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"Because it's there."
- Thread starter Peregrinator
- Start date
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Ballsy. No gas, no rope. That's one long walk up there in the death zone.
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Sweet. Guy at the shop said he'd been climbing a lot in Smuggler's Notch this year. No ice any closer to us than that, yet, that I know of. We did get a pair of these for Lady P, though, so it's not long now.
http://www.mountainproject.com/images/53/94/106855394_large_81f8c4.jpg
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It's cool to watch the folks on the ice.
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It's especially cool to watch people who are really, really good ice climbers. They make it look like ballet.
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That all-important first screw.
Disgustipated
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Current local news:
NOAA says:
...BACKCOUNTRY AVALANCHE WARNING...
THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE IS TRANSMITTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE CHUGACH
NATIONAL FOREST AVALANCHE INFORMATION CENTER.
THE AVALANCHE WARNING IS ISSUED FOR THE KENAI MOUNTAINS AND EASTERN TURNAGAIN ARM. DANGEROUS HUMAN TRIGGERED AVALANCHES ARE LIKELY ON STEEP SLOPES. NATURAL AVALANCHES ARE POSSIBLE DURING PERIODS OF HEAVY SNOWFALL AND HIGH WIND.
PEOPLE WITHOUT EXPERT LEVEL AVALANCHE SKILLS ARE URGED TO STAY OUT OF THE BACKCOUNTRY.
NOAA says:
...BACKCOUNTRY AVALANCHE WARNING...
THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE IS TRANSMITTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE CHUGACH
NATIONAL FOREST AVALANCHE INFORMATION CENTER.
THE AVALANCHE WARNING IS ISSUED FOR THE KENAI MOUNTAINS AND EASTERN TURNAGAIN ARM. DANGEROUS HUMAN TRIGGERED AVALANCHES ARE LIKELY ON STEEP SLOPES. NATURAL AVALANCHES ARE POSSIBLE DURING PERIODS OF HEAVY SNOWFALL AND HIGH WIND.
PEOPLE WITHOUT EXPERT LEVEL AVALANCHE SKILLS ARE URGED TO STAY OUT OF THE BACKCOUNTRY.
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http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyseuwdmJY1qckww7o1_500.jpg
The summit of Ben Nevis in Scotland. It’s the tallest mountain in the Uk at 4406ft.
The summit of Ben Nevis in Scotland. It’s the tallest mountain in the Uk at 4406ft.
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Looking down the Hillary Step...light traffic day, but perfect weather. There's four hundred people waiting behind the photog...
God, it's a gorgeous route, though. It really is a classic.
Oh crap, the Maw Of Doom. Looks like Denali. I remember thinking my whole house could fit in some of those crevasses.
Always funny, mountains in long-civilized places. Someone invariably builds something on the top. There's a corral on top of My Lafayette in NH. I guess the Victorians used to drive their horses up there.
That's gorgeous, and it looks technical as hell. I'm going to have to google and see if I can find any beta/reports on it. It also looks a bit like the Matterhorn.
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"Elyse Saugstad was taking a break with several fellow skiers Sunday in the Washington state backcountry when the shouting began. "Elyse! Avalanche!"
The 33-year-old turned to see tons of snow boiling toward her.
"I pulled the trigger," she said, inflating two air bags attached to her backpack. The device is meant to keep skiers and adventurers from disappearing beneath waves of snow in an avalanche.
It likely saved her life, said Saugstad, who was hurled half a mile down the slope.
"(It was) like being in a washing machine," she said.
Saugstad came to a stop buried in densely packed snow. Only her face and hands were free.
"The snow was like cement," said Saugstad, who worried a second avalanche might follow. Only later did she learn that the body of one her companions was buried a few away.
In all, the avalanche had swallowed three other skiers. Saugstad, a professional downhill skier who grew up in Girdwood, was the only one of the four wearing the air bag backpack -- and the only one to emerge alive.
On Monday, the Dimond High graduate and prize-winning freestyle skier told the Daily News that she was in a group of eight experienced skiers who opted to descend through a backcountry section near the boundary of the Stevens Pass ski area northeast of Seattle. Another group of five followed them.
"We weren't being idiots," she said. "We understood the dangers and followed all the safety protocols. We went one at a time, moving section to section, ping-ponging our way down the hill.
"Several of us had stopped in a safety zone among some old growth trees," she said.
Hundred-year-old trees are usually a good indicator that the area is avalanche-free.
"Unfortunately, the freak accident happened," she said. "One of the skiers (above me) set off the avalanche."
Saugstad managed to pull the lever to deploy the air bags as the snow hit. The ABS TwinBag backpack, made by a German company and available in Europe for the past 15 years, has two bags on either side connected to canisters of compressed nitrogen. In an emergency, the gas fills the pillow-shaped bags, which act somewhat like water wings.
"The idea is that it's keeping you up on the top of the avalanche," Saugstad said.
She didn't feel the bags inflate as the avalanche caught her, she said. "I wasn't even sure they were deployed."
She estimated that it was a Class 3 avalanche, which the Avalanche Center website says can destroy a small building and snap trees. Saugstad called it "huge."
She came to a stop an estimated 2,000 feet or more from where she was first caught in the slide. Her face and her hands, wrapped in pink mittens, poked above the packed snow. The air bags formed a "cocoon" around her head and neck. Her feet were about five feet below the surface and she was unable to move.
"It's very frightening," she said. "I was trying to remain calm, but after a while I thought: 'Hmm. Maybe I should scream for help.'"
Ten minutes after being swept away in the snow, the first rescuer reached her. At that point Saugstad wasn't worried, except for the fear that a secondary avalanche -- or even a third -- might follow.
As the rescue continued, she realized how close she was to death. Literally.
"One victim was buried three feet to my left," she said. "Another was 30 feet above me."
The Seattle Times identified the dead skiers as Stevens Pass marketing director Chris Rudolph, Jim Jack, head judge for the Freeskiing World Tour, and John Brenan, a Leavenworth contractor.
Aside from being sore, Saugstad said she was uninjured.
"I definitely got beat up," she said. "I feel like I was in a fight. I'd like to sit and take a little wine, but I have to be back on the road. I'm on my way to Whistler (British Columbia) now."
Saugstad now lives in the Lake Tahoe area with her husband Cody Townsend. (Her family still lives in Alaska and she expects to return this spring.) Both are international competitors in the aggressive style known as free skiing or freeriding. The sport combines the speed of alpine skiing with the extreme conditions of cliffs, canyons, boulders and other backcountry challenges.
Saugstad is paid to race by sponsors. Among them are Alyeska Ski Resort, where she raced as a Mighty Mite and a teenager, and manufacturers of outdoor recreation equipment -- including ABS, one of a few companies making air bag-equipped backpacks.
"That's why I had one," she said. The cost, between $600 and $1,300 depending on the model, has been a deterrent to the acceptance of the devices in North America, she said.
"But it's very cheap when you're in the middle of an avalanche," she added.
Such backpacks aren't a license to jump into avalanche zones, Saugstad emphasized. "You still need to have all the knowledge and take all the precautions. But it's another tool that can help in an emergency."
Saugstad said that the slide whipped the victims through big trees at a high rate of speed. She expects that, when the investigation is concluded, at least one of the deaths will be attributed to trauma -- slamming into something hard. The air bags probably wouldn't stop that, she said.
But many experts assert that preventing burial is the most important factor in surviving an avalanche, and that's where the gizmos seemed to prove their worth.
"I was lucky. I'm alive because of a safety device that a lot of people aren't aware of," Saugstad said. "I want to get the word out that these packs are available and they work.
"If this wasn't a good example, I don't know what is.""
Story with photos, etc.
The 33-year-old turned to see tons of snow boiling toward her.
"I pulled the trigger," she said, inflating two air bags attached to her backpack. The device is meant to keep skiers and adventurers from disappearing beneath waves of snow in an avalanche.
It likely saved her life, said Saugstad, who was hurled half a mile down the slope.
"(It was) like being in a washing machine," she said.
Saugstad came to a stop buried in densely packed snow. Only her face and hands were free.
"The snow was like cement," said Saugstad, who worried a second avalanche might follow. Only later did she learn that the body of one her companions was buried a few away.
In all, the avalanche had swallowed three other skiers. Saugstad, a professional downhill skier who grew up in Girdwood, was the only one of the four wearing the air bag backpack -- and the only one to emerge alive.
On Monday, the Dimond High graduate and prize-winning freestyle skier told the Daily News that she was in a group of eight experienced skiers who opted to descend through a backcountry section near the boundary of the Stevens Pass ski area northeast of Seattle. Another group of five followed them.
"We weren't being idiots," she said. "We understood the dangers and followed all the safety protocols. We went one at a time, moving section to section, ping-ponging our way down the hill.
"Several of us had stopped in a safety zone among some old growth trees," she said.
Hundred-year-old trees are usually a good indicator that the area is avalanche-free.
"Unfortunately, the freak accident happened," she said. "One of the skiers (above me) set off the avalanche."
Saugstad managed to pull the lever to deploy the air bags as the snow hit. The ABS TwinBag backpack, made by a German company and available in Europe for the past 15 years, has two bags on either side connected to canisters of compressed nitrogen. In an emergency, the gas fills the pillow-shaped bags, which act somewhat like water wings.
"The idea is that it's keeping you up on the top of the avalanche," Saugstad said.
She didn't feel the bags inflate as the avalanche caught her, she said. "I wasn't even sure they were deployed."
She estimated that it was a Class 3 avalanche, which the Avalanche Center website says can destroy a small building and snap trees. Saugstad called it "huge."
She came to a stop an estimated 2,000 feet or more from where she was first caught in the slide. Her face and her hands, wrapped in pink mittens, poked above the packed snow. The air bags formed a "cocoon" around her head and neck. Her feet were about five feet below the surface and she was unable to move.
"It's very frightening," she said. "I was trying to remain calm, but after a while I thought: 'Hmm. Maybe I should scream for help.'"
Ten minutes after being swept away in the snow, the first rescuer reached her. At that point Saugstad wasn't worried, except for the fear that a secondary avalanche -- or even a third -- might follow.
As the rescue continued, she realized how close she was to death. Literally.
"One victim was buried three feet to my left," she said. "Another was 30 feet above me."
The Seattle Times identified the dead skiers as Stevens Pass marketing director Chris Rudolph, Jim Jack, head judge for the Freeskiing World Tour, and John Brenan, a Leavenworth contractor.
Aside from being sore, Saugstad said she was uninjured.
"I definitely got beat up," she said. "I feel like I was in a fight. I'd like to sit and take a little wine, but I have to be back on the road. I'm on my way to Whistler (British Columbia) now."
Saugstad now lives in the Lake Tahoe area with her husband Cody Townsend. (Her family still lives in Alaska and she expects to return this spring.) Both are international competitors in the aggressive style known as free skiing or freeriding. The sport combines the speed of alpine skiing with the extreme conditions of cliffs, canyons, boulders and other backcountry challenges.
Saugstad is paid to race by sponsors. Among them are Alyeska Ski Resort, where she raced as a Mighty Mite and a teenager, and manufacturers of outdoor recreation equipment -- including ABS, one of a few companies making air bag-equipped backpacks.
"That's why I had one," she said. The cost, between $600 and $1,300 depending on the model, has been a deterrent to the acceptance of the devices in North America, she said.
"But it's very cheap when you're in the middle of an avalanche," she added.
Such backpacks aren't a license to jump into avalanche zones, Saugstad emphasized. "You still need to have all the knowledge and take all the precautions. But it's another tool that can help in an emergency."
Saugstad said that the slide whipped the victims through big trees at a high rate of speed. She expects that, when the investigation is concluded, at least one of the deaths will be attributed to trauma -- slamming into something hard. The air bags probably wouldn't stop that, she said.
But many experts assert that preventing burial is the most important factor in surviving an avalanche, and that's where the gizmos seemed to prove their worth.
"I was lucky. I'm alive because of a safety device that a lot of people aren't aware of," Saugstad said. "I want to get the word out that these packs are available and they work.
"If this wasn't a good example, I don't know what is.""
Story with photos, etc.
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Karhu-er
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gotsnowgotslush
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*reads* Thanks, thør! Be prepared....
XXplorher
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I'll take the quote one better...
Tom Hanks was on Letterman once. They ended up talking sciece (why go to Mars). And Letterman was pissing on 'money spent to achieve such extreme intrests'.
Letterman directly asked Hanks, basically, "What the fuck for?"
And Hanks, in all his immediate charm and essential awareness, said...
"Because it's next, Dave."
And to me that will forever say it all.
Maybe I just see and hear that as universally brilliant an answer (I've repeated it often). But it really is that simple...
Why?
Because it's fucking NEXT! That's why.
Want to stand still? Spend you money on cave decorations. The rest of us are looking beyond...
Tom Hanks was on Letterman once. They ended up talking sciece (why go to Mars). And Letterman was pissing on 'money spent to achieve such extreme intrests'.
Letterman directly asked Hanks, basically, "What the fuck for?"
And Hanks, in all his immediate charm and essential awareness, said...
"Because it's next, Dave."
And to me that will forever say it all.
Maybe I just see and hear that as universally brilliant an answer (I've repeated it often). But it really is that simple...
Why?
Because it's fucking NEXT! That's why.
Want to stand still? Spend you money on cave decorations. The rest of us are looking beyond...
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