Overview of slide North of Mt Fee from yesterdays post. Avalanche occurred April 6, 2012.

At 2280 meters the temperature is - 7, winds were 25-45 KPH from the E as of 06:00. At 1550 meters the temperature is -5, 73 % relative humidity and the barometer is declining slightly. In the valley it is -1.

Surface Hoar from April 7, 2012, developing in protected areas.

For the updated Avalanche Advisory click here: Avalanche Advisory

What it would be like being hit by a small avalanche from behind: Dry And Fast

Nothing like being dug out quickly: Short Clip

135 Missing after avalanche in the Pakistan\India Border: There is a lot of snow

Another report with some history of the area: Siachen Glacier

Some information on the ACMG blog: Spearhead

More avalanche news from Europe: Austria


Some photos from Braden Douglas from Decker Yesterday:

Huge Cornice

Natural on Decker- ran shortly after storm sz 2.5

-Decker shoulder- ran during storm all the way down to decker meadows sz 3

-SW side unsupported rocks- recent

Very Large Cornice

Storm slide off Decker form last week

Old Fracture Line

Recent Slab Avalanche in the Rocks


Some news from the Duffy :
NW, NE, N slopes skiing well to about 1600m.  Corn on true S slopes starting around 2-3pm or so.



Some natural releases on E slopes - probably solar : From Lee Lau

If you have not had the time to do it yet, please fill in the Spearhead Hutt Survey, click on this to get to it: Spearhead Huts

Not the best place to ski cut or board, certainly hard to High Mark?? April 6, 2012

At 2280 meters the temperature was -10, winds were 5-15 KPH from the E, as of 06:00.
At 1550 meters the temperature was - 8, 89 % relative humidity and the barometer is steady.
In the valley it is -4. No new snow over night.

Some Na size 1-2 avalanches on solar aspects, some isolated Sa on very steep terrain like this example.
Not much activity considering the temperature.

For the latest Avalanche Advisory click here: Avalanche Advisory

Snow boarder pops his Snowpulse: Going Down

Snowmobiling in Norway, not fast enough: Fast moving slide

Took a lot of effort to get there!!

Size 2.5 just north of Mt. Fee snowmobile access skiing or snowboarding release. Wow no one dead!! April 6 2012. Slide ran over there snowmobile tracks. NW aspect.

Epic just getting to where the trigger point is!!

Access point, lots of sleds involved in this adventure.

How strong is the sun this time of year. Picture below was taken in the valley at 08:00 East facing slope, air temperature -5.

New snow, solar aspects, strong sun = Avalanches


At 2280 meters the temperature was - 11 as of 06:00. The winds were 0-5 KPH from the SSW. At 1550 meters the temperature was -8, 92 % relative humidity and the the barometer is rising. In the valley it was
 - 5. No new snow over night.

Good settlement and tightening in the snow, but the cornices are still large, crust on all solar aspects, and surface hoar is developing on sheltered north facing slopes.

For the updated Avalanche Advisory click here: Avalanche Advisory

What it would be like getting caught in a wet slide: Sierra Spring POW

Interesting study out of Switzerland on burial statistics: Time is a factor

Ski Touring in Alaska, big country, big rides: Talkeetnas

If you go out on the Spearhead be diligent and fill in this survey: Hut Survey

Some more information on tree wells:

Treewell Safety
NARSID stands for Non-Avalanche Related Snow Immersion Death. NARSID incidents occur with deep snow or tree well immersions, in which a rider or skier falls into an area of deep, unconsolidated snow and becomes immobilized. The more the person struggles, the more entrapped in the snow they become, and risk suffocation.
     • Each skier or snowboarder controls his or her own level of risk and are the only ones that can prevent this type of accident from happening. Always ski and ride with a partner. To minimize your risk, you must know how to travel safely with your partners in these un-groomed deep snow areas
     • Always stay in visual contact so that your partner(s) can see you if you fall. Visual contact means stopping and watching your partner descend at all times, then proceeding downhill while he or she watches you at all times. It does no good if your partner is already waiting for you in lift line while you are still descending the slope;
    • Stay close enough to either pull or dig out. If you have any question about what "close enough" to assist someone in a tree well is, hold your breath while you are reading this. The amount of time before you need air may be how much time your partner has to pull or dig you out of danger. Other factors such as creating an air pocket or the position you fall in, may affect this critical timeframe.
    • Remember, if you lose visual contact with your partner you could lose your friend. It is important to know that most people who have died in deep snow or tree well accidents had been skiing or riding with "partners" at the time of their accident. Unfortunately, none of these partners were in visual contact so they were not able to be of help in a timely manner.


A dedicated site to tree well & deep snow issues: Tree Well & Deep Snow Safety

Posted this video already this year, but here it is again: Tree Well Rescue

Fresh off the Press

Grizzly lake today! Sledder got stuck on hill, buddy drives over top of him and cuts the slide. Stuck guy was taken about 60m Thanks to Peter Norie for the information. April 5, 2012

Same location as fatality last month.

I watched it happen from the other side of the valley. Victim drives right up the slope and gets stuck. You can see his track on the left into the slide area. His riding partner goes up the back side and descends down the hill towards him. The slide let go before the upper sledder reached the future fracture line. We watched it all go down in complete amazement that more people don't die in the backcountry doing what these two did!

One of several size 2.5 avalanches from explosive control on Blackcomb yesterday. The slide path referred to as Rock Shot 1 ran into the Hour Glass releasing it, then running out to the lake in Ziggy's Meadow.

At 2280 meters as of 06:00 the temperature was -10, winds were 10-20 KPH from the NNE. At 1550 meters the temperature was -7.5, 95 % relative humidity, and the barometer os on the rise. No new snow over night. In the valley it is -2.

Field observations from yesterday in the corridor, natural avalanches from size 1-3 during the storm, natural activity in the am up to size 2.5 and natural size 2 on solar aspects in the pm.

Did anyone get pictures of the slides in the Spearhead yesterday??

For the updated Avalanche Advisory click here: Avalanche Advisory

Sad to report a tree well tragedy: Snow Boarder found in tree well

Large avalanches near Elkford B.C. : Smith Basin

Another result from explosive control on a path referred to as Tifosi.

Unsettled weather for a few days, hopefully the new snow gets a chance to settle out.

At 2280 meters the temperature was - 12 as of 06:00. Winds were 0-10 KPH from the SE. At 1550 meters the temperature was -9, 95 % relative humidity, and the barometer is on the rise. At that elevation 7 cm of new was recorded, and 8 cm at pig alley. In the valley it is -2.

Natural avalanches (Na), Skier Accidental (Sa), Explosives (Xe), Ski Cutting (Sc) from size 1-3 recorded in the corridor yesterday. Some activity was stepping down into the March 27 th interface.

Yesterday 22 cm was recorded at pig alley during the day, for a 24 hr total of 62 cm. Not bad for an April Storm. A size 3 slide was initiated with explosives on the hanging roll yesterday.

It is unfortunate that people are still disobeying avalanche closures and skinning into areas where potential avalanche control could be initiated. Just because the alpine is closed does not mean that at some point of time in the day the Ski Patrol will not try to test or control slopes when they are able. Control work is essential to protect machinery which is used at night to keep the mountain opened for our skiing pleasure.
Use your brain and go touring some where else.


For the latest Avalanche Advisory click here: Avalanche Advisory

Creating an avalanche, jumping off a cliff then filming it from the air: Air Borne Avalanche

Knocked down by a size 1: Pole Cam

Spearhead Hut Survey, click here: Hut Survey

Just a little wind effect.

Traverse into Disease Ridge popped out slide Sunday.

You can see the first traverse into the chute where we backed off and
decided to go in higher and ski cut. The fracture line sort of lines up with
the lower traverse line, so it appears that that was where the fracture
occurred, but it wasn't. It was a good a wakeup call for us to see the snow
slide well beyond the flats and continue to travel uphill onto the moraine
at the bottom. 

At 2280 meters as of 06:00 hrs the temperature is -5, winds are 75-100 KPH from the SSE.  At 1550 meters the temperature is - 2, 99 % relative humidity, and the barometer is dropping.  At that elevation 23 cm of snow fell over night. At Pig Alley 40 cm was recorded. In the valley it is
 +1. 


 Size 1-1.5 SSL were reported yesterday where people could get to.  


Yesterday afternoon a gust of 125 KPH was recorded at the Horstman Hut at 15:30. Over night the Max gust was recorded at 117 KPH at 02:30.


For the updated avalanche advisory click here: Avalanche Advisory

Another avalanche fatality in Colorado: March 30

Snowboarder gets caught in large avalanche: Engulfed

When and where will there be flooding: Snowpack Science

Scary ride in Canmore: Avalanche

Amazing tree skiing yesterday, even the kids were happy with the foolish amounts of snow.

At 2280 meters the temperature was -8 as of 06:00 hrs. Winds were 45-65 KPH from the S. At 1550 meters the temperature was -5, 99 % relative humidity, the barometer is dropping. At cat skinner weather plot 1 cm of new snow was recorded, at 1650 meters on Whistler 1 cm of new snow was recorded as of 05:30.  In the valley it is -0. Mother nature certainly had a different outlook than the forecast from yesterday!!!  The storm is still on its way with less snowfall than expected but the winds will certainly pick up as the storm moves in.

For the updated avalanche advisory click here: Avalanche Advisory

Winter has returned but when the sun does come out it is very strong, same strength as it would have in September. Cornices are still an issue as all this new snow helps them grow, several stories in the past week about cornice encounters, be aware. Here is a clip of a cornice failing on Whistler Mountain last week: Piccolo

Avalanche control in Switzerland, they have some cool toys: Rocket Launcher

Switzerland has some amazing terrain, Andermatt is one location where they are spending as much money as the Jumbo developers to create a resort like WhistlerBlackcomb, here is a great clip of some free ride skiing in that area: Good Footage


Not much information but there was an Avalanche at Panorama resort yesterday: Panorama

Using kids addition 391 cm of snow fell at 1550 meters at the Catskinner plot March 2012


The popcorn at the alpine shop was especially good!! Good incentive for child labour.

Sasquatch seen carrying injured ski tourer on Rainbow Mountain.

At 2280 meters the temperature was - 8, winds were 20-30 KPH from the SSE as of 06:00. At 1550 meters the temperature was - 5, 97% relative humidity, and the barometer was on the rise. At that elevation 13 cm fell over night and 11 cm fell at Pig alley. In the valley it is 0.

March was amazing, just over 5 m of total snow for the month, depending where you are in the corridor. Now that April is here it does not want to quit, further  possible accumulations of around 75 cm by Tuesday Morning.

Yesterday in the corridor numerous size 1-2.5 avalanches occurred, bigger occurrences were in the Duffy area.

For the updated avalanche advisory click here: Avalanche Advisory

Wet snow slide at Bridger: Bridger Bowl

Guess this guy was ok, how many of these do we not hear about: Whistler Backcountry

Big Back Flip

Summary from Steep Creek

• Valentine days surface hoar pwl is still active.
• Can be triggered off shallow rocky start zones
• To illustrate variability;  in ridge on the background, on slopes of similar N aspect with similar slope angles, cornice drops resulted in nil results.

Trigger stood in a convenient location to capture the skier about to drop into mini-Heartstrings. As he made the last step down to the shooting platform, the entire slope depicted failed to ground, carrying trees and stripping boulders and washing them downslope. The shooting cracks show that the failure initiated on Trigger's last step. The marks at picture top are where the skier crawled on his belly while thinking light thoughts and grovelled back to the "safe zone" where Trigger is standing.

The rocks in the near foreground used to be covered in snow but are obviously now uncovered. They are a classic shallow rocky start zone. None of us were terribly interested in a closer look at the aftermath but our suspicions are failure on the V-Day layer


Slope is N facing slope about 38 - 40 deg steep at 2100 m at location in Central Duffey.   

We found that the slide had zippered down from Trigger's shooting platform, had grown in size and further ripped to ground downslope entraining our skintrack and depositing rather large blocks of snow, uprooted trees and various size boulders on what was once perfectly good powder. It looks like this sympathetic release had crown sizes of between 1.5 to 2m. It too failed on the V-day layer (decomposing surface hoar of approx 1mm grains)

Taken from across the valley looking SE towards the slope in question


Other observations from the Rutherford Area
Thanks Erik
Yesterdays action Wayne

>
> Crowns down 20-60 cm, 50-200m wide, 50-200m long, east to west including north aspect start zones. Most start zones had a crust and some stiffness in the snow on that crust, suspect had small surface hoar on cr. To make it such a widespread weakness. Start zones were convex rolls at least 40 degrees. Na, sz 2-2.5 in Rutherford

>

Large climax slide off Wedge, May 1969.  Thanks to Cliff Jennings for submitting history.

Wayne,

Finally found the image. Taken in May of 1969. The helicopter pilot went through Wedge Pass in late September & still saw a huge pile of snow & trees in the creek bed at about 1300 meters. The slides started at over 2300 meters, so ran about 1000 vertical meters.

Cliff


As of 06:00 the temperature at 2280 m was - 12, winds were 15-30 KPH from the NNE. At 1550 meters the temperature was - 9, 93 % relative humidity and the barometer is dropping. At that elevation 8 cm of new snow was recorded. at pig alley 6 cm was recorded. Int he valley it is -2. 


In the corridor yesterday avalanche occurrences were Xe, Xc, Sc, size 1-3, 20cm - 1 m crown lines. 


Snow is still in the forecast, looks like Sunday night will bring us another storm into Monday. 


For the latest Avalanche Advisory click her: Avalanche Advisory

Avalanche on Mt Rainier : Wilis Wall

Large rock and snow avalanche on Rainier: Nisqually Glacier

Article on Fees for Back country rescues: Rescue Costs

Another great day of powder skiing yesterday.

Brandywine area last week, natural slide on wind loaded feature.               Erik Graham Photo

As of 06:00 hrs the temperature at 2280 meters was - 8, winds were 25-40 KPH from the S. At 1550 meters the temperature was - 4.5, 97 % relative humidity and the barometer was rising. 15 cm of new snow fell over night there and 15 cm at pig alley. In the valley it is -1.

Avalanche control yesterday produced size 1-2 soft slabs in the corridor.  Be wary of the February 8 Th interface, certainly would produce size 3 and with this new snow the interface from March 24 Th certainly has some size 2 potential.

For the updated Avalanche Advisory click here: Avalanche Advisory

Skier gets caught and sifted into the trees: Not a nice ride

Looks like the Kyber, hope they have the appropriate gear: Trees are not always a Safe Place

Duffy Lake conditions and observations: ACMG Blog

North Aspect of Duke taken on Monday. Submitted by Jeff Van Driel   Devin Montgomery Photos

Avalanche on Duke took out some trees

Spring has sprung but there is still lots of powder skiing to be had!!

At 2280 meters the temperature as of 06:00 was - 7, winds were 70-100 KPH from the S. Max gust there last night was 120 KPH.  At 1550 meters the temperature was -3.5, 99% relative humidity and the barometer is on the rise after hitting the bottom. . 31 cm of new snow was recorded there and 27 cm was recorded at pig alley. In the valley it is 0.

The snow yesterday was very reactive, size 1-2 soft slabs easily triggered, 10-50 cm. Today will not be much different.

Not sure if the Whistler Peak weather station is 100% but it is saying 10-35 KPH from the S. The ridge weather station there at 2000 m is saying 50-95 KPH from the E, with max gust of 120 KPH.

For the updated avalanche advisory click here: Avalanche Advisory

Interesting presentation on skier and snowmobile pressure on the snow: Scott Thumlert

Ski cutting moist snow: Slow but heavy

Avalanche in the trees: Whistler

Map of the area with all the runs marked on it : Google 3D trail map

Yesterday 11:00 and still no tracks, Blackcomb Bowl looking very inviting. The skiing yesterday was amazing, not just because of the 25 cm but there were no crowds.

25 cm fell by 12:00 noon yesterday.

Ipsoot Area, 6500 Ft NE aspect taken last week, likely Feb 8 crust.          Erik Graham Photo

Certainly will not be getting this view for a few days.

At 2280 meters the temperature is -6 as of 06:00 hrs. Winds were 50-70 KPH from the ESE. Max gusts last night were 96 KPH.  At 1550 meters the temperature was -2, 98 % relative humidity and the barometer is steady. 11 cm was recorded there and 10 cm was recorded at pig alley.  In the valley it is +3.
The freezing level is at 1300 m but it is snowing at 1100 m. Fl should drop and snow should reach the valley.

For the updated Avalanche Advisory click here: Avalanche Advisory

Avalanche hits base camp: Denali

High marking in Newfoundland: Wet Snow

Some great images from Grant Gunderson at Mt Baker: Grant Gunderson Photography

Lesser Ring Mountain

Some approaching fronts are so well defined.

At 2280 meters the temperature as of 06:00 was -6, winds were 20-40 KPH from the ESE. At 1550 meters the temperature was - 3.5, 87 % relative humidity and the barometer is falling. A trace of new snow was recorded over night.  In the valley it is 0.

With the expected snow on its way it will make it interesting with a 5-10 cm MFC on solar aspects and a 2-10 cm pencil slab on other aspects.

For the updated Avalanche Advisory click here: Avalanche Advisory

For an interesting read on why there has been more snow in the past few years: Arctic Ice

Some information on La Nina:

La Nina is rapidly weakening. The cold anomalies in the central tropical Pacific are rapidly declining and some parts of the tropical eastern Pacific are now warmer than normal.   Predictive models suggest that La Nina will be over by the end of April.
Good news for us, hopefully we will get some nice weather this summer. 





Surveillance video of avalanche crashing into a warehouse: Very Powerful


Avalanche footage from out East: Quebec