Generation Recreation
Avalanche Conditions Persist, But So Does Mindset of Invincibility
By Michael Pearlman, 1-02-09
 |
|
 | |
| Easy-access backcountry terrain through gates like this one is closed until further notice in Jackson Hole, where avalanche danger is high. | |
|
Imagine you’re a ski patroller at a massive Rocky Mountain ski resort, charged with keeping the public safe in some of the most absurdly dangerous avalanche terrain in the country. Your job description includes constantly reassessing danger levels, and the inexact art of “snow science” can make the difference between life and death. You ski around the mountain through awful weather and unstable snow, intentionally releasing avalanches and constantly reassessing the danger. Thousands of feet below, the public waits anxiously for the lifts to open so they can indulge in powder, a drug that they’ve paid to experience.
That’s only part of the job description of a Jackson Hole Mountain Resort ski patroller, and they’ve had one hell of a rough stretch during the busiest two weeks of the ski season. After a slow start to the winter that included some high altitude rain, the snow has fallen nearly nonstop, more than seven feet in the past 10 days. That creates the type of avalanche danger seen only rarely in the past few decades in the Tetons. The story has been similar around the West, to the point where conditions are receiving attention in the national press.
The horror stories from the mountains keep rolling in-8 snowmobilers who died in British Columbia have gotten wide play in the press. The resort’s grimmest moment in perhaps two decades came only hours after patrollers opened some popular steep terrain for the first time this season. Jackson Hole local David Nodine was buried in a slide on an open trail that had already been skied by the public. Despite Nodine’s avalanche beacon and frantic efforts by ski patrollers, who uncovered him in 10 minutes, he couldn’t be saved.
Though extremely rare, in-bounds avalanche deaths have occurred three times already this season, with fatalities occurring at Snowbird, Utah and Squaw Valley, Calif. Just two days after Nodine’s death, Jackson Hole patrollers had another close call when a massive avalanche released during control work. The Headwall, where the slide occurred, sits directly above the exit point of the resort’s heavily used gondola and a new restaurant. The slide partially trapped seven ski patrollers and caused extensive damage to the restaurant, piling debris 30 feet deep in places. A reliable source informed me that it’s going to be at least three weeks before the building can be repaired.
No doubt this terrible snowpack and spate of incidents couldn’t come at a worse time for the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. They just spent $31 million on a new aerial tram that accesses terrain that’s too dangerous to ski at the moment. Among the biggest profit generators for the resort is a backcountry guide service and famed Steep and Deep camps, which draw strong skiers interested in the most challenging terrain. Throw in a troubled economy, and there’s good reason to be very worried about skier numbers this winter.
In certain snow conditions, it’s impossible to make a ski resort like Jackson Hole completely safe, no matter how many bombs are thrown. At the same time, many recreational skiers have been lured into a false sense of safety regarding the dangers that lurk in the mountains. They hear avalanche bombs while waiting for the lifts to open and imagine that when ski patrol gives the green light, everything is safe. Sign up for a guide, or just follow that guy with the backpack through a gate and you’ll be fine-just follow the ski tracks home. That boilerplate about risk printed on the back of your lift ticket is just for the lawyers, and if anything goes wrong there’s always cell phones and Search and Rescue.
The snow hasn’t stopped falling and it could be a long, sad winter for search and rescue teams around the west if the public doesn’t heed the message of lurking mountain danger. Any avalanche forecaster in the country will tell you that when tragedies happen, more often than not warnings were ignored or ominous signs dismissed. Ill-prepared resort skiers can be found wandering in popular out-of-bounds areas at every major ski resort in the west. Last week, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort officials announced that backcountry access gates– open continuously for the past 10 winters– would be closed at the suggestion of avalanche forecasters. Monday morning, the Bridger Teton National Forest avalanche center issued a uniquely worded warning, no doubt directed at complacent local skiers.
When the lifts reopen, those gate closures and avalanche danger warnings will no-doubt be ignored by a certain segment of recreationists. Skiers and snowmobilers will eventually return to high marking steep bowls and dropping into the gut of avalanche paths they’ve skied for years, conditioned to believe that they’re safe from disaster. The mountains have been reinforcing the same lessons for years, but if you don’t listen to the teacher you’re never going to learn anything.
For more from Michael Pearlman, drop in often at www.newwest.net/generationrecreation
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
JHMR made their own bed.... pity.
-CAMT-
Look, skiers skiing on-area can have a reasonable expectation that patrollers are skilled enough to assess snow conditions accurately. If conditions are hazardous, the patrol/mountain has not just the authority but the responsibility to CLOSE the terrain to customers (who are in this case) paying $80+ for, in part, the very specific expertise of snow science. In fact patrollers routinely keep terrain off-limits until they're done blasting and ski-cutting. It happens all the time. Yes variables continue to exist, but the fact remains that JHMR's paid patrollers were premature in their opening of Toilet Bowl and it cost a skier his life. Had he been out of bounds, or (as other commenters have mentioned) cutting ropes and skiing out-of-bounds, of course he was taking on the responsibility himself.
But for the writer to say that:
"In certain snow conditions, it’s impossible to make a ski resort like Jackson Hole completely safe, no matter how many bombs are thrown."
completely disregards the patrol's most important duty: to protect the well-being and safety of their paying clients- in this case, the terrain should have remained closed, either until the bowl slid (naturally or via munitions) or until the dangerous layers had settled.
But reading this, I'd venture a guess that the author's got some tight peeps within the JHMR patrol, and they're doing major damage control for having messed their nest not once but twice in the past week. That's too bad for NW readers, because some straight-up reporting that calls out the patrol for their very real and costly mistakes would serve us all a whole lot better than this boy-is-it-tough-to-be-a-patroller piece.
You may feel that a piece calling out ski patrollers or resort management for opening the terrain that led to Nodine's death would more appropriate. I chose to focus on the near impossibility of declaring terrain completely "safe" and the mindset of invincibility among skiers that contributes to most out-of-bounds avalanche deaths.
As mentioned, Jackson Hole isn't the only ski area where an in-bounds avalanche has occurred this season, on terrain that had been "controlled" by ski patrollers. Using your logic, professional ski patrollers and mountain management at three major resorts were all negligent in their duty to protect the public, which I don't think is the case. Instead, I believe that ski patrol at each of these resorts firmly believed that the terrain in question was safe and the avalanche risk was practically non-existent at the time the terrain was opened to the public. The three fatalities are tragic reminders that avalanche "control" and "snow science" are actually misleading terms.
Ski patrollers may be charged with the safety and well-being of the skiing public, but downhill skiing is inherently a risky activity. If ski patrollers were to "error on the side of caution" all the time, much of Squaw Valley, Snowbird and Jackson Hole would be closed to the public much of the time. That would leave few customers willing to pay for lift tickets in order to recreate in admittedly dangerous mountain terrain.
"ski patrol at each of these resorts firmly believed that... the avalanche risk was practically non-existent at the time the terrain was opened"
If I'm wrong, then wtf is up with their process of determining what's safe? Of course it's an imprecise science, but patrollers have long dealt with dangerous conditions. Many areas at many resorts stay closed for long periods of higher slide risk, and its indeed the patrol's responsibility to keep them off-limits until they're "safe." If patrollers believed the danger was "practically non-existant," as you say, I gotta question their logic in this case. For example, every single avalanche center in the West had issued a slide warning last week, and I as a recreational skier would have been suspect of ANY 30-plus degree terrain, yes even in bounds.
Of course Jackson/Alta/Squaw/BS/and others have slide-prone terrain that requires a very thoughtful and experienced patrol to control the danger. When it's deemed safe it's the best skiing around. But expertise in avalanche prevention and in keeping skiers safe is what we're paying for when we buy a lift ticket. It's also what we have to take upon ourselves when we head out on our own. The long history of extremely few on-area avalanche deaths across the Rockies, I believe, supports the point.