. So I guess it is good retrospect info after the fact to compare our field study to gain further knowledge.
My knowledge of BC conditions has changed so much from my 20's to 30's. And now late in my 40's I wonder what I was thinking in my 30's and how I survived the teen and twenty years. The reality is that I have a lot of exposure and for today I am still alive. FWIW I am more concerned with my exposure than if I am making logical estimates of the conditions.
The much greater danger is just driving to the hill than any snow condition I encounter.
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If it's called common sense, why isn't it more common?
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Jim Oker
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FWIW I am more concerned with my exposure than if I am making logical estimates of the conditions. I agree. I've also seen that in the cases where I've been with a guide, they've put a lot of focus on planning around managing consequences of a possible slide, unless we were in low or on the cusp of low/moderate hazard conditions. In other words, avoid skiin above terrain traps or below potential hangfire, pick the long slope that is puncuated by a few benches instead of the one next door that is continuous slope all the way, etc. But again, they are doing other assessments along the way as well (including but not limited to ski cuts - almost always with the ski cuts with them).
I don't buy the "avoid potentially useful data as it might bias you" notion either. Everything including your own observations might bias you, so where does this stop?
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khyak
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The Kinks - Destroyer
destroyer
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« Last Edit: 12/25/10, 10:11 PM by khyak »
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CookieMonster
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SaveGondor, you're entitled to your opinion, but your post neatly outlines a lack of understanding of some very basic facts about avalanches and backcountry avalanche forecasting.
Unfortunately, I don't have time right now to disassemble the remaining fallacies, bad information, and red herrings in your post.
***
(not perfect, and not sufficient, and hardly useful...but valid, yes.)
Ski cutting may reveals information about instability, which is the most useful information for solving backcountry avalanche forecasting problems. Sorry, but your opinion about ski cuts doesn't reduce their value.
( Source: The Avalanche Handbook )
(um yeah..your death would be a good confirmation of instability wouldn't it?)
( Despite your snark, skiing applies a dynamic load to the snowpack, as as such it is a perfectly valid method of testing snowpack instability. Your opinion doesn't change the facts. )
( Source: The Avalanche Handbook )
(there is no good reason to exlude any information that is easily accessible...therefore this statement might be valid and yet unwise).
( What is the relationship between redundant information and the accuracy of a forecast? Does redundant information help the increase the accuracy of a forecast? At what spatial scale is the public avalanche bulletin issued? Your statement about the choice to exclude information is utterly misinformed. )
( Source: The Avalanche Handbook )
(not really. it's brains, skill, experience and interpretation that matter...it's not the data's fault...it can neither save us or hurt us...it's our interpretation that matters...and in the case of this thread, our hubris)
( Your statement about the relationship between data sampling and perception of instability is totally, utterly and, possibly tragically, misinformed. )
( Source: The Avalanche Handbook )
***
Gondor, in the "spirit of arguing" as proposed by your post, I'll be happy to outline the remaining errors in your post. But remember, you can't cite a single source for any of your "data", and I already have cited my sources.
RE: hubris. It takes hubris to parade your opinion around as if it were fact!
Have a nice day.
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Snowolf
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« Last Edit: 01/24/11, 01:45 AM by Snowolf »
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Snowolf
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« Last Edit: 01/24/11, 01:45 AM by Snowolf »
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Passenger
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Snowolf, regarding your latest post.....The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
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