Darwin Award Candidate at Crystal Mt.

I saw this a few days back...mentioned it to Admin...

I dont know that im buying it now though. Ive seen conflicting reports of size of charges and how close skier was to the bomb when it exploded. There is no way he wouldnt have heard/felt/been deaf from the 25-50lb charge (this is the conflict). I've only seen this reported on blogs no real "news" outfits. Also if there were soo many people that eyewitnessed it he surely wouldve been caught. I also think that not matter how stable that snow was a 25-50lb charge was going to move at least some snow.

Just seems slightly fishy to me...i cant say why anyone would make this story up, but ...something is rotten in denmark.

M
 
Both Kim Kircher and the author to whom she linked (and who tossed the charge out of the heli) are Crystal patrollers.

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Admin":1h53euoc said:
Both Kim Kircher and the author to whom she linked (and who tossed the charge out of the heli) are Crystal patrollers.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II using Tapatalk 2
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Im aware but still id think this story would be getting slightly more "press" if indeed it was true. I can only find trace of 2 blogs that speak about this nothing more. All those eyewitnesses have no internet? I dont duck ropes, but seems you shouldnt ever be able to even stray close to something like this.

If true...totally messedup...if not..same.

M
 
I don't buy 25lbs of explosive at all, let alone 50lbs. That's a crapload of explosive force. The standard hand charge at AltaBird is 2lbs. The really loud ones we occasionally hear are a pair of 2-pounders taped together. Even if Crystal is using a lower yield explosive, 25lbs is over half a case of explosives. The typical Avalauncher projectile contains 2.6lbs of explosive payload. Crystal is not dropping 25lbs in a single shot.

As far as the poacher being close to the explosion.... if it were 25 or 50 pounds, deafness would be the least of his problems. At 100 feet away, the concussive force of that much bang would turn his organs and brain to jelly.
 
Yes. It really was a 50lb shot. We were in the midst of a major snow cycle and using a helicopter to drop really big charges. We do this sometimes when we have deep slab instability. Usually we throw 2 or 5lb shots. The witnesses were only our crew. No one else saw it, no news sources saw it or interviewed us about it. Throughout that day some of our shots got big results and others didn't. This one did not release a slide, only left a big shot hole in the snow. Our crew was already tapped out and could not find the guy on the return trail after the incident. They were many others on that trail returning from an open area adjacent to Employee Housing. So yes, for what it's worth, it really happened just as I described in the above link. Is the Darwin Award something official?
 
Kim Kircher":3k3e3u7p said:
Yes. It really was a 50lb shot. We were in the midst of a major snow cycle and using a helicopter to drop really big charges. We do this sometimes when we have deep slab instability. Usually we throw 2 or 5lb shots. The witnesses were only our crew. No one else saw it, no news sources saw it or interviewed us about it. Throughout that day some of our shots got big results and others didn't. This one did not release a slide, only left a big shot hole in the snow. Our crew was already tapped out and could not find the guy on the return trail after the incident. They were many others on that trail returning from an open area adjacent to Employee Housing. So yes, for what it's worth, it really happened just as I described in the above link. Is the Darwin Award something official?
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In that case I stand corrected. But 50lbs! Holy crap! How high does that charge loft rocks? :-D
I still say that if the poacher were anywhere in reasonable proximity to the charge, deafness would have been the least of his problems!

The Darwin Award is somewhat official:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Awards
http://www.darwinawards.com/rules/
 
Kim Kircher":11crt2tl said:
Yes. It really was a 50lb shot. We were in the midst of a major snow cycle and using a helicopter to drop really big charges. We do this sometimes when we have deep slab instability. Usually we throw 2 or 5lb shots. The witnesses were only our crew. No one else saw it, no news sources saw it or interviewed us about it. Throughout that day some of our shots got big results and others didn't. This one did not release a slide, only left a big shot hole in the snow. Our crew was already tapped out and could not find the guy on the return trail after the incident. They were many others on that trail returning from an open area adjacent to Employee Housing. So yes, for what it's worth, it really happened just as I described in the above link. Is the Darwin Award something official?
Click to expand...


Kim thank you for 100% clearing this up..I was shocked first off that someone could access the area that easily when dropping charges of that size. I, like Marc_C never thought you'd be dropping charges that big, in fact I found that even the howitzers used in many mtn locations are only about a 25lb charge. I also understand that the laws there have changed and rope ducking is a misdemeanor crime. This idiot came too close for a pow run to dying. Glad everyone is ok and apologize for my skepticism.

Here in Utah at my home resort (Alta) you can't get anywhere near where they are dropping bombs you're roped off way far back. I am not familiar with the topology of Crystal so maybe "roping" that off so noone could ever get that close isnt feasible. I shudder to think about what the partoller watching and those that dropped the bomb would be going through right now had that poor person died.

Any chance you guys are discussing changes so that noone else could get themselves into this predicament?

Thanks again for coming in and responding.

M
 
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