What a crazy winter. I know it has been a while since I have been able to write, but with the holiday, visiting the family, going on a yurt trip in Montana, etc, its been tough to find time. Last weekend I did find time in this strangest of strange winters to get out for a “ski”, if you can call it that. A few friends and myself, 4 of us in total, went for a ski in a very wild and rarely skied area in CO. Another of our contemporaries had headed out by himself about 30 minutes in front of us, as he often does, and we slowly followed his tracks, knowing that the conditions weren’t really ideal for schralping big lines. On our way up we buried beacons, ran beacon drills, and cruised our way up to the peak. On the way it was obvious what the lack of snow and the cold conditions had done to our usually already unstable snowpack. Whooomph. Whooomph. Some of the biggest whoomphs I have ever heard, felt, or experienced. The first settling that we heard actually scared me I was so startled by it. We were physically dropping 6 inches every time the snowpack settled. This was a clear indication of what we were going to be finding all over the mountain, but we continued onward, knowing that we probably weren’t going to get to make any proper turns this day. Once we peaked out, we watched our solo contemporary ski a line by himself in some of the most dangerous conditions I have ever seen. Once he skied and was out of the way, we decided to dip in to a safe spot on the north face and play with the snow to see what would happen.
On our way over to the area we were going to check out we passed a huge slab avalanche, natural, on a windloaded leeward slope. The slabs were the size of small cars, 4 feet tall, and the thing slid to the ground. The deposition zone must have run 200 feet long and at least as wide. We all skied on to this little rocky knob, an obvious safe spot for what was in my mind an imminent avalanche. Jeff snuck his way out along the safe edge of the face to our west, about a 35% slope and he was just on the rollover where the steepness began. He sort of hopped a ski cut about 75% if the way around the face, and then he hit the sweet spot. WHOOMPH! Everything settled, and 20 feet below Jeff a slab avalanche ripped the entire face, to the ground. On the other side of us, to the east, cracks shot everywhere and a larger slab avalanche slid to the ground, about 50-80 feet wide and to the ground as well. (photos to come) Somehow our solo friend had skied a very similar aspect without causing it to slide, but in my mind he had just escaped death, skiing alone in the most dangerous conditions this state has seen in a long time.
Well, that was all I needed to see, and what I knew was going to happen anyways. One by one we sidestepped our way off the knob and away from the face, retracing our steps to retreat down the mountain the same way we had come up. On our way down Jeff ripped a little slide, and looking up at it we realized there was a huge slide in the bowl just to our east, probably 250 feet wide. The exact spot where our soloist buddy usually descends. Instantly, we all began to shift into search mindset. Jeff got on the phone to call the soloist, who casually answered the phone. “Yeah, I ripped that slide, Im home and fine”.
We skied down to the car, and what do you know. US Forest Service rangers giving us a hard time about parking, not having use permits for the area we were skiing, ect. A perfect ending to a most unusual day. Stay safe.