Glenn

You don't ever huck 20 footers (not that anyone dies from cliffs that small), you gave me shit for NOT riding in low vis weather earlier this year and we thought at the time we were picking a relatively safe route down the hill. All our previous runs of the day indicated this would have been the safest place to be, and the too deep conditions we experienced on that run alone were not an issue on previous runs. Mountain conditions change fast and it's easy to arm chair quarterback and say I was reckless. However, our group was talking about conditions, stability and safe routes all day. It didn't stop with talk; we followed though. The route we choose was less steep, it had better visibility. Also we saw some signs of instability during the day, but only on small pillows. Ski patrol and the avalanche center did not find anything that was actually releasing and the only real long term instabilities in the range have been very localized. No widespread issues. The slope I was on was likely the only thing to go that day. After a day of reflection I've come up with a couple of take-aways: 1. More practice for my partner. I really don't know how good he is with the rescue gear. He's practiced a little, but I wasn't there and I don't know what "a little" means. 2. Radios. I keep trying to remember to bring mine out, but keep forgetting. They are cheap, easy to use, and make communication instant and easy without needing a cell signal. 3. Visibility should be a consideration in snow assessment not just line choice. If you can't see half the hill you don't know if it's all coming down. We didn't assess things incorrectly, we were actually right on the money where based on ski patrols observations and the avalanche centers rating for the day. Still, conditions could have been far worse and we may not have known the difference. 4. Making statements like "I can't believe ski patrol can keep up with all this new snow" should be a red flag rather than a moment with high fives on the lift that the ridge or other gated terrain is open for yet another lap.

I just wanted to add though, that wet slabs are so easy to mitigate. Get out early enough, get the good corn, when things turn mushy leave. If you are doing a big mission definitely make sure you start early enough or abort before it you get into a position where you are making bad decisions. James peak was smart we ducked out when we did. Not just because of our pit results, but because of timing. Granted we didn't know that until we were at the bottom. I forgot we were dealing with west facing pitches that would cook much faster. If you are on a small pitches, leave 1 lap before you need to and you will be fine. In any case, wet slabs move really slow, and if they don't rip to the ground, you will walk away from them more often than not.

Bridger has a beeper, with ski patrol right there, or on slachsmans a liftie. Most days the ski patrol don't even pay attention, but I imagine yesterday they were pretty on it.

Everyone hiking the ridge must have a beacon and it must be turned on. We had a group of 3 all with probe shovel (partners and packs not required). My partner saw the whole thing happen while standing on the spine. I'm pretty confident with how everything was moving even if I got buried he could have immediately started probing and/or just pulled me out with his hands. Who knows, it didn't come down to that. JL thanks for the look, but I need about $1500 worth of new gear before I can even start thinking about an avalung. Concerning education, it's a little scary that at least one shop in town and the hill itself rents out beacons. The hill has a sign to scare people away that says it is to find your dead body. I think they go for $15, but as of now most people don't even know that is an option.

This wasn't a wet slab. The snow was dense but I would still probably classify it as a dry loose slab since it was pretty much all powder snow. It didn't snow or blow hard last night, so patrol has a good chance getting everything open today with a lot of bombing a some choice ski cuts. We had noticed some reactive snow earlier in the day but we also saw control work being done all day, so more or less we thought we were good. The zone where the slide occurred we had ridden earlier in the day and it was the best/deepest run, so after some in between laps of not as deep we went back to find much much more snow than we anticipated. No avalung. I think I've experienced 2 or 3 days ever where I wanted one. Yesterday was one of those days. Someday I will have an extra hundo sitting around for one. I had a partner he kicked off the slide onto me. Visibility about 20 yards, sometimes worse depending on how iced up your goggles were. Hucking was great all day, and had it just been a huck I wouldn't have had a story to tell. I got stuck in a slide zone from snow that was too heavy, and my partner didn't know I wasn't clear of a potentially bad spot and skiied on top of me.

Inch an hour at bridger today. Patrol was doing their best to keep things open. Ridge closed shortly after I started hiking up. Went way out where the snow was easily 2+ feet deep with wind loading. Dropped a 20ish foot cliff landed, tried to turn but it was super heavy. Finally got my board turned but lost all my speed and got cemented with my board at least 10 inches under the snow. A riding partner behind thinks I've cleared the zone and rides up a spine behind me. Both sides of the spine drop 8 inch slabs which hit the main pitch which I'm on. The whole slope moves. Probably 50+ feet wide at least 4 probably more like 6 feet deep moving snow. I think I've started a massive sluff from the impact of the cliff and it's just now catching up with me. I'm facing downhill with snow moving all around me, left right uphill, downhill and underneath my board. It's coming up over my shoulders and I swim butterfly style on my back looking down the hill to stay near the surface. Things come to a rest and I'm super spooked. I come to realize how heavy this snow really is, how useless my turning is, and how easy it would be to get buried. I beater my way down some easy meadows thankfully make it down to the bar where I collect myself.

Balance boards, slack lining, yoga, climbing, exercise balls ... the list goes on. Personally I don't find any amount of cross-training to be as effective as time on the snow.

If you want more balance you want the biggest widest base at the bottom supporting you. That base is your whole foot, the ball is a small and rounded part of the foot that will not balance you. There are lots of tools out there to improve your balance through training that you may want to look into. If your highback is getting pushed forward because of the design issue you stated, then you may want to grind down where the parts meet if possible, or rotate the high back to neutral and just deal with the loss of flexibility. Unless you are carving hard and/or riding pipe then highbacks really should be dialed way back.

In a round about way that's part of what I was saying. I wasn't saying you were talking shit at all Jordan.

Some really unwarranted shit talking and brown nosing in here.

Booyah!

Uh, I've got to agree. This destroyed everything else.

Thats why you should come to Bridger. Not because you want to hop turn, but because it has terrain that most hills do not. I've never poached it. A friend works lifts there and said he would bring me up on an employee day and I could more or less "blend in". It looked cool from Big Sky but from the areas we could see it was more tracked out than the back areas of Big sky. It has some cool terrain. You can literally just ski over, there is no one keeping you out, but then you are stuck in a gated community or stuck trying to get up one of their lifts. All 4 hills in the area let you come and go between, but if you are stuck without a ticket they can and do call the cops. The ticket checkers have really nice incentives for catching people.

Jump turns can be linked, and it's how most people ski anything reasonably steep and tight. Although it may not be as dramatic as the full stop jump turns of the yesteryear and the ultra steep coulies in Euroland. In open terrain with halfway decent snow jump turns are kind of silly. So did Berthoud when it was open. WP has a resort bus that serves multiple purposes but it aids in side country skiing, as does Big Sky/Moonlight. I know there have to be others out there too.

Good looking lines and a great looking apron here.

Yeah I've always heard it's empty and there is snow.

I've never been there but I've been told Powder Mt includes lots of flat unskiable terrain in their total acreage.

I was going to make a wise ass comment about this but then I realized even a dirtbag can pull $25 after spending twice that on gas. Asshole will be out for that price though. Also since asshole and hunter are in the same thread get ready to get told off again by the lurking DMC that hunter isn't like that, and he relies on the money of tourists bla bla bla.

I think time has proven this is not true at all. The only thing that makes him go away is bannings and harassing his family.

Loving the name changes.

+1 in here.

Except the rest of your get up is not obnoxious so it doesn't fit.

The non-pr photos from both threads make Aspen look so much better than Jackson. Nice work in here Jeffy. Also your goggle color choice is terrible.

WP can't handle much more than 20" gracefully, but I had the best runs of my life there with more snow than that. I assumed bridger would get shitty with the run outs near the bottoms of the upper mountain lifts. Even squaw as steep and gnar as it is has runouts immediately after the steeps. I just feel like thats too much snow for those hills. At the same time, I would never turn down the opportunity to get on it. 100" is a lifetime memory.

This tr is a win.