Cascade mountains:

These photos were taken on Frisby Ridge just north of Revelstike British Columbia in January 1996

My 1985 Yamaha Phazer. It had a 133 inch Polaris Snow King Special track and suspension. Two years before Yamaha built the first long track phazer.


The old Frisby cabin. All you can see is the stove pipe sticking out above the snow.




The top of Frisby Ridge is about 6500 feet in elevation and about 25 miles long. Caribou eat lichens off the top of the trees. They have wide hooves so they can walk on top of the snow. As the snow gets deeper they go higher up the mountains. The west side of the ridge is a cliff. This area, down off the east side of the ridge, is closed to snowmobiles. Snowmobiles have to stay on the ridge top.











The north end of the ridge. A straight drop off looking down on the Columbia River.

How do you protect/mitigate from avalanche ? Or don't? Love the WA mountains but we lose about a dozen per year.

How do you protect/mitigate from avalanche ?

Training. You start with an Avalanche One Class . There you are taught to read the snowpack, do compression tests on the snowpack, How to do a search using beacon and probe and how to dig the victim out. Usually two day classroom and a day in the Field.

From there its about being alert and good planning.

Gather info on the snowpack from your local Avalanche Forecasting Group , which will also post a danger rating of the current conditions.
Learn how to travel in avalanche terrain (picking safe routes and knowing when to retreat)

And, constant evaluation while traveling. Looking for natural slides, cracking, whomping and digging pits.

Just like flying its training and application.

Here is an example an Avalanche Forecast. This is from Today and is for The Eastern Sierra Nevada - Mammoth Lakes California Area

https://www.esavalanche.org/forecasts/#/eastside-region

sierrasplitter wrote:

How do you protect/mitigate from avalanche ?

Training. You start with an Avalanche One Class . There you are taught to read the snowpack, do compression tests on the snowpack, How to do a search using beacon and probe and how to dig the victim out. Usually two day classroom and a day in the Field.

From there its about being alert and good planning.

Gather info on the snowpack from your local Avalanche Forecasting Group , which will also post a danger rating of the current conditions.
Learn how to travel in avalanche terrain (picking safe routes and knowing when to retreat)

And, constant evaluation while traveling. Looking for natural slides, cracking, whomping and digging pits.

Just like flying its training and application.

Here is an example an Avalanche Forecast. This is from Today and is for The Eastern Sierra Nevada - Mammoth Lakes California Area

https://www.esavalanche.org/forecasts/#/eastside-region

Thank you sierrasplitter. Thats a good list.

Here in Central Washington more often than not the ones lost in avalanches have a mind set that just because they wear beacons, and carry probes and shovels they are good to go and ride on high and extreme danger days.

here's a link to the Northwest Avalanche Center forecasts and links to upcoming training classes https://nwac.us/

I rode the chair with a guy a few days ago with a rescue balloon, parachute, whatever they are called, that blows up to keep you on top of a avalanch. My first question was "where's the ripcord," wondering how they rigged it to be readily/instantly accessible but also not liable to accidentally deploy, like when on a chairlift for instance. A velcro'd flap over it saftied it. Two years ago, a soil scientist (a real smart guy) friend lost his life about 1 mile, if that, from my house, by getting trapped by a slide.

courierguy wrote:I rode the chair with a guy a few days ago with a rescue balloon, parachute, whatever they are called, that blows up to keep you on top of a avalanch. My first question was "where's the ripcord," wondering how they rigged it to be readily/instantly accessible but also not liable to accidentally deploy, like when on a chairlift for instance. A velcro'd flap over it saftied it. Two years ago, a soil scientist (a real smart guy) friend lost his life about 1 mile, if that, from my house, by getting trapped by a slide.

Airbag pack they call them. They are supposedly super effective but a little pricey. You never want to be buried though thinking "I'll pay $700 RIGHT NOW to get out of this."

Some odds and ends.

I borrowed my wife's elan to get to the top of Two Top Mountain, near West Yellowstone. I was the only one to get to the top that day. There were a bunch of Flat Landers on the bench below.


On the way to Elk hunting camp near Naches, WA 1973. Notice the Elan is towing the sled.


On the way to the Shoestring Gracier on the southeast flank of Mount Saint Helens, 1974 before the eruption. You could climb up scary high on the hero snow in the spring.


Believe it or not, this is a real job. Shooting Scion (the new growth at the top of the trees) out of Western Larch. It was collected from specific trees designated as "Super Trees" by the district Silviculturist and sent to a tree laboratory where it was grafted on to a genetically superior larch. The cones produced by that graft would have genetically superior seed and be sent back to where it came from to be used in reforestation projects. Heppner Ranger District, Umatilla National Forest.








Snow bank gives good support for a steady aim

January on the Westside of Oahu. It’s unbelievable…

N21.57/W158.40

Beaver Marsh (2S2):

Nice day at one of the local ski hills. My youngest was being a bit of a pill so we ditched her and had a bit of fun out of bounds.

That's awesome, Jon! What mountain do you ski at? I'm not very familiar with your neck of the woods.

Mainepilot stopped in for a visit from Ely. The snow on the lake right now is prime ski snow.

Wintertime is generally when the cruising boats stop arriving from the mainland due to unfavorable weather. Many places are empty and this makes several harbors a nice place to relax before fishing:

Lono, Molokai:


Lau Point, as seen from Kaiwi Channel (Maui is the far center headland, Lanai to the right):

I've had the Ruffian SEND-E (terrible name) in for a couple days and have been riding it on the mountain slopes around my place. As usual, the first incident (tipped over) happened in the shop, as I fooling around with a dolly I made for the front ski. I keep it in my shop, so I have to get across a man door threshold but am getting the bugs out of the moving "system" better and better. Loads of traction and torque, quiet except for belt noise of course. Not fast, not meant to be, all I've been in has been slow and heavy snow, 3' deep. but it's faster than I want to fall so fast enough. It weighs 54 pounds more than I was told, I've NEVER heard of a builder of anything claiming it weighed less than it does. Oh, wait a minute.... BUT, I have a bit bigger battery I was told, more than 70 AH, so that's part of the weight gain. It looks heavy duty enough, no obvious extra weight to my eyes, so at least the weight there is there for a reason and doing something. A couple rides of about an hour, lots of up and down deep snow terrain, maybe 5 miles, used about 20% of the battery, so a rough figure of about 3 hrs riding, more if going slow and on fast/hard snow. .

whee wrote:Nice day at one of the local ski hills. My youngest was being a bit of a pill so we ditched her and had a bit of fun out of bounds.

7729F63A-B297-4DB3-AC32-859AF32EBBB3.jpeg

361E14F7-1E93-4A97-9F47-450030CC12FE.jpeg

That looks like my backyard, my place is another 1/4 mile off screen to the left, the Ski area is Pebble Creek, better known as The Rock. Unless I'm seeing things. The area Jon's picture was taken from is shown in my picture of the road tracks, looking back at the mountain!

Zzz wrote:That's awesome, Jon! What mountain do you ski at? I'm not very familiar with your neck of the woods.

We are pretty lucky here and have a few mountains to choose from. We seem to prefer smaller resorts. Pomerell is where we frequent the most. It’s really small, doesn’t have a ton of vertical but has awesome and plentiful snow, almost no lift lines and the runs are pretty long. It’s located south of Burley, ID.

Grand Targhee is probably the biggest resort we ski but the owner is trying to take it from a larger local ski hill to a big time, Colorado style, resort. Great skiing but it’s getting too crowded for me.

As CG said, the pictures I posted were at Pebble Creek. It’s a rocky place but they have been getting some good snow this year. It’s got a ton of vertical so it’s really fun for fast skiers but hard on little ones like my youngest. Once she got over her issue she killed it.

sierrasplitter wrote:

Where is that spot Ray?

[

Grand Targhee is probably the biggest resort we ski but the owner is trying to take it from a larger local ski hill to a big time, Colorado style, resort. Great skiing but it’s getting too crowded for me.

The valley below has had massive growth the last few years. Nothing lasts forever…

Where is that spot Ray?

Mount Gibbs . Its on the East slope of the Dana Plateau between June Lake and the East entrance to Yosemite





^^^^ Thats raising your Kids the right way ^^^^