dieselcruiserhead
16 Years on ExPo. Whoa!!
I had a pretty crazy day yesterday when I was up on 9990 at The Canyons and within minutes the avalache happened that took a person's life.... I was about 300 yards away, I could not see it but heard it and it could tell it was major. There were a few minutes of confusion.. I looked at the avalanche conditions board up there which were very clearly marked "high!" and the gates were closed... And we were immediately redirected under the lift.
The snow was very deep and unreal of course, but was unusual, very wind blown and inconsistent. I then was cruising down a section at full speen and my tele binding exploded (just wear and tear over a few seasons, the side of one of the aluminum cartridges literally exploded, worn thin by thousands of tele turns of the cartidges touching each other), and I wrecked hard and believe I clocked my nose on the ski or something hard during the hard wreck and it is possibly broken... Blood all over the place (but stopped up fairly quickly luckily and very little on my clothing)... I was able to carefully get myself down with the binding semi in-tact. But that is when I hopped on the tombstone lift with a patroller and heard play by play action of the avalanche and the attempts. Sure enough there were several victims. I heard the attempt to revive the victim, and the finding of 11 year old who they brought back to life. It was unreal... Anyway, I thought that I was having a bad day.
Those poor people, they were basically in bounds and were taken out by either an unpredictable/last place you would have imagined inbound slide or from Square Top (the peak to the right of 9990, where I imagine and was told it originated, from out of bounds), and the slide path unusually ending up in bounds... The TV reports (Fox13 at least) also erroniously reported that they were "on a groomed run" but had actually entered through avalanche control gates to a double black section that is considered one of the hardest/most extreme at The Canyons.
Here is a news article about it...
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_7797940
I had also been back country with Carrie's dad the day before. But we were in a much safer area with less steepness and stability added by trees and woods. And we correctly very paranoid and cautious about possibly avalnches. I also noticed some slidoff and chunking even in out ski paths and had a feeling within a day or two the avalanche conditions would be much worse. Something about this storm made it incredibly heavy within a day or two even though the snow fell very light feeling.
Anyway, I personally am OK... My nose is a little swollen, no black and blue (yet?). Most scary for me was the avalanche. I also heard a good friend who is a patroller on the radio who was right there and very active in the search for the victims and recessitation.. I hope he is doing well as the situation particularly with the death was a little gruesome...
___________________
Also a co-worker who sits in front of me also had a friend who was there, saw the avalanche happen, and was a first responder and helped find the bodies... He was crucial in helping them know there were two victims and also called 9-11 and got the patrol up there right away. Still it is amazing that they revived the boy. He was buried for 23 minutes and was found not breathing. I hope he ends up OK... He is critical but stable...
The snow was very deep and unreal of course, but was unusual, very wind blown and inconsistent. I then was cruising down a section at full speen and my tele binding exploded (just wear and tear over a few seasons, the side of one of the aluminum cartridges literally exploded, worn thin by thousands of tele turns of the cartidges touching each other), and I wrecked hard and believe I clocked my nose on the ski or something hard during the hard wreck and it is possibly broken... Blood all over the place (but stopped up fairly quickly luckily and very little on my clothing)... I was able to carefully get myself down with the binding semi in-tact. But that is when I hopped on the tombstone lift with a patroller and heard play by play action of the avalanche and the attempts. Sure enough there were several victims. I heard the attempt to revive the victim, and the finding of 11 year old who they brought back to life. It was unreal... Anyway, I thought that I was having a bad day.
Those poor people, they were basically in bounds and were taken out by either an unpredictable/last place you would have imagined inbound slide or from Square Top (the peak to the right of 9990, where I imagine and was told it originated, from out of bounds), and the slide path unusually ending up in bounds... The TV reports (Fox13 at least) also erroniously reported that they were "on a groomed run" but had actually entered through avalanche control gates to a double black section that is considered one of the hardest/most extreme at The Canyons.
Here is a news article about it...
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_7797940
I had also been back country with Carrie's dad the day before. But we were in a much safer area with less steepness and stability added by trees and woods. And we correctly very paranoid and cautious about possibly avalnches. I also noticed some slidoff and chunking even in out ski paths and had a feeling within a day or two the avalanche conditions would be much worse. Something about this storm made it incredibly heavy within a day or two even though the snow fell very light feeling.
Anyway, I personally am OK... My nose is a little swollen, no black and blue (yet?). Most scary for me was the avalanche. I also heard a good friend who is a patroller on the radio who was right there and very active in the search for the victims and recessitation.. I hope he is doing well as the situation particularly with the death was a little gruesome...
___________________
Also a co-worker who sits in front of me also had a friend who was there, saw the avalanche happen, and was a first responder and helped find the bodies... He was crucial in helping them know there were two victims and also called 9-11 and got the patrol up there right away. Still it is amazing that they revived the boy. He was buried for 23 minutes and was found not breathing. I hope he ends up OK... He is critical but stable...
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