Harvey's Gore Thread

I read the Press-Republican story on the Angel slide. What I'm wondering after seeing that photo is, if they heard settling sounds beneath the new snow, why in the hell didn't they retreat via the woods rather than via the slide path itself? I also note that the article, if accurate, indicates that they dug a pit at the base of the slide, which would give no indication of what the sheer qualities are like within the slide itself.
 
Skimore... I know only a little about the incident on Angel Slides. The Angel Slide situation was brought into my Harvey Road post because the NCPR audio file on the lost Gore skiers also included 60 seconds on the Wright Peak story.

I am interested however.

One thing I learned from the Gore incident ....is that is wrong to form an opinion with anything but full information.

I've now spoken directly to 2 people who were actually there, and still feel I don't know the full story.

I can say this. I know very little about avalanche conditions. But the first whumping, after 4-5 feet of snow, would have scared me personally enough to try to leave as soon as possible. Maybe that's because - I know very little about avalanche conditions.
 
My buddy was on Gothics today......said no stability issues

Angel slide pic from 2 yrs ago

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Cool pic Skimore. I don't know the High Peaks ... how or from where was that pic taken?

Shot off an email today to Mike Pratt, GM of Gore. He gave his two cents on Sunday's SAR:

http://harvey44.blogspot.com/1970/03/mi ... earch.html

It seems like the status quo may survive.

As the sarg on hill street blues used to say ... let's be careful out there.
 
jamesdeluxe":1t10y6o5 said:
He didn't answer the "what went wrong and what went right?" question.
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Yeah, that was a complete duck! :lol: He didn't even remotely make it look like he was even trying to answer the question. C'mon, Harv...keep probing!

Just kidding, good job with that one.
 
Given that Mike is essentially an employee of the State of New York, an entity not generally known for transparency, I think it reflects well upon Gore as well as Mike personally that he commented at all. I suspect that most people in the Gore community who have been following this issue appreciate his response.

Try asking the Slutzkies some “probing” questions about what went right and what went wrong at Hunter this past weekend and see what you get.

And, not to put words into Harv’s mouth, but…
I believe the exchange with Mike took place in the form of several questions that were emailed to Mike. He responded, and Harv edited and published. It wasn’t exactly the kind of back-and-forth exchange that lends itself to the “probing” that is possible in a face-to-face or telephone interview. And besides, nobody wants to box Mike into a corner where he’s forced to say “yeah, we’re gonna really crack down on people skiing off the designated trails...”
 
I blasted off an email to Emily asking if Mike had anything to say on the incident. Not exactly nytimes reporter level technique. But I mean I was at work and it was an insane day.

Emily's response was... what do you want to know? I whipped up a few questions with Jeff's help and sent them off. Mike wasn't exactly specifically answering them although I do think he did a good job considering the position he's in ... he answers to a lot of people. He has a lot to protect, and some of what he is protecting is very important to me, if you understand what I mean.

I spoke to one of the guys on Gore Patrol who was involved and he thought it was a reasonable response all things considerd.

We had a comment on HR tonight from one of the lost skiers. Nothing like hearing everyone's point of view to shed some new light on things. From what was posted, we're pretty sure we know where they went in and what happened. It seems like an honest mistake. If you THINK you are "on the map" and you are following tracks ... truthfully I'm not sure what to think. It's currently the last comment in the thread - #19:

http://harvey44.blogspot.com/2010/03/nc ... kiers.html
 
I expected that I'd spend the day in the trees up top, but i didn't. I kept ducking in to see how it was softening up, but I guess I got impatient. Everytime I checked the groomers were still better.

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Lower Steilhang, Lies, Rumor, Open Pit, Hawkeye and Chatiemac were spring awesome. It was pretty exciting hitting Rumor from the top. Cover was sketchy but the snow that was there was great.

The Dark Side was actually borderline packed pow. You know - what ski resorts call packed pow these days. Like James said in his Belleayre TR, it was sort of an odd combo of winter and spring.

Trees on the Dark Side were primo. I felt like I was in a ski movie in all that corn.

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So much to do and so little time!

More pics and a TR here:

http://harvey44.blogspot.com/2010/03/go ... -3610.html
 
Today was a lot like yesterday but way better. (?) Things softened much earlier as overnight temps were significantly higher. It meant that more of the day was great. We went bell-to-bell ... 8:10 to 4pm.

One of the cool things about Powderqueen ... she's like a magnet for an army of great, fun skiers.

I started the morning solo, but ran into one of her buds Chuck, in line at the Gondi. We went right up top:

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I have never skied first tracks corduroy at Gore like it was this morning. It was really exciting. When you can rip those big GS turns on Lies without a care in the world, it's really fun.

And I got to meet the mystery man from the Utah trip ... Rochester Mark. The guy is fun. We're in the Cirque which throws all kinds of terrain surprises at you. It's hard if you know it. First time in and he was killing it.

Cirque was epic. The two runs we did in Cirque.... there's just nothing like it, at Gore at least.

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Not great pics today. But my Harvey Road TR is here:

http://harvey44.blogspot.com/2010/03/go ... -3710.html
 
Last night was the warmest of the weekend. Barely getting below freezing at the cabin.

Today the mountain was mostly deserted.

Some haze and high clouds slowed the corn harvest down a bit.

And because I was only skiing a half day, once again we were mostly on the groomers.

Everything that was great all weekend was great again. I thought it was really great that the High Peaks chair was running.

Was great to finally meet Xman and Margo. Xman insisted that he man the camera, as he noted, Harvey Road is devoid of pictures of me.

It was cool to hand it over and ski.

HarvAndMargoUncas.jpg


A few pics and a short report here:

http://harvey44.blogspot.com/2010/03/go ... -3810.html
 
True dat. Both are long, fairly low elevation. Although Twister isn't as long as it used to be.

The thing about CIrque vs Twister... Cirque has little catwalks, some short uphill sections, some 1-line chutes. And it is really long. It could be a mile long. How long did it take us?

PDQ ... here's where we need your influence... I KNOW Chuckie and the boys could care less about the low elevation stuff ... but now that Cirque goes all the way to the lift ... how convenient would it be to have a catwalk from Echo into the Cirque? ... to get us over to BRQ with no shuffle?
 
EDeO":2ecmqorp said:
The snow was great. All the previous snow was compressed and had this layer of cream cheese on top. If you could keep your speed up it carved with great predictability.
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This is a fairly common surface in SoCal. It skis very nicely with a good pitch, not so well when it's flat. Ideal for Mt. Baldy, much less so at Big Bear.
 
Chuckle. I took this hut trip about ten years ago. The guide took the only pics.

The best one of me he sent was entitled "Pow Jordan" for the same reason.

So... as I am sensing the end of blogging season, I'm anticipating the upcoming withdrawal.

I'm trying to keep it alive by living out my fantasies through some KIDS young enough to be my own:

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Today's Gore TR, courtesy Chris and Jess:

http://harvey44.blogspot.com/2010/03/go ... 31510.html
 
jamesdeluxe":2588jg9f said:
Harvey44":2588jg9f said:
I am sensing the end of blogging season, I'm anticipating the upcoming withdrawal.
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Isn't it a little early for this kind of talk, Mr. Negativity?
=;
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Not with ski areas already starting to close for the season this week. :-(

Or with scenes from the past week before the current warmup that look like this:

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