This post by WildSnow.com blogger Lou Dawson
Avalanche accident sites. Visiting is like looking at a historic battlefield. You don’t see much evidence of the tragedy, but you know the history. Emotions well up. You get slammed with a fist of reality the size of a mountainside.
Yesterday in Sheep Creek we got slammed. We could still see the rescue holes, so it wasn’t all imagination. With respect to the deceased’s loved ones I won’t go into detail on that. Suffice it to say that once you’ve seen snowy crypt where a body was recovered (or hopefully a person rescued alive), your avalanche safety approach will be forever altered. This was my fourth view of the holes, including my own. I’m not sure I want more. In fact, I’m sure I don’t. Perhaps this is my last site visit.
…..READ REPORT……
April 29, 2013 | Categories: JEROME'S WEATHER & SNOW REPORT, VICIOUS RUMORS, LIES & EDITORIALS | Leave A Comment »
Avalanche Details
- Location: Sheep Creek, north of Loveland Pass
- State: Colorado
- Date: 2013/04/20
- Time: 10:15 AM (Estimated)
- Summary Description: 6 backcountry tourers caught, 1 partially buried, 5 buried and killed
- Primary Activity: Backcountry Tourer
- Primary Travel Mode: Snowboard
- Location Setting: Backcountry
|
|
Number
- Caught: 6
- Partially Buried, Non-Critical: 1
- Partially Buried, Critical: 0
- Fully Buried: 5
- Injured: 0
- Killed: 5
|
Avalanche
- Type: HS
- Trigger: AR – Snowboarder
- Trigger (subcode): u – An unintentional release
- Size – Relative to Path: R3
- Size – Destructive Force: D3
- Sliding Surface: O – Within Old Snow
|
Site
- Slope Aspect: N
- Site Elevation: 11800 ft
- Slope Angle: 41 °
- Slope Characteristic: Planar Slope,Gully/Couloir
|
Avalanche Comments
The avalanche was a hard slab, triggered by one or more party members at the bottom of the slope. The avalanche was medium size relative to the avalanche path, large enough to bury or destroy a car (but probably not large enough to destroy wood framed house), and broke into old snow layers and to the ground (HS-AR-R3/D3-O/G). The crown face ranged from less than 1 foot (25cm) to over 12 feet (380cm) deep, with an average crown height of 5 feet (155cm). The slide was 800 feet (244m) wide, and ran 600 vertical feet (180m), and broke small tree branches up to 2 inches (5cm) in diameter.
………READ THE REPORT…………
.
April 29, 2013 | Categories: JEROME'S WEATHER & SNOW REPORT | Leave A Comment »
Two weeks ago I listened in on an “open media call” regarding Colorado’s continuing drought.
It was hosted by Western Resource Advocates, an environmental law and policy nonprofit founded in 1989, with headquarters in Boulder and offices across the Southwest. As it happened, the call coincided with announcements by two Front Range cities, Louisville and Lafayette, that they were initiating water restrictions in their communities.
Bart Miller, WRA’s water program director made an intriguing comparison between the years 2002-2003 and our present drought situation.
“Two-thousand-two was probably the driest year in [Colorado] history,” he said. “But in 2003, the state was saved by the largest snowstorm in Colorado history.”
VIEW TO THE WEST Drought Happens
April 27, 2013 | Categories: ENVIRONMENT/SCIENCE, JEROME'S WEATHER & SNOW REPORT, TALL TALES & STORIES OF THE SAN JUANS | Leave A Comment »
GUNNISON RIVER BASIN Basin wide percent 75
UPPER COLORADO RIVER BASIN Basin wide percent 96
SOUTH PLATTE RIVER BASIN Basin wide percent 88
LARMIE AND NORTH PLATTE RIVER BASINS Basin wide percent 94
YAMPA AND WHITE RIVER Basin wide percent 92
ARKANSAS RIVER BASIN Basin wide percent 73
UPPER RIO GRANDE BASIN Basin wide percent 52
SAN MIGUEL, DOLORES, ANIMAS AND SAN JUAN RIVER BASINS 49
April 26, 2013 | Categories: ENVIRONMENT/SCIENCE, JEROME'S WEATHER & SNOW REPORT | 1 Comment »
Environmental activist Tim DeChristopher is pictured here outside of Moab. The documentary “Bidder 70″ debuts Monday in Salt Lake City.
Summary
Environmental activist Tim DeChristopher will be freed from a federal halfway house on Sunday, just in time for him to participate in a Q&A Monday night after the debut showing of “Bidder 70.” The film is the story of his climate change activism.
SALT LAKE CITY — Tim DeChristopher, Utah’s homegrown environmental activist, is scheduled on Sunday to walk out the doors of a Salt Lake City halfway house and into freedom.
His departure marks a successful conclusion to the nearly two-year sentence he served for monkey-wrenching a Bureau of Land Management oil and gas auction in December of 2008.
His later conviction on two felonies in the summer of 2011 — at least for a time — capped a defiant and publicly evocative run of climate change activism that made him the darling of civil disobedience and stoked a faithful following.
Now, after nearly the five years when he held up the placard No. 70 out of protest and decided to bid on 14 land parcels of oil and gas leases for $1.8 million, DeChristopher’s story is being told.
The documentary “Bidder 70″ debuts in Salt Lake City Monday night, and afterward, DeChristopher will respond to an hour-long question and answer session live-streamed in 50 locations across the country.
Hosted by the group DeChristopher co-founded, Peaceful Uprising, and the Salt Lake Film Society, the screening is being held at the Tower Theater, 876 E. 900 South, with doors set to open at 6:30 p.m. A concert will be given by Bryan Cahill, whose music is featured in the film, with the screening to begin at 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online for $15.
The documentary duo, George and Beth Gage of Gage & Gage Productions, have been immersed in DeChristopher’s story since he first acted at the BLM auction on a snowy day in downtown Salt Lake City.
Both said they were captivated by his convictions and his unorthodox approach to protest.
“What Tim did was ingenious and it was sort of startling,” Beth Gage said. “He was able to stop an oil and gas auction that environmental groups had been protesting but it was still going to go on anyway.” He will be free on Sunday, but remain on three years probation, part of his muddy legacy.
Beth Gage, the writing half of the duo, and George Gage, the photography director, both conceded they believed their foray into DeChristopher’s story would be a lot simpler, and a lot shorter.
“What began as following him around for a time turned into following him around for 4½ years,” Beth Gage said. “We never dreamed that not only would we be there when he went to prison but there when he got out of prison.”
The Gages said when they heard DeChristopher speak about his passion for climate change justice, they were hooked by the artistry of his words and his emotions.
“He is creative, thoughtful and articulate,” she said. “He has this ability to inspire a crowd.”
Rachel Carter, a community organizer with Peaceful Uprising, said she does not know how active DeChristopher plans to be in the environmental movement upon his release — he still will be on supervisory release.
“He’s not going to be organizing activities, but he is still a supporter.”
At summer’s end, DeChristopher plans to be enrolled at Harvard Divinity School, where Carter said he has been accepted on full scholarship to pursue being a Unitarian minister.
Supporters, though, have noted the welcome coincidence of DeChristopher being able to speak publicly for the first time on Earth Day, an event and concept first pioneered in the protest days of 1969 and then adopted as global celebration in 2009 to urge environmental protections.
George Gage said he hopes that sort of timing helps to put people at the screening because while he could have debuted the award-winning film in New York City or Los Angeles, it seemed only fitting for it to show in Salt Lake City first.
“This is where Tim is from,” he said. “This is where it started.”
April 23, 2013 | Categories: ENVIRONMENT/SCIENCE | Leave A Comment »
By Dougald MacDonald-Climbing
Layton Kor and his son Arlan in Eldorado Canyon, Colorado, in 2012. Photo by Cameron Burns
4/22/13 – Layton Kor, one of the most prolific and accomplished American climbers of the 1960s, has died at age 74. Kor had suffered from kidney failure and prostate cancer. A resident of Kingman, Arizona, he died during the night of April 21.
Kor’s name was virtually synonymous with Colorado climbing during the late 1950s and ’60s. Starting as a teenager in Eldorado Canyon, he put up many of the sandstone canyon’s most famous and enduring classics, both free and aid, including Ruper(5.8+), Rosy Cruxifiction (5.10), The Naked Edge (5.11), and many, many more. He also did dozens of first ascents in Boulder Canyon, the Flatirons, Lumpy Ridge, Glenwood Canyon, and many other crags in Colorado. Original Kor pitons are still discovered today on obscure crags throughout the state.
Kor on the cover of Climbing No. 2 (1970), leading the Salathé Wall in Yosemite.
Branching into the mountains and beyond, Kor did many new routes in Rocky Mountain National Park, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, the desert Southwest (Castleton Tower, the Titan, Standing Rock), and Yosemite Valley (south face of Washington Column, West Buttress of El Capitan). He took his skills to foreign mountains on walls like the southeast face of Proboscis in Canada’s Northwest Territories and the Harlin Directissima on the north face of the Eiger in Switzerland.
Kor was still climbing into his early 70s, including the first ascent of a 150-foot tower in Arizona with friends Stewart Green, Dennis Jump, and Ed Webster. Cameron Burns, who is writing a biography on Kor, said, “If Layton got a nickel for every person who ever climbed one of his routes, he’d have been a wealthy man.”
A new edition of Kor’s classic book Beyond the Vertical, edited by Stewart Green with newly scanned photos, will be out in June.
Click here to read a Brendan Leonard guide to seven great Kor routes, both famous and lesser-known, from Climbing 291.
Date of death: April 21, 2013
April 23, 2013 | Categories: EVENTS, TALL TALES & STORIES OF THE SAN JUANS | Leave A Comment »
“what matters most is how well you walk through the fire”
― Charles Bukowski
.
April 23, 2013 | Categories: REFER ART, QUOTES & NEWS OF THE WEIRD | 1 Comment »
The crowd at Richie Havens’ Woodstock-opening set on Aug. 15, 1969.
Richie Havens, a Brooklyn-born singer who sang gospel as a teenager, began playing folk music in Greenwich Village clubs in the 1960s and was the opening act at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair in 1969, died Monday of a heart attack at his home in Jersey City, N.J., according to his agent. He was 72 years old.
Havens had a long career as a musician, but if he had done nothing else, his performance at Woodstock would secure his place in American music history. Havens was the first performer to walk onto the stage at the festival; he sat on a stool and performed for nearly two hours — including an improvisation that incorporated the spiritual “Motherless Child,” later called “Freedom.” It became a highlight of the documentary about the festival and introduced him to audiences around the world.
As a black performer, he was a rarity in the folk-dominated Greenwich Village scene. His sandpaper soft voice and percussive guitar playing caught the ear of folk impresario Albert Grossman, who first signed Bob Dylan and helped create Peter, Paul and Mary. Havens released his breakout album, Mixed Bag, in 1967.
Havens went on to act in films and on television, and he continued recording for more than 40 years. He had a Top 20 hit in 1971 with a cover of The Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun” and released his last album, Nobody Left to Crown, in 2008. But it was onstage — with his guitar — that Havens was in his element. He toured constantly and in 2008 told NPR that he never planned his shows beyond the opening and closing songs.
“Many times people have come up to me after and they’d, they’d say, ‘Richie, do you know what you did?’ I’d say, ‘What?’ They’d go, ‘I wrote these songs down for you to sing and you sang ‘em all in a row.’ That’s the kind of communication happens, you know,” Havens said. “It’s like if you let the audience lead, then you are the audience.”
Havens connected with audiences from stages large and small for more than 50 years.
………….LISTEN……………
Richie Havens, Folk Icon, Dead at 72
Brooklyn native opened Woodstock in 1969
April 22, 2013 5:15 PM ET
Richie Havens
Michael Putland/Getty Images
Richie Havens, who brought an earthy soulfulness to the folk scene of the Sixties and was the first act to hit the stage at Woodstock, died of a heart attack on Monday, April 22. He was 72 and was living in Jersey City, New Jersey. Last month, Havens announced he would no longer be touring due to health issues.
From the beginning, when he played Village folk clubs in the mid-Sixties, Havens stood out due to more than just his imposing height (he was six-and-a-half feet tall) and his ethnicity (African-American in a largely white folk scene). He played his acoustic guitar with an open tuning and in a fervent, rhythmic style, and he sang in a sonorous, gravel-road voice that connected folk, blues and gospel.
Like many of his peers, Havens was a songwriter (he co-wrote one of his best-known songs, “Handsome Johnny,” with actor Lou Gossett Jr.). But Havens also knew a great contemporary song when he heard it, and made his name covering and rearranging songs by Bob Dylan (“Just Like a Woman,” “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”) and the Beatles(“With a Little Help from My Friends,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Here Comes the Sun”). “Music is the major form of communication,” he told Rolling Stone in 1968. “It’s the commonest vibration, the people’s news broadcast, especially for kids.”
……….READ/WATCH VIDEO…….
April 23, 2013 | Categories: ART, FILM & POP CULTURE, ARTICLES/NEWS | 1 Comment »
Chris Peters ventured into the backcountry for the first time in his life Saturday.
He was following Joe Timlin, his best friend from high school, and four other veteran backcountry travelers. They were minutes into an afternoon run above Loveland Valley ski area when the slope above them gave way,burying the group in Colorado’s deadliest avalanche in 50 years. Five men were killed.
Peters had spoken with his friend, Colin McKernan, about avalanche safety earlier in the day at the Rocky Mountain High Backcountry Gathering.
McKernan, who worked with Peters at a Lakewood making engineering firm, reminded his novice friend about the death of a fellow snowboarder, Mark McCarron, 38, near Vail Pass two days before.
“It was supposed to be a mellow, low-key day with no risk,” McKernan said. “We talked about just enjoying it and making sure we get back to the parking lot and drink some beer together. It wasn’t supposed to end this way.”
April 23, 2013 | Categories: JEROME'S WEATHER & SNOW REPORT | Leave A Comment »
Friends of five avalanche victims walk through the expansive avalanche debris area after visiting the site where their friends lost their lives Saturday. The large hard-slab avalanche occurred in an area known as Sheep Creek near Loveland Pass on Mount Sniktau. One of the victims was buried 15 feet deep, a rescuer said.(Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)
The avalanche that killed five experienced backcountry riders on the western flank of Mount Sniktau near Loveland Pass on Saturday ranks as the deadliest involving skiers or snowboarders in the U.S. since records began to be kept in 1950.
It was the worst accident in Colorado since 1962, when an avalanche destroyed two houses near Twin Lakes, killing seven people inside the homes, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.
A February 1987 avalanche just outside Breckenridge Ski Resort killed four skiers, and until Saturday, that Peak 7 avalanche was ranked as the single deadliest avalanche for skiers in Colorado history.
In the U.S., Saturday’s avalanche was the worst in more than 14 years, according to the American Avalanche Association.
On March 21, 1999, an avalanche killed six snowmobilers on Alaska’s Turnagain Pass. On the last day of 1993, an avalanche killed five snowmobilers in the Swan Range near Bigfork, Mont.
In late March 1982, an avalanche at the closed-for-the-season Alpine Meadows ski area in California swept into the base area, destroying buildings and burying 12 ski-area workers. Seven of the 12 died.
In 1981, 11 climbers were killed in an avalanche on Mount Rainier’s Ingraham Glacier, marking the deadliest accident in U.S. modern avalanche history.
April 22, 2013 | Categories: JEROME'S WEATHER & SNOW REPORT | Leave A Comment »
2013/04/20 – Colorado – Sheep Creek, near Loveland Pass
Published 2013/04/21 by Ethan Greene – Forecaster, CAIC
Avalanche Details
- Location: Sheep Creek, near Loveland Pass
- State: Colorado
- Date: 2013/04/20
- Time: Unknown
- Summary Description: 6 snowboarders caught and buried, 5 killed
- Primary Activity: Backcountry Tourer
- Primary Travel Mode: Snowboard
|
|
Number
- Caught: 0
- Fully Buried: 6
- Injured: 0
- Killed: 5
|
Avalanche
- Type: HS
- Trigger: AR – Snowboarder
- Trigger (subcode): u – An unintentional release
- Size – Relative to Path: R3
- Size – Destructive Force: D2.5
- Sliding Surface: O – Within Old Snow
|
Site
- Slope Aspect: N
- Site Elevation: 12000 ft
- Slope Angle: –
- Slope Characteristic: –
|
Accident Summary
PRELIMINARY REPORT
A backcountry touring party of six, on splitboards and skis, were caught in an avalanche in the Sheep Creek area near Loveland Pass. Five of the riders were killed. The group may have triggered the avalanche from below the start zone, low in the avalanche path. The avalanche released into old snow layers and the ground. Approximate dimensions of the crown face of the avalanche are 4 feet deep and 500 feet wide.
.
April 22, 2013 | Categories: JEROME'S WEATHER & SNOW REPORT | Leave A Comment »
By Jason Belvins
The Denver Post
LOVELAND PASS — The five men killed Saturday in Colorado’s deadliest avalanche in 50 years were participants in a backcountry snowboarder event called the Rocky Mountain High Backcountry Bash.
Four of the five were expert snowboarders and one was an expert skier.
They were representatives and founders of snowsport companies, guides, avalanche experts and veteran backcountry travelers, gathering in the normally safer spring season to celebrate backcountry snowboarding, raise money for the Colorado Avalanche Information Center and test the newest gear.
The five killed in the avalanche were:
* Chris Peters, 32, from Lakewood.
* Joe Timlin, a 32-year-old sales representative with Jones Snowboards from Gypsum and an organizer of the backcountry gathering.
* Ryan Novack, 33, of Boulder.
* Ian Lamphere, a 36-year-old skier from Crested Butte with an infant and fiancé. Lamphere founded the company Gecko Skins, which makes innovative climbing skins.
* Rick Gaukel, a 33-year-old American Mountain Guides Association-certified climbing guide with extensive avalanche education from Estes Park.
The sole survivor of the avalanche, Jerome Boulay, a sales representative with Silverton’s Venture Snowboards, was dug free by rescuer Mike Bennett, a Dillon resident.
Bennett spent the day riding on the south-facing Dry Gulch area across from the pass. He said organizers were “super apprehensive about safety.”
“Everything was about safety,” Bennett said. “Our whole goal was about being safe. The goal for us was just getting together to talk about safety and try some new gear.”
Bennett was in the Loveland Valley parking lot, hanging with fellow backcountry snowboarders when Colorado Department of Transportation officials informed the group of a big avalanche in the Sheep Creek drainage just northeast of the Loveland Pass summit.
Bennett and a friend rushed up the pass and prepared their gear for a search.
The avalanche was only a couple hundreds yards from a turn-out on Highway 6.
Bennett said his buddy was already digging frantically, uncovering what would be a body when he arrived around 2 p.m. at the middle section of the massive avalanche that released several hundred feet up the slope.
Bennett said he suspected his friends were buried in the debris and began searching with his avalanche beacon and picked up a signal.
He came across a snowboarder, with only one arm and his head above the icy chunks.
“I didn’t hear him yelling. I came around a corner and saw him and heard him at the same time,” Bennett said.
Bennett started digging and partially freed the sole survivor, who was later identified as Boulay.
“I said ‘Well you’re breathing and I think you’re OK right now so I’m going to start digging for these other two guys,’” Bennett said.
Boulay said he had been buried for an hour. “Still I was hoping,” Bennett said. “Some of them had an Avalung. Another had a Float pack. We were hoping someone was still alive.”
After arduous digging through concrete-like snow, Bennett found his two friends tangled in timber about two feet below the surface.
“They were wrapped around each other, below a patch of trees,” Bennett said. “The two guys were right there next to (Boulay). He could almost touch them.”
Bennett stayed and assisted rescuers from the Alpine Rescue Team and Clear Creek Search and Rescue. The last body was pulled from the snow at 5:30 p.m. That man was buried 15 feet deep, Bennett said.
On Friday night as part of the bash, there had been a party and raffle with more than 50 bash attendees at the Dillon Dam Brewery.
The event was not affiliated with Loveland ski area, although the group was using the parking lot of the closed Loveland Valley area.
The Friday event raised $1,700 for the avalanche center.
Summit County avalanche forecaster Scott Toepfer spoke at the party.
Toepfer shared the recent avalanche forecast for the Summit County and Vail area, warning of “deep persistent slabs and fresh wind slabs” on the north, east and southeast aspects near and above treeline.
Toepfer said that a snowboarder had been killed the on Thursday on a north-northeast-facing slope near Vail Pass in an avalanche that triggered near treeline.
A few days earlier, as heavy snow fell and high winds loaded slopes, avalanches in the Straight Creek drainage on the west side of the Eisenhower Tunnel had ripped to the ground on the same weak layer of rotten snow near the ground.
“One thing that we always try to find our patterns,” Toepfer said as he geared up early Sunday to go investigate the massive slide. “Well we are seeing one lately: near treeline, between 11,800 (feet) and 12,200 (feet) on that north-northeast aspect.”
After arduous digging through concrete-like snow, Bennett found his two friends tangled in timber about two feet below the surface.
All five men killed in the avalanche were wearing their equipment and all were carrying essential avalanche rescue gear.
Four were wearing splitboards – snowboards that split into wide skis that are used with climbing skins to ascend slopes – and one, Lamphere, was wearing skis with his skins also attached.
Avalanche investigators Saturday and Sunday said the group appeared to be well prepared and aware of avalanche danger.
“I think they were trying to do a lot of things right. These weren’t guys who were reckless and didn’t care. They all had gear and I think they cared about making good decisions,” said Tim Brown, a Summit County avalanche forecaster with the Colorado Avalanche Information Center after investigating the avalanche site late Saturday.
“That is an important message right now. You can do a lot of things right but still be caught in a dangerous situation,” Brown said.
Investigators said the avalanche was about 8-feet to 10-feet deep and stretched 1,100 feet. Debris – some chunks were the size of a small car – clogged a narrow chasm below the basin.
Bennett said he often skins and rides the road-accessible gully at the bottom of one of the open bowl that funnels into the Sheep Creek drainage.
“Yeah I’ve ridden this gully but I’ve never gone up there in the bowl,” Bennett said.” Too high of consequences. But those guys were not going up there. They were crossing at the bottom. They were spaced out a bit. It seemed like they were trying to space out. I’m telling you the idea here was just about trying to get out, ride our snowboards and be safe. We had the very best intentions.”
April 21, 2013 | Categories: JEROME'S WEATHER & SNOW REPORT | 1 Comment »
A ten-foot thick slab of snow broke free and buried six backcountry snowboarders in an avalanche in Sheep Creek Bowl below Loveland Pass Saturday, April 20, 2013. One survived but the others five died at the scene. (Karl Gehring, The Denver Post)
LOVELAND PASS — Five backcountry snowboarders were killed Saturday in Colorado’s deadliest avalanche in more than 50 years.
Saturday’s avalanche struck about 1 p.m. on the north-northeast aspect of the Sheep Creek drainage of Loveland Pass along U.S. 6, the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office said.
The avalanche occurred near the Loveland Ski Area but outside its boundaries.
Sheriff Don Krueger said there was one confirmed survivor — a member of the group was able to drag himself out and call for help. Krueger said his office was notified about 2 p.m.
The survivor was up and walking around when he saw him, Krueger said.
No information was released Saturday about the five victims
The sheriff confirmed that the parties were equipped with proper safety equipment, including avalanche beacons.
Krueger said additional information about the victims likely would not be available until Sunday morning.
Saturday’s avalanche was the deadliest since 1962, when seven people were killed Jan. 21 as an avalanche buried residences at Twin Lakes near Independence Pass.
Saturday’s fatal slide measured about 200 meters (about 219 yards) wide and 350 meters (about 383 yards) long. The fracture line was about 8 feet deep, officials said.
Teams from Alpine Search & Rescue, Summit County Rescue Group, Clear Creek Fire Authority, as well as Clear Creek and Summit counties’ sheriff’s officials, all came to the scene.
The Colorado Avalanche Information Center forecast for Summit County and Vail Pass on Saturday morning warned of “deep persistent slabs a
nd fresh wind slabs” on the north, east and southeast aspects near and above tree line.
The recent deluge of heavy, wet snow and high winds in the high country has spiked avalanche danger in the Central Rockies at a time when snowpacks are typically stabilizing and getting safer for backcountry travel.
“I feel really bad for these guys. I think they were trying to do a lot of things right. These weren’t guys who were reckless and didn’t care. They all had gear, and I think they cared about making good decisions,” said Tim Brown, a Summit County avalanche forecaster with the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.
“That is an important message right now. You can do a lot of things right but still be caught in a dangerous situation.”
Dale Atkins, the president of the American Avalanche Association and a longtime member of the Alpine Rescue Team, was part of the early rescue team.
“As rescuers, what we’ve been dealing with lately is avalanches that are sort of like angry sleeping dogs. They are unreactive for a long period of time, but with recent heavy snows and the deep weakness, somebody in the wrong place at the wrong time can bring a whole mountainside down.”
Atkins said the bowl that released the avalanche Saturday was not an extreme slope.
“This would be a slope that looks like a lot of fun for good riders.” he said. “But the conditions this spring are unusual, and unusual conditions result in unusual avalanches. You really need to dial it back this spring.”
Late Saturday, the chunks that funneled from a 4-foot to 8-foot lip of snow clogged a deep ravine at the bottom of the wide bowl. Some of the icy chunks were the size of golf carts. The tracks of rescuers wended through the massive chunks toward deep holes.
The avalanche triggered while all six riders were nearing the bottom of the bowl and the beginning of the narrow ravine only a couple hundred yards above the top of the Loveland Valley chairlift.
“With all the snow and wind we’ve had over the last couple of weeks, winds are really building that slab up, and it’s really kind of reached the tipping point this last week,” said Colorado Avalanche Information Center executive director Ethan Greene. “Especially in that area. We are very much in a winter snowpack right now. The calendar may say it’s April, but the snowpack looks more like February and it needs to be treated as such.”
Colorado has seen 11 avalanche deaths in the 2012-13 season — almost half of the 24 U.S. fatalities, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.
Ten of those 11 killed in Colorado were skiing, snowboarding or snowshoeing outside ski area boundaries.
CAIC forecaster Spencer Logan said there have been weak layers in Colorado’s snowpack since early January, and forecasters have said they’re seeing the worst avalanche danger in 30 years.
Some 42 people in Colorado’s back country and ski areas have been caught in slides this season.
“Our last series of storms made them more active again,” Logan said. “Over the last week and a half, that area got over 18 inches of snow. If you melted that, it would be 2 inches of water, so that is a heavy load.”
A snowboarder, a man from Westminster, was killed in an avalanche Thursday in Avalanche Bowl south of Vail Pass. He was making runs with two friends after they were dropped off at the top by a friend with a snowmobile.
U.S. 6 at Loveland Pass, elevation 11,990 feet, was closed by the Colorado Department of Transportation at 3:16 p.m because of a slide, just as many skiers were headed home from nearby Arapahoe Basin ski resort.
U.S. avalanche deaths climbed steeply around 1990 to an average of about 24 a year as new gear became available for backcountry travel. Until then, avalanches rarely claimed more than a handful of lives each season in records going back to 1950.
April 21, 2013 | Categories: JEROME'S WEATHER & SNOW REPORT, PRESCOTTEERS | Leave A Comment »
Despite bursts of activity from 2003 through 2008, most uranium mines scattered across Colorado have largely been out of production for decades, a testament to fluctuating mineral prices. Now the future of these mines is at the crux of a dispute that could set a precedent for how they are handled.
Environmental groups in Colorado contend that many of the state’s 33 uranium mines should be forced to clean up, given that uranium mining, which flourished here during the cold war, has gone dormant. In legal filings, they have alleged that companies like Cotter are skirting potential costs associated with cleanup, which is required by the state after an operation shuts down.
The environmental groups say the companies should be prohibited from obtaining state-issued exemptions, under which the companies do not have to produce but are not obligated to restore the land, either. Letting the mines idle heightens the risk of contaminating treasured areas like the Dolores with radioactive substances like uranium and radon, the groups argue. At a hearing on Wednesday, Colorado’s mining board will review the environmental groups’ objections.
The dispute cuts especially deep in the West, where abandoned uranium mines pock the region and have cost the federal government millions to reclaim.
………READ MORE……….
April 19, 2013 | Categories: ENVIRONMENT/SCIENCE | 1 Comment »
“A flash from the past”- Mike Friedman and Michael Zimber on a climb of the the Mace in Sedona, AZ, circa 1978.
April 19, 2013 | Categories: PHOTOS, TALL TALES & STORIES OF THE SAN JUANS | Leave A Comment »
HN24/H20
Monument 7.5″/0.75″
RMP 8″/0.65″
Molas 1.5″/0.2″
Coal Bank 1″/0.1″
MG
April 18, 2013 | Categories: JEROME'S WEATHER & SNOW REPORT | Leave A Comment »
Jerry Roberts
