Four snowboarders and a skier riding the backcountry at Loveland Pass, Colorado, were killed in an avalanche Saturday afternoon, according to the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office. One person survived. The crown face was about four feet high and 500 feet wide and ran in the Sheep Creek drainage. The avalanche hazard was rated as [...]
avalanche
Perrine Etard was hanging out on a via ferrata in St. Christophe en Oisans, not too far south of La Grave, France, when this little rumbler turned into one hell of a big avalanche — so big it blocked the river below. Oolala, indeed. Hat tip to Early Ups for finding this gem.
Naturally releasing avalanches in Washington State hit two separate groups Saturday, leaving two people hur, one woman dead, and a 61-year-old man missing. Conditions were rated “high” by the Northwest Avalanche Institute after a recent spring storm dropped boatloads of new snow. The first slide hit a group of snowshoers on Granite Mountain and carried [...]
Rarely do avalanche professionals fall victim to the events they study, but sometimes they do. Utah Department of Transportation forecaster Craig Patterson died yesterday in a slide in the Cardiff Fork area of Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains. Patterson, 34, was working and skiing alone, and he was reported missing when he didn’t [...]
Fails are just so much funnier than near-misses, but when something this sobering comes along you need to see it. Canale Holzer is one of the many steep couloirs plumbing the Dolomites, in this case down the north face of Sass Pordoi in the Sella Gruppo. I’m not familiar with the Holzer — I’ve skied [...]
Thailand bans ivory exports, New England prays for snow, skier dies in Grand Teton NP avie, and NY Times weakens coverage of environment.
MISSING SNOWBOARDER SPENT NIGHT IN HOTEL Here’s a thought: Drinking and reporting your brother lost to authorities don’t mix. South Lake Tahoe search and rescue spent more than $40,000 looking for 24-year-old snowboarder Corey Hoffman, 24, who got separated from his brother on last run and disappeared after allegedly pounding drinks at a Heavenly Valley [...]
The true, sad fact is that you don’t fully appreciate something until it’s been taken away. But then, if it’s returned to you, your blessings are reaped tenfold, for now you know how it is to live without that one thing, but you don’t have to. Roger Strong was caught in an avalanche on Snoqualmie [...]
Vail Resorts failed last week to convince a judge that avalanches are an inherent risk of skiing on the company’s flagship mountain. Broomfield District Court Judge Patrick Murphy declined to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the family of Taft Conlin, who was killed by a snowslide on Prima Cornice in January 2012. The company’s argument [...]
When you’ve dug a body or two out of debris, avalanches no longer become academic. They become…the best word I can use is…sobering. Very, very sobering. But I won’t nag. I’ll just recommend that you buy and commit to memory the lessons of Snow Sense, a short, phenomenally insightful book about saying alive in avalanche [...]
Come spring when Chugach Powder Guides starts dropping its guests on the peaks around Girdwood, Alaska, via magic carpet, a.k.a. A-Star choppers, all the stoked skiers and boarders will be wearing Mammut avalanche air bags — free of charge. “Our goal is to avoid avalanches, obviously,” says operations manager Jeff Gross. “But we learned last [...]
March 26, 2011, was the day the love of my life dealt me a heartbreaking blow. I have spent the past 25 years searching for a way to satisfy my endless hunger, a hunger we all know well — for the perfect run, in perfect conditions, with the perfect group of friends. Every season, it [...]
The body of Chamonix guide and big mountain steep skier Rémy Lécluse was found in a crevasse on Mt. Manaslu this week, recovered, and turned over to French authorities in Kathmandu. “A team of seven Sherpas discovered the dead body of Remy Lecluse,” Ishwari Paudel, the managing director of Himalayan Guide, said. “His body was [...]
Glen Plake wasn’t happy with the location of Camp 3 on Nepal’s Manaslu. “We didn’t really like where Camp 3 was placed,” he told EpicTV in a Skype interview from Kathmandu. “It seemed to be prone to anything if it did happen. We put our camp where other people had put Camp 3 before. It [...]
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