OB Avi death Near Ouray, CO?

[EMSC]

Reports seem sketchy so far as to death or not, but part of a group at the Ridgeway Hut in SW Colo.

"Avalanche kills at least 1 near Ouray"
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14386215

 

[Killclimbz]

Evidently someone was killed and there is a second injured person who may or may not been in serious jeopardy of dying.

This is seriously the worst year I have seen avalanche danger wise in the Colorado snow pack. Granted, I've only been following it for about 10 years, so my experience is limited, but it doesn't take a genius to know it's a sketchy year all over. I've pretty much sworn off alpine terrain until we get into a good freeze thaw cycle to stabilize this dang snow pack. Even so, I've kicked off a fairly decent sized slide doing a slope cut and a friend has taken a ride. It's a whole different ball game this year.

 

[mikesathome]

How is the snow pack for the I70 areas, like vail, BREK, ABasin? I know they have had a slow start
Flights are so damn cheap to DEN this year, I want to get away for 2 or 3 nights

 

[skibumm100]

I've been checking out the Steamboat/Flat Tops avy forecast prior to my trip out on the 20th. Pretty sketchy, especially on North facing aspects. Check out the avy report .

http://avalanche.state.co.us/pub_bc.php?zone_id=-1

 

[EMSC]

How is the snow pack for the I70 areas, like vail, BREK, ABasin? I know they have had a slow start
Flights are so damn cheap to DEN this year, I want to get away for 2 or 3 nights

For here it's pretty mediocre. Just enough new in the past 2 weeks to soften all of the ski surfaces back up, but it's firm underneath that and generally base depths are not very deep. That said, most terrain is now open but the steeper it gets the more you need to ski with eyes peeled for rocks (natural snow trails/glades). Vail should be mostly OK (as is Beaver Creek), Breck and Copper less so, and A-basin is very low and maybe 50% open. A few storms have hung up on Vail Pass and west getting Vail/BC skiing best in the region so far (not real deep, but covered). Steamboat should also be good through about the end of Feb unless you like spring skiing which it'll have after that time frame. SW Colo has lots of snow - though a long drive from Denver.

At least it appears the big dry spell is done. No recent big snowfalls in the central mtns still, but at least regular couple inches every few days to a week seem to be coming in now. A LOT of the local weather types keep saying due to El-Nino Colo should have early wet, dry middle and big storms in the spring (March/April). I know Tony will chime in, but that's what the local press keeps saying. Lets hope they are right. Then everyone will have booked to Utah or elsewhere and leave the pow from the big spring storms to me :mrgreen: . (One can always dream, right?)

 

[Skrad]

I have been skiing around SW Colorado this week.

Monday: Telluride. Fluffy boot deep powder in the alpine areas/ hiked Palmyra Peak and had both face shots and core shots. The lower mountain steeps are rocky as usual.

Tuesday: Battleship slide path on the Silverton side of Red Mountain pass. Seriously great snow; hired a snow safety instructor to guide.

Wednesday: Silverton Powdercats for a rest day. Flattish terrain, some super snow, some crusts lurking below the more sun exposed areas. Lucky for fat skis.

Thursday: Silverton Mt. Very good coverage. Not as much new snow as reported. Too many runs down the tight trees on the front face, not enough of the open skiing on the back.

Today: Silverton Mt. again, though if I could have gotten out of my ticket purchase probably would have headed back to LCC. Hiked up to the Billboard, skied down to a traverse. Out to the Grande, then a long steep bootpack up the Grande in soft windslab. Good snow but flat light as a squall blew in. Two more good runs in the Tigers/ of course that means two long runouts through the Tiger Gully.

SW Colorado is a safe bet/ fly to Montrose instead of Denver.

 

[Tony Crocker]

early wet, dry middle and big storms in the spring (March/April).

This is the standard pattern along the Continental Divide; nothing to do with El Nino. But those areas missed the early wet this year and are still hurting. As for the rest of the region it's normal for Vail, Beaver Creek and Steamboat to get more than Summit County. This is the way the storms of the last month have played out: decent amounts of snow at the former and just a few inches here and there at the latter. So the former are below average but adequately covered now while the latter are still in "watch your step" mode on steeper terrain. Throw in the inevitable higher skier density at the areas close to Denver and I would certainly avoid them in favor of Utah, the Sierra or western Colorado.