Nearly Killed Today

Weekend warrior skiing at Hunter is so "core"!

Bwahahaha!

Take a lap Sno.

I'm totally kidding btw but it is sort of funny to me.

I had a great day at Plattekill, Sno. No lines, no A-holes, great sun... Felt safe letting my kids explore. They even killed an hour playing hide and seek with their walkie talkies around the base lodge while I re-hydrated. You should check the place out.

Here is an account of my good childhood friend that was nearly killed this last week in the Sierra back country. We were next door neighbors growing up in New Jersey. We used to throw pebbles at each others bed room windows to go get each other to wake up and go run around the neighborhood at night. We would go "mountain biking" on our bmx bikes that had no brakes out in the woods around our houses. We would use our right shoes to lock up the rear wheel as a brake on steep eroded descents nearly skidding out of control on our way down. We used to use K-Mart rafts to float down the creeks running into and out of the small lake we lived on during huge flood periods. We fished for bass all summer long and skied at Craigmuer during the winter where we became instructors during our teens. We never wore helmets the whole time. I spoke with him today on the telephone, the doc says he should be 100% by September. His ankle and fibula were broke while he struggled for his life in this slide over a solid 100 footer of drawn out jagged rock.

Tell us more about your "core" lifestyle and brief experience with death at Huntah mountain.

http://esavalanche.org/content/skier-caughtinjured-avalanche-carson-peak-petes-dream

RA best to your friend and his recovery.

This brought back memories for me...

raisingarizona wrote

We used to throw pebbles at each others bed room windows to go get each other to wake up and go run around the neighborhood at night.

Thanks Harv. He will be fine, I just hope it's a wake up call for him that skiing isn't worth dying for.

He is one of the most accomplished steep skiers that I know. He has skied the north face of the Aiguille du Midi, skied off the top of Rainier, and the north face of Mount St. Adams. as well as several notable first descents in the eastern Sierras.

As accomplished as he is he isn't immune to dying on those descents. I'm fearful for his future.

He is one of the most respected skiers in the Mammoth area and I think the write up expresses this. The article sure wasn't quick to judge or make armchair calls on their decisions.

He did tell me that he should have known better. Deep down he knew it was a bad idea but went along with it anyways. He regrets this now for sure and will likely be laid up until sometime this summer.

Anyways, I'm just glad he is still here. He could have been killed easily. He fought as hard as he could to get skiers left and out of the slide before that cliff band. He barely pulled it off and if he didn't he wouldn't be alive any longer. We compared experiences today and both had similar incidents where we thought that it was all over but made it out alive.

Life is strange and so damn fragile.

I'm just feeling very happy that he is still here.

I got nothing else.

raisingarizona wrote

He is one of the most respected skiers in the Mammoth area and I think the write up expresses this. The article sure wasn't quick to judge or make armchair calls on their decisions.

Maybe I don't read enough avy post-mortems, but this one went well beyond "just the facts ma'am" and was really well-written -- it had a complete narrative arc and an editorial POV in the last paragraph (without throwing brickbats at them): their extensive BC experience didn't prevent them from making what turned out to be faulty decisions.

Exactly. I think the point is that no matter what experience we might have we are all possibly going to make bad decisions based on that silly human factor. He even told them that he had a really bad feeling the night before but felt pressured by his room mates. I laughed and said well they didn't hold a gun to your head making you go! You can't blame anyone for that. Sometimes shit just happens.

Regardless they dealt with it and self evacuated. He got himself out over a four hour period experiencing severe pain.

I'm not surprised knowing him though. The whole story makes sense really. He is one of the baddest mother-f-ers I have ever known.

skimore wrote

Your rehash of the situation seems like you could be at fault for being where you weren't visible. Did you not look up hill before you dumped over the ledge? Why would you dump in without enough time to clear what was approaching from above?

I never stopped moving and didn't make any sudden changes in course.  I don't have eyes in the back of my head.  Downhill skier has right of way, and you must never stop where you block a trail or are not visible from above.  I didn't stop where I blocked a trail (I never stopped) and therefore did not stop when not visible from above.  Not every spot on a trail can you be seen from above and it is the responsibility of the uphill skier to not straight-line through a blind ledge at 50mph where you won't be able to see anyone below until it's too late.

Don't flame me unless you saw it happen.  The guy who almost hit me straightlined Hellgate going at least 50mph and used the ledge at the top of 7th Avenue as a jump.  If you've skied there even a couple times you'd know what location I'm talking about, but you don't ski more, you ski less and you think you're "too good" to ski at a resort, so you won't know what I'm talking about.

Is that guy wearing the Red Sox hat still directing traffic at the six pack? I always thought that took a lot of cajones, considering how New Yawk Hunter is.

In defence of the hot dog skier, no where in the skier responsability code does it say you can't come close. Maybe Hunter should reduce it's uphill capacity to improve their skiing experience.

That is a good point too. Skiing is supposed to be exciting right?

And a 30 minute line out of the ropes adds to the experience?

I'm not trying to knock Hunter, I'm simply writing about my close call yesterday.  Other than that, it was an awesome day.

Hunter is specially designed to be profitable based on volume of skiers.  Huge lift capacity, lots of snowmaking and grooming, so they can process a lot of skiers.  The more they pack the place to capacity, the more $$$ they make.  It's like an amusement park on a mountain.  Most mountains close to large population centers are the same way.

snoloco wrote

I never stopped moving and didn't make any sudden changes in course.  I don't have eyes in the back of my head.  Downhill skier has right of way, and you must never stop where you block a trail or are not visible from above.  I didn't stop where I blocked a trail (I never stopped) and therefore did not stop when not visible from above.  Not every spot on a trail can you be seen from above and it is the responsibility of the uphill skier to not straight-line through a blind ledge at 50mph where you won't be able to see anyone below until it's too late.

Don't flame me unless you saw it happen.  The guy who almost hit me straightlined Hellgate going at least 50mph and used the ledge at the top of 7th Avenue as a jump.  If you've skied there even a couple times you'd know what location I'm talking about, but you don't ski more, you ski less and you think you're "too good" to ski at a resort, so you won't know what I'm talking about.

 Not stopping doesn't exempt you from having some clue of what's going on

Skier code....4.Whenever starting downhill or merging into a trail, look uphill and yield to others.

For not having eyes in the back of your head you seemed to know a lot about what went on behind you. Bottom line is you chose to participate in a shit show so have some self-awareness.

I had plenty of clue what's going on.  You have no clue what the situation was, so shut the hell up and stop flaming me.  Have you ever skied Hunter?  Most likely not because you think you're "too good" to ski at a resort, and have a little hissy fit if someone has a good time skiing when it isn't a powder day.

I saw the same guy straight-line all of Hellgate and then stop on the side of the trail, while he was stopped, I passed him.  I was already on the trail and skiing when this happened, not stopped, not merging in, I was skiing.  Some clueless, reckless, moron decided to use a ledge in the trail as a jump, having no clue what was on the other side.  It was his recklessness that almost caused the accident.  I was skiing normally and not breaking any rules.

snoloco wrote

I saw the same guy straight-line all of Hellgate and then stop on the side of the trail, while he was stopped, I passed him.  I was already on the trail and skiing when this happened, not stopped, not merging in, I was skiing.  Some clueless, reckless, moron decided to use a ledge in the trail as a jump, having no clue what was on the other side.  It was his recklessness that almost caused the accident.  I was skiing normally and not breaking any rules.

Hmmm. That didn't give you a clue that maybe you should be keeping an eye out behind you?

skimore wrote

snoloco wrote

I never stopped moving and didn't make any sudden changes in course.  I don't have eyes in the back of my head.  Downhill skier has right of way, and you must never stop where you block a trail or are not visible from above.  I didn't stop where I blocked a trail (I never stopped) and therefore did not stop when not visible from above.  Not every spot on a trail can you be seen from above and it is the responsibility of the uphill skier to not straight-line through a blind ledge at 50mph where you won't be able to see anyone below until it's too late.

Don't flame me unless you saw it happen.  The guy who almost hit me straightlined Hellgate going at least 50mph and used the ledge at the top of 7th Avenue as a jump.  If you've skied there even a couple times you'd know what location I'm talking about, but you don't ski more, you ski less and you think you're "too good" to ski at a resort, so you won't know what I'm talking about.

 Not stopping doesn't exempt you from having some clue of what's going on

Skier code....4.Whenever starting downhill or merging into a trail, look uphill and yield to others.

For not having eyes in the back of your head you seemed to know a lot about what went on behind you. Bottom line is you chose to participate in a shit show so have some self-awareness.

Do you know the spot that snowloco is talking about?

Nope

That's a very bad spot. I've seen collisions happen there several times.  I stick to the West side or the Minya/K27/EastSideDrive side of the front to avoid the hellgate/cliff demolition derby.  Minya and East Side are relatively dedicated trails without many intersections that you can satisfy your speed Jonz on..

x10003q wrote

Do you know the spot that snowloco is talking about?

  Not needed. Seems kind of dumb to jump out in the road without looking if you know there's a speeding car behind you

skimore wrote

x10003q wrote

Do you know the spot that snowloco is talking about?

  Not needed. Seems kind of dumb to jump out in the road without looking if you know there's a speeding car behind you

Except for the fact that I was already in the road.  If someone was already driving and got rear ended by someone doing 100mph around a blind turn, would you say the person who was hit was in the wrong?  If so, you're exactly what's wrong with our legal system.