BackcountrySkier missing after avalanche near Hut

[mountainmicah83]

I don't necessarily subscribe to renting tranceivers - no more than I would rent my boots, skis, snowshoes, pack, or car... WIthout getting into the politics, here is a place you can rent them from.

$25/d for day 1, $5/d after that.

(Should I do this? Does this facilitate people not owning a backcountry tool? No politics, just info....)

Todd Warren
Alpenquest
719-963-1062
greg 481-2331

I think you are in line here. The point is that you carry the gear and know how to use it. not if you own it. It doesn't do me any good in my gear tubs and would be nice to just rent if you don't use it enough to warrant purchasing one like say if you were from Nebraska or something.

[Doug Shaw]

I think you are in line here. The point is that you carry the gear and know how to use it. not if you own it. It doesn't do me any good in my gear tubs and would be nice to just rent if you don't use it enough to warrant purchasing one like say if you were from Nebraska or something.

The devil's advocate point of this is that if you only rent gear like a beacon when you need it, you probably aren't terribly experienced at using it. This means that I won't be venturing into avy terrain with you, because carrying a beacon is a two-sided pact. One side is that I'll find you quickly if you get buried. The other side is that you'll find me quickly if I get buried. If you only rent a beacon when you need it, I'd have concerns about the second side of that pact.

[Bean]

For some reason that picture of the offending slide (this one: http://avalanche.state.co.us/acc/acc_im ... G_0077.JPG" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) really scares me. I'm new to this stuff, self-educating for now and generally staying away from avy zones. That slope doesn't look too steep to me, but the report does say it's 35-40 degrees. But just looking at the picture, I wouldn't think that slope was much of a risk for a slide. Shows you what I know.

Anyway, my condolences to the family. This sort of thing is very sad.

In general if it looks like it could be fun to ski, it's steep enough to slide.

[Scott P]

But just looking at the picture, I wouldn't think that slope was much of a risk for a slide.

It is actually a classic example of a prime avalanche slope. It's right at the optimum steepness, has classic wind loading and is mostly bare of trees. The safer route to climb up or down the slope is on the far right and in the thick trees. Of course if you are skiing or boarding.....

[Kevin8020]

I think you are in line here. The point is that you carry the gear and know how to use it. not if you own it. It doesn't do me any good in my gear tubs and would be nice to just rent if you don't use it enough to warrant purchasing one like say if you were from Nebraska or something.

The devil's advocate point of this is that if you only rent gear like a beacon when you need it, you probably aren't terribly experienced at using it. This means that I won't be venturing into avy terrain with you, because carrying a beacon is a two-sided pact. One side is that I'll find you quickly if you get buried. The other side is that you'll find me quickly if I get buried. If you only rent a beacon when you need it, I'd have concerns about the second side of that pact.

Yeah, and thus I am mostly against renting beacons. Times like this weekend, where I'm going out with someone without much beacon experience, I am having him rent beacon. If I were on a route where I expected a lot of avalanche terrain, I wouldn't even think about taking someone who doesn't thoroughly understand beacon use. In this case, we're staying on a "safer" route, and will be making careful terrain selection. We're renting more for 1) practice and training, and 2) the chance that I screw up and pick the wrong route... which really shouldn't happen.

[tmahon]

Just as an update and to answer the question as to why he didn't have a beacon, the latest word around town is that due to the HIGH avy rating they weren't actually skiing, and were instead looking for something else fun to do and were packing out a sled hill on lower slopes when the slide came down on him.

[jniehof]

That slope doesn't look too steep to me, but the report does say it's 35-40 degrees. But just looking at the picture, I wouldn't think that slope was much of a risk for a slide. Shows you what I know.

Thanks for linking the pic. Looks like it was taken from above, which IMX tends to make things look less steep than reality. It's also in retrospect a fairly obvious slide path: trees on both side and nothing in between. It looks like the far left is also a slide path--it only went a little bit this time, but it looks like runout below. Skinning up skier's left of the slope (assuming the report is accurate) probably looked good from below, if one couldn't see that the trees ended partway up.

(EDIT: Just realized I haven't had my coffee and misread. I would have called skier's left/climber's right the preferred travel path...)

No disrespect intended to the victim (probably far more experienced than I), and I'm certainly not an avy expert. I just try to take any opportunity to practice reading terrain and your comment got me looking and thinking.

[rocky]

Here's a link to an article in today's Aspen Times. Read it if you would like to know John Kelley a little better...he was a wonderful man.

http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20100 ... ile=search" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Please take care of yourselves and those you love. A beacon may not have saved Kelley, but it would have given him a greater chance at surviving. Buy a transceiver, learn to use it, practice, check your batteries, practice some more, and wear it without fail. Don't let the beacon give you any false sense of security. Take avalanche awareness courses and learn to look at snow conditions and terrain with a really critical eye. Never discount your "gut-feeling" that a slope could be dangerous. Read the terrain and travel safely.

All of us on this forum take part in activities that many consider to be dangerous. We live large and love large and sparkle because of it. Kelley sparkled and we will all miss him terribly.

- Rocky