Do I need to buy an Avi-Lung?

johnnash

johnnash

New member
Those of us in the DC area who were enjoying some epic skiing at Liberty Mtn (all 600 vertical feet of it) last Monday got to see a curious sight -- an apparent avalanche in the making. We got close to 20 inches of snow Saturday, and this on top of the base of artificial they had laid down caused a chasm to open up on one of their ''double blacks'', Upper Strata. The main crack was around 2.5 feet wide and reached all the way to the ground about 6-7 feet down. They had to close that slope and 2 below it for fear of an avalanche. I was curious how they would deal with this, and I asked their on-line chat yesterday what happened, but they couldn't tell me. But today, all of these runs are open, so I guess they resolved it somehow. Next time I go up there, I'll have to ask the patrollers.
 

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Edumacate yourself! Everyone knows that the first thing you should do at Liberty, even in-bounds, is dig a snow pit.
 
Right! I saw that Snowbasin is offerring a free Avi Awareness class. We're heading for SLC, so maybe I'd better sign up :lol:
 
Hmmm. Avalanche of (mostly?) man-made at a mid-Atlantic resort. Sounded familiar so I ran a quick search of this forum and found this, from last year:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7225&p=38471&hilit=avalanche#p38471

Googling the terms "Wisp" and "avalanche" produced this result:

http://www.onthesnow.com/news/a/4920/av ... o-injuries

Evidently, the slide at Wisp happened before opening day and almost took a couple kids who were hiking for turns for a ride.

Neither me nor my friend thought anything of the crack that appeared near the middle of the trail at first. But when my friend finally reached the crack, he decided to take out his camera and take a picture of it. I was about 20-30 feet behind him, and stopped moving when I felt a very faint rumble below my feet. I couldn't figure out what it was at first. About 30 seconds later, though, I looked up and saw the trail coming towards me. I immediately recognized that this was an avalanche and dived into the trees to avoid being swept away. The debris missed me by about a foot. My friend was lucky in that he was standing above the crack."
Click to expand...
 
You need to dig that pit and do a study. That 15 degree aspect is definately a major slab release zone. I think that Ski Liberty needs to invest in a Howitzer. :-k
 
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