Real Life in Jackson, Wyoming

Horrible News: RIP Steve Romeo.

I just found out that long-time resident, ski guru, and TetonAT blogger Steve Romeo and a friend Chris Onufer were caught and killed in a large avalanche sometime Wednesday.  Sad news.  I would think the powder is much better (and never ending) where he is now.  Such a nice guy.

THIS Poor Bastard WAS on This Lift.

Yesterday I posted a video of a huge avalanche taking out a running chairlift.  Here is a video of a French gentleman riding the lift with (I suppose) his family and I don't think they realize how close they came to buying the farm.  Crap.  This scares the bejezus out of me.

 

Holy F*ck! Glad I Wasn't on THIS Lift.

My friend Lingus sent me this link for a Youtube video from France.  A huge climax avalanche with probable one meter or two meter crown took out a running ski lift in St. Francois-Longchamps, in south-east France, in the Savoie region.  The wall of snow is probably 8 meters high when it hits the chair.  Crazy.  Thanks for the link Lingus.

 

 This ski area is near the Three Valleys ski resort.  Guess they are having really warm weather.

Yay! New Snow!

Got to ski in two inches of new snow this morning so skiing has been really good.  As I type this it is snowing lightly and the weather is calling for snow through Wednesday but most of the snow is due today/early tomorrow.  Me luv skiing!

A fellow patroller did a avalanche test pit and did two fairly new tests: the extended column test (ECT) and the saw propagation test (SPT).  He got a score of ECT23Q2 at 70 cm down with a fracture at the point of contact of the shovel.  However, in his words, "The SPT almost made me pee my pants."  His SPT score was 20/100 (end) at 70 cm.  So, propagation at the weak layer was very good (or in this case, very bad.)  So, overall a bit of a muddle for test results.  Given that information, I would be careful skiing a similar slope on a similar aspect/altitude.  The more you know, the less you go.

Thanks for the Link.

Thanks for the video link Lingus.  Too bad the guy holding the camera was pissing himself so much we didn't see but ten seconds of the avalanche.  Too bad; would have been a great video.  Here is the link folks:  http://vimeo.com/34534418.  Don't let this be you later this season.

More White Stuff.

It has been getting consistently colder in Jackson and the Kaiser has finally started to make snow.  If the temps continue to be low, the stripe on Lane 7 could be done in ten more days.  Dang.  Not far off.  Drove to Salt Lake City Friday morning for an avalanche symposium Saturday morning and the weather was great on the way down: dry roads and clear skies but windy.  A major storm front was moving in and SLC and southern Wyo were expecting two to six inches of new snow.  It did start to sleet Friday night and there was a couple inches on my car after coming out of the strip club at 11.  Got up to about three inches on the car in the morning (streets were only wet, thank God) and went to the symposium.  Last year was better with much more informative presentations.  I think this may have been because the ISSW was in Squaw Valley one week prior so a lot of the same presenters at ISSW went to this Utah Snow and Avalanche Workshop in 2010.  This year, not very much new information or exciting presenters.  Oh well; got fed a great lunch and scored some schwag.  We left at 1 figuring the roads would be bad and we wanted as much daylight as possible.  Surprise, surprise, the roads were only wet on I-80 and the only bad section was Star Valley and up the first 15 miles of the Snake River Canyon (little slick with new snow and some icy spots).  Back home now and perhaps an inch fell last night so looks like winter is here.

YYYAAAAYYYY!!!!

No recent updates because of the recent outpouring of good news:  a happy royal wedding with no snafus, two patrollers finding out they are preggers, and the fantastic news about bin Laden.  Fuck right we should celebrate.  I hope they shoved a pork rind up his ass before they killed him.  I heard a snippet that the internet traffic was huge in the last 24 hours or so; I believe it because I was trying to download a large file last night and could never quite get it.  Now I know why.

Anyway, Philthy, no helmet cams but a few photos from the Saturday class.  Lots of snow, and it is not going away quickly.  From my window the Tetons look like its February.

Not the best photo.

Here's a better one:

The valley floor is clear but oodles of snow up high; I spoke to a patroller friend who lives and work for the major concessionaire company in GTNP and he was concerned about getting the snow cleared off walkways, paths, and roofs in time for the opening of several lodges and buildings in the next four weeks.  He also said there is enough snow in the mountains above Jackson Lake to fill it completely three times over, and that parts of Teton County is under a flood watch this spring.  I believe it.

Couple photos from the class:

Hauling in a break-apart sled for the class.  We never really used it and could have left it at home.

Getting ready for our Rutschblock test.

Two small surface avalanches triggered by two skiers in our group.  No injuries or captures; crown depth was about 8 inches by 20 feet across; very heavy snow (probably 25% water); debris pile about 30 feet across by 60 feet long by 2 feet deep; didn't run very fast but if you were underneath and completely oblivious, you could have easily been knocked over and partially buried.  Steepness of the slope where triggered: about 35 degrees.

More silliness in store with more 2011 world championship snowmobile hillclimb videos to come.  Whee!  I luvs the smell of two-cycle!

Still Quite Wintery.

Spring is trying to come to Jackson but Winter doesn't seem to want to leave just yet.  Just finished a field session of my Level II avalanche course on Teton Pass yesterday, and it snowed almost ten inches Friday night on the pass.  It got quite warm later in the day so wet avalanches were a definite hazard but no issues for our class.  Had fun playing in the woods but now that the class is over I can focus on other things, like spring cleaning.  Yay.

Snow Again.

Still getting snow here in ol JH.  It snow off and on again all day yesterday and it looks like it may again today.  Still in the throes of preparing for our level 2 avi course this week.  It will be timely, to say the least, considering the backcountry conditions still look like March, and not late April.  Plus, those two guys from SLC who went missing last weekend were found in their tent buried under 13 feet of snow.  Sucks.  No idea where they were found or the local conditions, but I think backcountry skiers/hikers need to exercise caution on camping locations and skiing routes.  Looks like the old bike may not make it onto dirt anytime soon.

Bbbrrrrr!

Holy craparoly, it was cold this morning.  Temp was 14.8 outside at 7 am, and 48.2 in the kitchen and 44.2 in the bedroom.  Thank god for 4 warm kitties at night.

Starting a level II avalanche course next week for our patrol.  While I was in Italy I was wondering if we were going to get it going but it sounds like a go, especially since we still have so much snow.  It is mostly clear on the valley floor but up high it looks like January or February (Snow King was at 215 inches total snowfall when the weather site was taken down), and there is almost 15 feet of settled snow at the upper weather site at JHMR.  I had an organizational meeting last night for our course and one of the other instructors showed me a photo of a rescue cache he and a couple other members of the Teton County Search and Rescue dug out last Saturday.  He is a tall guy, about 6'1", and in the photo he is standing on the rescue cache box (about 3 feet tall) with a shovel in his hand and held about his head.  The top of the shovel barely reaches above the top of the hole.  I figure easily 13-14 feet deep.  Plenty of snow for an avi course.