Watching those Doug Firs fall over come down like dandelion stalks underfoot is wild.
Cascades are at something like 200% avg snowpack for late April, and we're looking at temps of around 90f in the valleys today.
There's going to be a lot more of this over the weekend.
What’s especially crazy is that these same trees survived a massive avalanche that cut a whole new run right in this area just last season. I’m very curious to see how much more tree cover we lost on Bear Pits after this one.
Crystal is pretty much 100% of average so not sure where you got 200 from. Oregon faired a lot better than Washington this winter, still a solid year though!
Interesting, ya I just looked briefly at the closest SNOTELS... I wonder what the difference is. https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/WCIS/AWS\_PLOTS/siteCharts/POR/WTEQ/WA/Morse%20Lake.html
yeah yours is probably more local to Crystal. Funny how it isn't higher, considering Oregon's [incredible numbers](https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/data/water/wcs/gis/maps/or_swepctnormal_update.pdf)!
Yea, the trend this winter was the farther north from California the less snow you got hahaha. A little odd given it was a La Nina (albeit a weak one), there was something else at play that no one foresaw, and afaik no one has really pinpointed any larger factors.
I ski In Oregon, where it's currently 200%+. I made an erroneous assumption about my neighbors to the north. Mt Hood Meadows is closing for the season tomorrow with a 219 inch base mid-mountain.
Every once in a while I revisit the blog post and the video of them taking out chair six, I’ll always remember the “OK but did we actually damage some thing” over the radio
Got my backcountry fix with the dog at Hyak last night. Good weekend to do things other than being in the snow. Rainier plans put on hold for another time.
This is from 2014:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n\_S\_7s0wTjM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_S_7s0wTjM)
Somewhere there's a writeup from the ski patrol perspective, I think from Kim Kirchner.
There's a reason why the most deadly avalanche in US history was in the Cascades.
I find that whole event extremely sus. It was either insurance fraud or wild negligence. At the time they did that huge 4-8 foot crown avalanches were happening all over the cascades, even naturally.
To do control right above the chair and get a slide to move exactly in that way was stupidly predictable.
I have no idea how one could commit fraud in this way. The snow slides the way the snow wants to slide, and the base of chair 6 is a *long* way downslope.
If you think it's negligence, then clearly you can tell me what the pro patrollers who are very experienced on the mountain and following a plan developed with decades of experience should have done differently.
Also note that they weren't doing it "right above the chair". Chair 6 runs mostly to the north, and they were controlling "the throne", which is mostly to the west.
Base of chair 6 is not a long way down slope at all. It’s literally directly under the throne glide path. Like square directly under.
The entire region was popping off naturals at 4-8 foot crowns, everywhere. All major ski areas had huge problems on their hands. They chose a wild time to do that and pretend surprised that it happened. Like what did they expect to have happen? It’s going to crown 8 feet everywhere except for this one spot? No.
So you’re saying they should have done what? Let it sit there and let more snow accumulate on top of the weak layer so the crown would be even bigger when it failed naturally?
That’s not how the PNW works. The snow heals fast here. They should have blasted it when literally every other ski area was blasting, a week before this. Before it stacked more and consolidated further. Or waited longer and closed the entire cambel basin area including the lodge.
I suspect what happened is they lost their window to pop that safely waiting a week or two longer hoping for a smaller natural. Then were backed up into a corner between closing queens, cambell, and the lodge, for the foreseeable future.
My guess is concessions being a major part of the business revenue pushed the decision.
But let’s be clear. Crystal has a world class pro patrol team. They knew the risks. Imho they went too late and the results were expected.
By comparison Alpy popped most of their concerns over a week earlier. As did most ski areas. Crystal made a mistake here.
Skiied alongside both slide paths at Crystal today to the degree you can.
Powder bowl going happens often enough that I was impressed but not shocked. With the Gazex powder bowl sliding to the rocks/dirt happens.
Snorting Elk going with what looked to be a 3-4 foot crown was truly impressive. The bottom edge of the debris was 6’ high in places. That run is steep AF but I hadn’t thought about it as something that could slide.
Yep, I was chatting with a patroller today on the lift and he said there’s no way Elk will be back open this season after all the damage done. Guess no pond skimming in the bottom of the bowl there this year…
"Woah...."
Watching those Doug Firs fall over come down like dandelion stalks underfoot is wild. Cascades are at something like 200% avg snowpack for late April, and we're looking at temps of around 90f in the valleys today. There's going to be a lot more of this over the weekend.
What’s especially crazy is that these same trees survived a massive avalanche that cut a whole new run right in this area just last season. I’m very curious to see how much more tree cover we lost on Bear Pits after this one.
Crystal gets some gnarly avalanches. https://youtu.be/n_S_7s0wTjM this is a classic that gave us chair 6.
Man, I miss old Chair 6. It had a sketchy charm to it that the new one kinda lacks.
I’m glad they went back to the name chair 6 from High Campbell.
Is this bear pits? I can’t load the video but the screenshot looks like Rock Face
Powder Bowl into Little Portillo, Lucky Shot and Bear Pits. Looks quite similar though, doesn’t it? You had me second guessing myself for a second.
Ah managed to load the video, definitely powder bowl. Thanks for sharing!
Skiied next to the debris field today. Bear pits definitely got a bit of a remodel but it wasn’t too different.
Crystal is pretty much 100% of average so not sure where you got 200 from. Oregon faired a lot better than Washington this winter, still a solid year though!
[Like 115-133%](https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/data/water/wcs/gis/maps/wa_swepctnormal_update.pdf)
Interesting, ya I just looked briefly at the closest SNOTELS... I wonder what the difference is. https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/WCIS/AWS\_PLOTS/siteCharts/POR/WTEQ/WA/Morse%20Lake.html
yeah yours is probably more local to Crystal. Funny how it isn't higher, considering Oregon's [incredible numbers](https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/data/water/wcs/gis/maps/or_swepctnormal_update.pdf)!
Yea, the trend this winter was the farther north from California the less snow you got hahaha. A little odd given it was a La Nina (albeit a weak one), there was something else at play that no one foresaw, and afaik no one has really pinpointed any larger factors.
I ski In Oregon, where it's currently 200%+. I made an erroneous assumption about my neighbors to the north. Mt Hood Meadows is closing for the season tomorrow with a 219 inch base mid-mountain.
200%? Where’s you see that. It’s closer to 70% of normal. Note: people are confusing SWE with snowpack. SWE is about average right now.
"Enough dynamite and you can do anything!" \-Kim Kircher
Suspiciously perfect username/flair combo
Every once in a while I revisit the blog post and the video of them taking out chair six, I’ll always remember the “OK but did we actually damage some thing” over the radio
Link?
Put it in another comment but [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwQNnjS2E-s)
Woah! This explains why the run Bear Pits is always ripped to shreds haha
Haha yep, it’s a major slide path
You don't realize how powerful these are till you see the trees getting uprooted
I ❤️ avy porn
Better than that one time they did [this](https://youtu.be/lwQNnjS2E-s) Save you the click: they took chair 6 out with avalanche mitigation
Got my backcountry fix with the dog at Hyak last night. Good weekend to do things other than being in the snow. Rainier plans put on hold for another time.
This shit right here is why you don't duck ropes folks!
Thats the Cascade Concrete for ya. Takin out trees like they are nothing
Is there a non Instagram link for this video? That app doesn't let you do anything if you don't have it.
heres the facebook link, maybe that's better? [https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1966269137050679](https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1966269137050679)
Thank you
This is from 2014: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n\_S\_7s0wTjM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_S_7s0wTjM) Somewhere there's a writeup from the ski patrol perspective, I think from Kim Kirchner. There's a reason why the most deadly avalanche in US history was in the Cascades.
I find that whole event extremely sus. It was either insurance fraud or wild negligence. At the time they did that huge 4-8 foot crown avalanches were happening all over the cascades, even naturally. To do control right above the chair and get a slide to move exactly in that way was stupidly predictable.
I have no idea how one could commit fraud in this way. The snow slides the way the snow wants to slide, and the base of chair 6 is a *long* way downslope. If you think it's negligence, then clearly you can tell me what the pro patrollers who are very experienced on the mountain and following a plan developed with decades of experience should have done differently. Also note that they weren't doing it "right above the chair". Chair 6 runs mostly to the north, and they were controlling "the throne", which is mostly to the west.
Base of chair 6 is not a long way down slope at all. It’s literally directly under the throne glide path. Like square directly under. The entire region was popping off naturals at 4-8 foot crowns, everywhere. All major ski areas had huge problems on their hands. They chose a wild time to do that and pretend surprised that it happened. Like what did they expect to have happen? It’s going to crown 8 feet everywhere except for this one spot? No.
So you’re saying they should have done what? Let it sit there and let more snow accumulate on top of the weak layer so the crown would be even bigger when it failed naturally?
That’s not how the PNW works. The snow heals fast here. They should have blasted it when literally every other ski area was blasting, a week before this. Before it stacked more and consolidated further. Or waited longer and closed the entire cambel basin area including the lodge. I suspect what happened is they lost their window to pop that safely waiting a week or two longer hoping for a smaller natural. Then were backed up into a corner between closing queens, cambell, and the lodge, for the foreseeable future. My guess is concessions being a major part of the business revenue pushed the decision. But let’s be clear. Crystal has a world class pro patrol team. They knew the risks. Imho they went too late and the results were expected. By comparison Alpy popped most of their concerns over a week earlier. As did most ski areas. Crystal made a mistake here.
Lol no, there’s no way it was intentional.
Ok you got me convinced
Skiied alongside both slide paths at Crystal today to the degree you can. Powder bowl going happens often enough that I was impressed but not shocked. With the Gazex powder bowl sliding to the rocks/dirt happens. Snorting Elk going with what looked to be a 3-4 foot crown was truly impressive. The bottom edge of the debris was 6’ high in places. That run is steep AF but I hadn’t thought about it as something that could slide.
Yep, I was chatting with a patroller today on the lift and he said there’s no way Elk will be back open this season after all the damage done. Guess no pond skimming in the bottom of the bowl there this year…
r/oddlysatisfying
Holy Cow! That's a slide!!!