Fatal Avalanche on west side of Hoosier Pass

[ltlFish99]

How unfortunate to have this happen to people out enjoying nature.
RIP, and condolences to all friends and family.

[pcrotty41]

Very tragic and sad...could the two dogs have triggered the avalanche?...that looks like a large slide btw despite the seemingly low angle. Condolences to all who knew them.

[dwoodward13]

Very tragic and sad...could the two dogs have triggered the avalanche?...that looks like a large slide btw despite the seemingly low angle. Condolences to all who knew them.

I believe it was just one dog, but the answer to that question is unfortunately yes, it is possible the dog could have triggered the slide. Unfortunately its probably unlikely we will ever know with a lack of surviving witnesses. We only have to look back a few weeks near Berthoud Pass that a dog triggered a slide and was buried. Fortunately no humans were in the path, and the dog was able to be dug out and rescued.

https://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/obs/ ... s_id=68214
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G33IR0X ... obertWhite



Just a tremendously tragic event to take lives so young. Condolences to all the friends and family.

[Jorts]

Very tragic and sad...could the two dogs have triggered the avalanche?...that looks like a large slide btw despite the seemingly low angle. Condolences to all who knew them.

Correct, there was just one dog. It's safe to say their party as a whole triggered it. Speculating anything else would be just that. CAIC did an investigation yesterday I believe so they should have a final accident report on their website soon.

Whether you're next to a slope that slides, above a slope that slides, or below a slope that slides, in these avalanche conditions there's a likelihood you could be the remote trigger that causes said slope to release. It's a misconception that you have to be on a slope to cause an avalanche. This is important: if you undercut a slope along flat terrain, you can remotely trigger the slope overhead.

alpha angle.jpg

https://www.avalanche-center.org/Educat ... -angle.php

[mtree]

Very sad, indeed.
Just a thought to chew on. Does avalanche training lead to more accidents or less? I've noticed a larger number of folks venturing into the back country after taking a couple avy courses. Not sure if they do their homework by researching the route and getting adequate avalanche updates. Their thought is they now have the requisite knowledge to avoid getting caught in a slide. Maybe. Or maybe they have the confidence to go somewhere they normally wouldn't or shouldn't? Kinda like getting your 4x4 stuck because... blah blah blah.

I've begged off on multiple occasions because I don't trust their "expert" judgement. I just stay out of unknown or uncharted terrain in winter. Period.

[Jorts]

Very sad, indeed.
Just a thought to chew on. Does avalanche training lead to more accidents or less? I've noticed a larger number of folks venturing into the back country after taking a couple avy courses. Not sure if they do their homework by researching the route and getting adequate avalanche updates. Their thought is they now have the requisite knowledge to avoid getting caught in a slide. Maybe. Or maybe they have the confidence to go somewhere they normally wouldn't or shouldn't? Kinda like getting your 4x4 stuck because... blah blah blah.

I've begged off on multiple occasions because I don't trust their "expert" judgement. I just stay out of unknown or uncharted terrain in winter. Period.

Experience level to frequency of involvement in avalanche accidents is a bell curve. It's been discussed on here before.

https://www.avalanche.state.co.us/educa ... he-season/

[TomPierce]

Very sad, indeed.
Just a thought to chew on. Does avalanche training lead to more accidents or less? I've noticed a larger number of folks venturing into the back country after taking a couple avy courses. Not sure if they do their homework by researching the route and getting adequate avalanche updates. Their thought is they now have the requisite knowledge to avoid getting caught in a slide. Maybe. Or maybe they have the confidence to go somewhere they normally wouldn't or shouldn't? Kinda like getting your 4x4 stuck because... blah blah blah.

I've begged off on multiple occasions because I don't trust their "expert" judgement. I just stay out of unknown or uncharted terrain in winter. Period.

I recall there's some data to support this idea, but I think I've also read it's probably a false correlation. The training obviously doesn't cause a death, but for sure it might lure the barely trained people into a false sense of security. But the false correlation bit is that the people who are bothering to set aside the days to attend training are probably also the folks who are pretty avid backcountry types, who get out far more frequently, who thus expose themselves to avalanche risk more frequently, leading to a higher likelihood of getting caught in a mishap. That's what I recall reading, anyway. Some correlation but prone to interpretation.

Maybe those with more recent avalanche training can chime in with the latest thinking.

-Tom

[Bean]

[Jorts]

Haha, pretty much. Except the inexperienced often don't recognize avy terrain outside of the 30 deg rule. The intermediate-advanced recognize it and try to outsmart it with razor thin margins. The experts avoid it with smart traveling and recognizing that you can't beat the law of averages so razor thin margins won't do.

[pcrotty41]

Maybe bringing a dog with you on avalanche terrain is not such a great idea unless the dog is impeccably trained and will follow commands? That Berthoud Pass avalanche referenced in an earlier post was cause by a dog. Again, condolences to the family but maybe it is wise to leave the pooch at home if you are traveling in avalanche terrain?

[XterraRob]

Hahaha, this is great.

[martinleroux]

Just a thought to chew on. Does avalanche training lead to more accidents or less? I've noticed a larger number of folks venturing into the back country after taking a couple avy courses...

Experience level to frequency of involvement in avalanche accidents is a bell curve. It's been discussed on here before.
https://www.avalanche.state.co.us/educa ... he-season/

I'm not sure that the CAIC report answers mtree's question. What the CAIC did was go through avalanche incident reports for the 2019/20 season, and attempt to categorize them according to people's level of avalanche training or experience. (Since they don't usually ask people about this, in most cases they had to make a guess based on the amount of technical detail in the report). They were able to assess this about 70% of the time. Not surprisingly, they concluded that some people appeared to be beginners, some were experts, and the majority were somewhere in between. I suppose you could call that a "bell curve", at least in an informal sense.

What the CAIC didn't do, and what they couldn't possibly have done, is calculate the frequency of avalanche incidents by training or experience level. For that you'd somehow have to collect accurate statistics on the number of people who ventured into the backcountry over the course of the season, or total time spent in the backcountry, and break down those totals according to training or experience level. But no-one has that data.