# Avalanche rescue



## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

I had just watched this. 

You know the terrain that slid in the video didn't look high angle enough for a slide. Of course it was. That is just video for you. 

Landings always put more impact on the snow than just riding it. So you are more likely to trigger and avalanche jumping off of stuff. 

Good thing his partners have obviously practiced with their gear. Everyone makes mistakes and your rescue gear is the last ditch effort to get a good outcome. Which they did. Bravo. 

I am sure lots of lessons were learned. Glad they can all reflect on them.


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## KIRKRIDER (Mar 18, 2008)

Looked pretty safe, but really wind loaded too. At one point he buries his ski and falls.


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## neni (Dec 24, 2012)

Impressive video. Thanks for sharing. 

Innit amazing time and time again how so "little" snow could kill you if there wouldn't be competent buddies ready? You'd have _zero_ chance. It's not a huge slide. He wasn't covered very deep. But still, even when the dug him already halfway out, he wasn't able to move. 

The moment a slide settles it transforms into firm concrete! No movement - not to think of self rescue - possible. You're captured. A friend of me once was caught in a slide, upper body free, only halfway to upper arms had been covered, lower arms only 15cm under the settled snow. He's a strong guy, rock climber, and said by the life of him, he couldn't get his arms free, not even with all the adrenaline rush; his buddies had to dig him out. 

Glad they got him out so quickly. Glad his buddy with the cam had the awareness to spot the spot of last sight and thus was able to start the search close and get the signal soon. That moment when one heard sound of the Mammut Pulse beacon getting a signal almost ripped my nerves!


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## KIRKRIDER (Mar 18, 2008)

neni said:


> Impressive video. Thanks for sharing.
> 
> Innit amazing time and time again how so "little" snow could kill you if there wouldn't be competent buddies ready? You'd have _zero_ chance. It's not a huge slide. He wasn't covered very deep. But still, even when the dug him already halfway out, he wasn't able to move.
> 
> ...



With all respect... not fucking worth it for few pow turns. Not. No. I was imagining me and my son in the same situation. No...never. 
I'm happy with a pow day inbound thanks. I love pow. But every time I see videos like that...no. Fuck that. Terrifying.


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## neni (Dec 24, 2012)

KIRKRIDER said:


> With all respect... not fucking worth it for few pow turns. Not. No. I was imagining me and my son in the same situation. No...never.
> I'm happy with a pow day inbound thanks. I love pow. But every time I see videos like that...no. Fuck that. Terrifying.


Yeh... I can imagine that if having the own kid im mind one gets an even more intense reaction to such vids. Lucky you that you have safe inbound pow to ride, so take advantage of this and enjoy. 

I've had monents when I conciously re-thought BC riding, if it's worth it. Even reluctant, risk avoiding ppl can be unlucky. A little misjudgment can be enough... but there's more to it than just a few pow turns (well, sometimes there's not even pow...). It's the beauty of the landscape, the mantra of the steps, the glorious moment reaching a summit... one does one's best to minimize the risks, prepare well, make conservative decisions... but there'll always be a rest risk cos you can never include all variables. To me, this rest risk which I cannot influence is low enough in comparison to the reward. But I don't have kids...


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## KIRKRIDER (Mar 18, 2008)

neni said:


> Yeh... I can imagine that if having the own kid im mind one gets an even more intense reaction to such vids. Lucky you that you have safe inbound pow to ride, so take advantage of this and enjoy.
> 
> I've had monents when I conciously re-thought BC riding, if it's worth it. Even reluctant, risk avoiding ppl can be unlucky. A little misjudgment can be enough... but there's more to it than just a few pow turns (well, sometimes there's not even pow...). It's the beauty of the landscape, the mantra of the steps, the glorious moment reaching a summit... one does one's best to minimize the risks, prepare well, make conservative decisions... but there'll always be a rest risk cos you can never include all variables. To me, this rest risk which I cannot influence is low enough in comparison to the reward. But I don't have kids...


Sure. Didn't mean to minimize the fascination and pull of BC riding. I meant in that video was literally few turns and it looked pretty safe too. I ride mostly alone sometimes with my son (17) could not help but imagine him under. 
On the other side iim dying to get a taste of that, possibly at Baldface


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## Noreaster (Oct 7, 2012)

Not for me to judge any potential mistakes they made in assessing conditions and choosing their lines. As far as I can tell the guy did a good job spotting where his friend got buried and doing everything to get him out quickly. But noticed these two skied without air bags. Could have made a difference for the guy in staying on top of the debris instead of being pulled under.


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## phillyphan (Sep 22, 2016)

Noreaster said:


> Not for me to judge any potential mistakes they made in assessing conditions and choosing their lines. As far as I can tell the guy did a good job spotting where his friend got buried and doing everything to get him out quickly. But noticed these two skied without air bags. Could have made a difference for the guy in staying on top of the debris instead of being pulled under.


I am in no way skilled enough to judge in this situation or skilled enough in avalanche training to make the judgement so I will ask.....did he trigger the avalanche because he kept checking himself before he dropped in? He was jumping edge to edge and down only a few feet. It seems like that would get the sheet of snow moving and would cause it. Had he not done that and just jumped in, would he might not have triggered the avalanche?


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## deagol (Mar 26, 2014)

phillyphan said:


> I am in no way skilled enough to judge in this situation or skilled enough in avalanche training to make the judgement so I will ask.....did he trigger the avalanche because he kept checking himself before he dropped in? He was jumping edge to edge and down only a few feet. It seems like that would get the sheet of snow moving and would cause it. Had he not done that and just jumped in, would he might not have triggered the avalanche?


Hard to say for sure but most likely the impact of landing the jump set the slide off. It's a lot like the charges ski patrol drop into the snow to trigger slides.


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## jjj604 (Dec 16, 2015)

wow, kudos to the filmer for keeping it together after seeing his buddy go under. it looked like he went really quickly with the beacon search too. i originally thought that the avy started higher but it looks like he actually bailed riding over the fracture line









-the fracture starting on the landing









-clear sailing for a second in between at top speed









-the fracture line on the lower part of the slab that bucks him

yeesh. glad he made it out safe and was with someone who had his back


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## neni (Dec 24, 2012)

phillyphan said:


> I am in no way skilled enough to judge in this situation or skilled enough in avalanche training to make the judgement so I will ask.....did he trigger the avalanche because he kept checking himself before he dropped in? He was jumping edge to edge and down only a few feet. It seems like that would get the sheet of snow moving and would cause it. Had he not done that and just jumped in, would he might not have triggered the avalanche?


From what I saw in the vid, I interpreted that the slab was triggered through the impact of the landing of the jump.
Formations like drops n cliffs, even if not big, can lead to wind loaded drift snow accumulations in the lee side which are prone to slide.


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

KIRKRIDER said:


> With all respect... not fucking worth it for few pow turns. Not. No. I was imagining me and my son in the same situation. No...never.
> I'm happy with a pow day inbound thanks. I love pow. But every time I see videos like that...no. Fuck that. Terrifying.


Not to say you are wrong. That opinion is fine. You do live in California and there have been several inbounds deaths due to avalanches over the years. Especially during seasons like this. The only sure fire way to avoid an avalanche is to recognize avalanche terrain and avoid the hazard. A basic avalanche awareness class should more than enough training for recognizing those generally small areas within a resort that can be problematic. Those are usually free. Know Before You Go is good presentation to see.


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

neni said:


> From what I saw in the vid, I interpreted that the slab was triggered through the impact of the landing of the jump.
> Formations like drops n cliffs, even if not big, can lead to wind loaded drift snow accumulations in the lee side which are prone to slide.



Definitely the impact. The slab broke below the cliffs and a jump puts a lot more stress on the snow than simply riding it. The same thing can be said for someone falling all over a slope that can slide versus someone who rides it smoothly. The guy falling is putting a lot more stress on the slope. Yet another reason to not get in over your head in backcountry terrain. Especially if it is suspect terrain.

Another thing, though there is a ton of snow there, it looks like there are exposed rocks. Which get warmed by the sun and warm up the snow around it making it weaker. So the snow around the landing zone could have been structurally weaker due to the warming of the rocks. Depending on how close rocks were to the landing of course. This is just a theory but I think it has some validity here. 

Now some good things here. 

Terrain choice. Yeah it avalanched, maybe not so good. The consequence of getting caught in an avalanche after the cliff jump was low. There were no valleys or flat benches to get buried deeply on. It is a lot harder to survive if you are buried 15 ft down rather than 3. There were no strainer trees or other objects like rocks to get slammed into. Trauma is another big killer. Trees turn into baseball bats hitting you at 20+ mph. Rocks can be much the same. They had a good clean run out with not much terrain hazard.

They obviously had practiced with their gear, knew how to use it, and stayed calm enough to perform a rescue. Which given their terrain choices had a much higher chance of success. 

So even though it all went to shit and they missed some clues, they put themselves in a position to have a happy ending. Insert jokes here...


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## Noreaster (Oct 7, 2012)

phillyphan said:


> I am in no way skilled enough to judge in this situation or skilled enough in avalanche training to make the judgement so I will ask.....did he trigger the avalanche because he kept checking himself before he dropped in? He was jumping edge to edge and down only a few feet. It seems like that would get the sheet of snow moving and would cause it. Had he not done that and just jumped in, would he might not have triggered the avalanche?


What others said about triggering the slide below the cliff when he jumped.


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## KIRKRIDER (Mar 18, 2008)

killclimbz said:


> Not to say you are wrong. That opinion is fine. You do live in California and there have been several inbounds deaths due to avalanches over the years. Especially during seasons like this. The only sure fire way to avoid an avalanche is to recognize avalanche terrain and avoid the hazard. A basic avalanche awareness class should more than enough training for recognizing those generally small areas within a resort that can be problematic. Those are usually free. Know Before You Go is good presentation to see.


Absolutely. On the other hand those guys obviously had training and gear, the terrain looked not so dangerous and without obstructions, early morning judging from the shadows so not too warm and still got caught. Maybe an ABS would have worked better there. Would you have dropped that slope? How does that look to you? Not trying to be polemic or else. Just curious.


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## neni (Dec 24, 2012)

KIRKRIDER said:


> Absolutely. On the other hand those guys obviously had training and gear, the terrain looked not so dangerous and without obstructions, early morning judging from the shadows so not too warm and still got caught. Maybe an ABS would have worked better there. Would you have dropped that slope? How does that look to you? Not trying to be polemic or else. Just curious.


I assume that the problem was the classic problem of all over here... first bluebird day on a Sat after big dumps. 
Avy happened ~60miles away from my home mtn on Sat 31th Jan '15. It was snowing heavily that week in the western Alps, also on the 30th. Sat 31th was a bluebird... And from the vid you see that there were high winds connected to the snowfall (as usual over here). "Wind is the constructor of avalances" is what every instructor over here keeps saying like a mantra. The other is "give the snow time to settle; a bluebird after a dump is a dangerous day". All those fresh snowfalls and drift snow had no time to settle. 
I assume that the "mistake" the guys mention to have made in the introduction of the vid is that they were hunting pow even though there was high avy risk right after big dumps.

I posted this in the Alps thread on the 29th Jan '15


neni said:


> Yeah! After looking at the predictions at the beginning of the week I took the upcoming Monday off... and voilà, now we have the nice "problem" of too much snow as it fell all week, avy risk is already high now and it still dumps and another big wet front is approaching this night. Probably gonna stay "inbounds" this weekend :dunno: Maybe Monday will then be a Flagship day
> 
> :snowplow:
> But at least all the rocks n bush will finally be covered :happy:. You're staying in the Alps? Have fun and keep save!
> ...


BTW: not judging. The guys did a lot of things right, as Killc already mentioned. Furthermore, they did try to adjust for the high avy risk by riding 1 by one, and the open slope which was triggered didn't look too steep. If the jump impact wasn't there, it very likely wouldn't have slipped.


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## Noreaster (Oct 7, 2012)

I keep watching the pov of the friend and the end of the video and something about this particular avy bothers me but I can't put my finger on it. Go to 10:29 in the clip, there's another smaller slab that released to the left of the main avy. Looks like the entire slope under those cliffs might be unstable, but I don't know if the wind was necessarily at fault.


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

KIRKRIDER said:


> Absolutely. On the other hand those guys obviously had training and gear, the terrain looked not so dangerous and without obstructions, early morning judging from the shadows so not too warm and still got caught. Maybe an ABS would have worked better there. Would you have dropped that slope? How does that look to you? Not trying to be polemic or else. Just curious.


I don't know. I don't know the avy conditions, history, or general snow pack in that area. Maybe I would have tried it, maybe not. I did post my thoughts about the terrain choice. As far as consequence goes, it was a much better choice than other options people have chosen over the years. In a lot of ways they did stack the odds in their favor.


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## neni (Dec 24, 2012)

Just checked the SLF statistics; that 31th Jan was a very drak day. 11 ppl were caught in multiple avalanches on that single day alone in Switzerland, 8 died. E and W exposition. 

Reading the reports, they mention - besides the heavy fresh snowfalls - that snowprofiles at the avy site showed a surface hoar layer which made for the weak layer for the fresh snow.


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

neni said:


> Just checked the SLF statistics; that 31th Jan was a very drak day. 11 ppl were caught in multiple avalanches on that single day alone in Switzerland, 8 died. E and W exposition.
> 
> Reading the reports, they mention - besides the heavy fresh snowfalls - that snowprofiles at the avy site showed a surface hoar layer which made for the weak layer for the fresh snow.


In other words, lots of warnings that you might want to dial it back that day...


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