[AltaPowderDaze]

i have been avoiding this discussion on tgr but it seems that people are really reaching to get their point across. bottom line, you're mostly dealing with kids, bro brahs and the ignorant. here is a look at the 9990 gate users: http://www.feedthehabit.com/articles/duches_avalanche.html
it's scary to tour near people like this. i avoid them for a reason.

i am all for free access to lift assisted bc within reason. it is hard to save people from themselves but accidents like this one leave me with mixed emotions. i don't like the way snowbird makes you jump through hoops to leave their gates but it seems like a plausable tactic for the canyons. there is a problem there and i don't understand how it is not evident when nearly no one in the bc over there has any gear. the signs evidently aren't working. better education is a great idea.

with regard to alta/bird i think the situation is different. different terrain, access and users. i think the percentage of bc users with gear and knowledge that are touring out the 9990 gate is very low. i was a kid once myself and was quite curious. if i saw a fresh slope getting tracked that was right there but lead back to the lift, i'd be all over it. the current bc access at the canyons would equate being on collins lift at germ pass and being told you can ski maintreet but the high t is not controlled and you could kill yourself. plenty of other people are making laps on the high t right back to the bottom of the lift with no incident. you can see the high t from the lift, don't have to put much effort into getting there and can ski right to the lift to do another lap. sound like any other bc run you've heard of? not to me. it sounds just like most other off piste runs at ski resorts. no amount of signs can stop a curious kid that can see others having fun on a "forbidden" slope. btw, for those of you touting natural selection...lets see how you feel when it's one of your friends, nephew, or your own children. god forbid it should ever happen. think before you speak.



i'd like to know what most of you think about the canyons 9990 vs. silverton. both have lift accessed bc but one is semi controlled and still requires a guide and gear.

[Bunion]

Silverton VS the Canyons is an interesting contrast. At Silverton, the eventual model is open skiing on controlled slopes but in a quasi backcountry setting. Avalanche eqpt. required, and you must be able to demonstrate basic avalanche skills buy a lift pass.

The Canyons remains a place where families and people ski for the day and if the gates remain open, they zip out for that 1/2 lap the VT mentioned. Close the gates or relocate them and it becomes a chase the poachers type of place for the ski patrol.

No easy answers to paraphrase AB.

Further questions I have are, if this type of free for all takes place daily with kids being part of the mix, don't parents share some of the responsibility to make sure their children are protected? A ski area is just that, we are not babysitters or childcare, if you drop your kid at the turnaround and expect the ski area to protect them from themselves, you are as sure to blame as anyone else.

Is there an opening for the areas to offer some sort of regimented educational BC training and skiing experience? Would that be too geeky and boring for the do the dew generation?

[AltaPowderDaze]

i think my main problem is that the idea for the lift placement was not advised by all the experts. i spoke with wow about that yesterday. it seemed that a few people just really wanted bc laps from that lift at the cost of safety. move the gates higher and it might be a different story. i don't know.

[Norse]

The slide in Dutchs is truley sad. My heart goes out to the families and the poor ski patrol; who knew that something like this was going to happen since the lift was first built and seemed helpless to stop it. The management at the Canyons or whoever decided to put the lift there have a heavy burden to carry. I blame this mostly on poor planning, anyone who skiied the Park City ridge line before the lift was built knew that Dutchs was a scary place, it had a reputation of slidding big and you better have a good idea what was going on with the snowpack before dropping in. You would more often than not ski the lower angle run in the corner through the trees, not the steep runs that get skiied first by the Canyons skiers. So what does the Canyon do they put the lift 100 yards to far up the hill for the purpose of accessing the backcountry? Making it a short enough hike that a 10 year old can do it in a few minutes.
I have talked to several kids on top of Dutchs over the years they all say the same thing, they have passes at the Canyons to go to Dutchs, the rest of the resort is lame. It looked to me that many of these kids were still in middle school I don't know about you but I didn't have the best judgement at that age, I knew I wasn't going to die. Unless the canyons can do something to change the access to the ridge line this will happen again and again. One simple way would to be make anyone leaving the boundry check in with patrol and be required to carry a shovel and beacon, it seems to work well at Snowbird. This won't stop everyone but it may prevent the young kids who I worry the most about from going to Dutchs. I shudder to think how many would be dead if this had happened on a weekend.

[hutguy]

This whole discussion is pretty much identical to the one that took place in Breckenridge after the peak 7 accident. The similarities are striking. At the time peak 7 was a very tempting looking, uncontrolled high alpine bowl that was easily accessed though a gate that was a short traverse from a lift. You couldn't access the summit without a hike, but you could uphill traverse out into the middle of the bowl with little effort. Like duchess draw, you can ski right back down to the bottom of the T-bar.
After many near misses on peak 7, Breckenridge put out signs pretty much identical to the ones at the 9990 gate at the peak 7 gate and stationed a patroller at the gate to ask the people going out the gate is they knew what they where getting into. The result was some might have been less likely to head out the gate, but many went anyway. I myself, talked to some of the people that day, telling them that it was insane to go out there and they replied with nervous laughter. Nick Logan, who was at the gate that day and who is now a forecaster for the CAIC reports pretty much the same response from most of the people heading out the gate.
When peak 7 slid that day, it was awash with tracks. The snow was good. Several dozen people had skied it that day and despite the large slide on arts bowl, nothing had happened. I'm sure the folks (yes, mostly young men with little or no understanding of avalanches) thought we where just trying to spoil their fun and deny them freshies. The two guys who triggered the slide from the summit snowfield where locals and probably knew a little bit better, but the people below them on the traverse where either tourists or short term one or two season kids, had no idea. They where not backcountry skiers.

It was a very copulated up situation.

In response to the tragedy, Breckenridge and the FS closed off it's upper BC access to peak 7 with a "double boundary". There was a double rope line at the ski area boundry and the five foot wide area between the ropes was a closed area in the ski area. Later they moved the BC access gate lower down the slope. You could still access the public lands beyond, but to get to the goods you'd have to hike
Now, of course, peak seven is in bounds, hike to terrain that is controlled (I hear the bombs going off right now as I type). That ended up being the response to the accident; to bring peak 7 bowl into the snow safety program. The other response was to move the BC gates to less conspicuous locations that require those who want to access potential avalanche terrain to put forth some effort to get to it. In Breck, many people use these gate to access the Ten Mile range to the north of the ski area, but since the access is not quick and easy, the folks who go out there tend (not always) to be better informed and prepared.
I think this is a fair and wise policy for allowing the public access to public lands outside ski area boundaries via the ski area lifts. Give the public access, but don't make it so easy that the hasty, ill equipped and/or ignorant can quickly and easily get themselves (and others) in to deadly trouble.
Of course, there will always be rope ducking, and it should be dealt with severely. The loss of pass and/or fines are not inappropriate penalties IMO. If you are going to use the ski areas lift to gain your vertical, then you need to play by their rules. If you wish to access the BC without restrictions, then there are plenty of opportunities for you.
This whole thing really saddens me because I’ve seen it before. I watched the entire face of peak 7 engulf those people and kill four of them after I had done my best to warn at least some of them away. At Breckenridge, there was a couple years of great interest in avalanche education after the accident, but overall, to most of the TGR inspired fast and danger youth crowd, and maybe not the fast and danger youth, peak 7 is just a vague footnote in history. Will Duches Draw become the same footnote i a couple years? I hope not, but I'm not optimistic.
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Creeds and doctrines are like a raft to get you to the other shore and then to relinquish. Neither cling to the raft or reject it when drowning. Even better, become a strong swimmer.

Shakyamuni Buddha. The diamond sutra

[POSTHOLE]

[EarnYourTurns]

Assume that Dutches was part of the ski area. Given the existing avalanche forecast at the time of the slide (considerable), the recent weather (6-8 feet of recent snow, windloading), and the terrain (typical of that which had been ripping out huge), would Dutches have been open or closed?

Thought so.

[ScottG]

[ed]

I believe most of The Canyons land is owned by The Canyons. Maybe they went to the edge of their property? Or maybe The Canyons it is part priviate, part permit area?

I realize there is a liability issue, but IMHO the single biggest safety improvment they could make would be throw a few bombs into steep, easily accessed slopes. It seems like a simple, common sense way to save lives.

[Norse]

Yes Posthole local backcountry skiiers were against the lift from the word get go. Must of us could careless about Dutches anymore, since powder skiing only exists there before and after the Canyons season. Many of us were against the lift because it effects a large area, Dutches, MacDonalds, Beartrap, Willow and Mill D, we didn't want to lose good ski touring terrain to a ski resort; and have to watch people die there. You say Dutches should be part of the resort, maybe your right and maybe this was the Canyons plan all along, and the bigwigs at Interwest were willing to kill a few to get more land? Hows that for a conspiracy theory If the forest service dosen't give them the land, will the Canyons keep their gate policy the same? If they do more will die.

[Bunion]

You say Dutches should be part of the resort, maybe your right and maybe this was the Canyons plan all along, and the bigwigs at Interwest were willing to kill a few to get more land? Hows that for a conspiracy theory If the forest service dosen't give them the land, will the Canyons keep their gate policy the same? If they do more will die.

Good god Brian would you at least get your conspirators straight..... Its ASC, the American Skiing Company..... not Interwest. O.K.?
I have talked with people who were part of the decision to site the 9990 chairlift in its present location, it is not an ideal location, but they were perfectly within their rights to put the top terminal where they did. Your theory is insulting and as close to slander and libel as the written word can get.

Let me ask you this as a hypothetical.... would SOC (I know you don't speak for them, just asking your opinion) not protest if Dutch Draw was incorporated into the current control and ski management plan for the Canyons? Active control, hike to terrain, skier compacted?

Its obvious that the status quo isn't working, the lift isn't going to be removed, if the gate is relocated, the problem won't go away, it will only become a total headache for the patrol and the locals skiers. What is the solution to the problem?

[Snowman]

This is the third fatal incident from the same lift.

If I understand it correctly the terrain in all these fatalities is easily accessed by alpine skiers from the lift, and they are able to return to a lower lift station with alpine gear. No touring equipment at all is required.

In discussions after the last incident I got the impression this area is used at least tacitly in promoting the resort. How does it appear on their maps and in their advertising? I doubt its shown as a managed run, but is it presented in a way that makes it look appealing to alpine skiers?

IF they are even tacitly using this terrain to promote ticket sales I don't think they can turn their backs on it by claiming they posted a warning sign at the (open) gates. How many warning signs does the average skier (or average american for that matter) see, and how seriously do they take them? "Oh, its just another liability sign for the lawyers." "They're just covering their ass, something this accessible is fine."

I normally feel people need to be personally responsible but given the situation here and the recurrence of fatalities involving alpine skiers from the area something is clearly not right. Closing access doesn't limit our rights as long as non-lift access is allowed. Not allowing repeat lift rides for "laps" as was suggested may help also. It seems the best solution is to get this terrain out of limbo and either remove it from lift-accessibility or control it and make it part of the resort.

In any event it should not be made inaccessible to those willing it climb to it with no lifts. It is public land. The quote from the sheriff, if its correct, is disturbing. But not surprising given a lot of todays land management polices. Are we talking about public lands available for use to the public? Or federal government lands on which the public trespasses? The issue here should certainly not be one of preventing public access and use, but one of whether or not providing and marketing lift access in the absence of control work is ethical.

Jim
Avalanche Center
AlpenPro

[POSTHOLE]

[Ava Blanche]

This is an age-old, controversial problem. When Whistler was built, Franz Wilhelmsen was emphatic that he didn't want a lift built to the peak of Whistler for fear that it would tempt too many people into skiing down the west side of the mountain towards Cheakamus Lake, and getting lost or killed.

Later, of course, the Peak Chair was built and many people have now been lost, injured and even killed as a result of skiing the Cakehole and other runs on that side (the most recent death, sadly, just occurred this weekend). Part of the problem was that the ski area boundary on that side was set some distance down from the ridge; now that a good trail is in-place on the crest, and the ski area boundary is basically on the outside edge of that trail, I would guess that far less people get into trouble.

Blackcomb, I believe due to Hugh Smythe's good planning, designed their lifts to stop just below ridges; like, for example, the Glacier Express and 7th Heaven Lifts do not provide easy access to the Blackcomb Glacier. Instead, the Horstmann Glacier T-bar must be used for access to the Blackcomb Glacier and Spanky's Ladder; so that when conditions are bad, it is easily possible to discourage the public from going there.

I think the worst example is Cypress Bowl in West Vancouver- in my opinion, the Sky Chairlift was built too high up onto the summit of Strachan Mountain, and tempts skiers and boarders to venture out of bounds and into dangerous avalanche terrain. This is especially bad, since Cypress is so popular with the younger, teenage crowd.

Anyway, I don't have any easy answers. In my case, as a parent, I did not allow my kids to ski Cypress. We also encouraged them to ski Blackcomb, rather than Whistler; again, because I thought the layout of the runs and lifts on Blackcomb encouraged people to stay in-bounds and not get themselves into trouble as easily.

Bunion's comments are the most valuable to me on this thread- he has the benefit of a huge amount of experience in this area, and I really appreciate him taking the time to share his expertise. Nothing pompous there whatsoever, just a desire to provide intelligent and thoughtful information; again, much appreciated.
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There are no easy solutions, only intelligent choices

[PNWBrit]

I understand that Whistler patrol are less than happy about the "opening" of Flute and Intrawest's associated marketing campaign.