Inbounds Avi at Alpine Meadows - 1 Dead (2020)

Liz saw some FB posts about this. Search was finished about noon with no further victims. There is no word on cause of avalanche or even whether the Promised Land region where it started was closed. It mentions Subway, a beginner area where the slide might have ended.

From what I read the current storm of up to 2 feet slid on a facet from Jan. 4, which sounds like a freeze after the rain at New Year's.
 
I heard conditions were super sketch recently in Tahoe with very deceptive looking spots that were actually solid Ice (visually looked like simple wind buff).

Also read somewhere that the Avi crown broke above the two skiers after they had made a few turns on opened in-bounds terrain.
 
When I skied at Alpine on 1/9/2020, the front-side runs on W-facing Scott chair were not open, most likely due to fear of people getting hurt on firm, steep runs without great base. The only times I've skied close to area that slid was in Spring PM corn cutting over from chair that is to S, in deep snow years. Getting in from the top (from E) requires good route-finding and usually some down-climbing. I've wrapped around from N in powder, but never very high on face where avalanche occurred.

A patroller died at Heavenly on Saturday. Cause has not been determined and it was not reported AFAIK until today. See https://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/ ... ahoe-area/ I've skied solo into both Mott and Killibrew many times, including a lot of routes where not holding an edge could mean a painful slide/tumble if not worse.

Saw the following in comments after Monday’s OpenSnow Tahoe post: “I was riding up the Mott chair and some guy was yelling for people to help because someone was completely buried in Mott Creek, just lookers left of the chair. I grabbed a lifty and shovel when I got off but by the time we got down there he had been pulled out too late. Patrol showed up and did CPR for a long time.”
 
tseeb":84g2f9wx said:
A patroller died at Heavenly on Saturday. Cause has not been determined and it was not reported AFAIK until today.
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Wow, super sad to hear of that. 'Buried' seems to equal either a small Avi or large sluff of snow.

Seems very corporate of Vail Inc to keep that under wraps and let Alpine's Avi dominate the news cycle. I find Vail Inc to never be very forthcoming on virtually any topic, ever. One of the top reasons they have been nicknamed the Death Star group of the ski industry and are pretty widely disliked by many.
 
EMSC":2e5g98qp said:
I find Vail Inc to never be very forthcoming on virtually any topic, ever. One of the top reasons they have been nicknamed the Death Star group of the ski industry and are pretty widely disliked by many.
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That was certainly the case for the EpicSki Forum shutdown. I have some contacts from whom I collect snow data and none of them did anything other than send me copies of the same corporate announcement.
 
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