The Sum of Minor Poor Choices
2019-05-03: On a recent ski mountaineering trip in the Duffy region, we skied some pretty gnarly terrain during some inopportune time. I'll preface with saying there was a few bad decisions made perhaps egged on by summit stoke. It's tough documenting your mistakes, but also important so it can be a learning experience to grow from.
The ski trip was a summit push to Mt. Matier then to ski down the NW col. A classic ski mountaineering line. During the trip, there was a series of events that occurred which lead to a class 1 loose wet point release avalanche almost knocking me off my skis. I'm hoping sharing this experience gives others time to reflect on their own trips.
The day started at 4am driving from Vancouver. Our group consisted of some seasoned ski touring veterans. Collectively with many years of training and experience. You would think with a group like this, risks would be minimized.
The first mistake was estimating time. While under the impression Mt. Matier could be summitted in 6-7 hours, in took closer to 9 hours. Driving at 4am would have us starting at the trailhead at 8am and have us descending at 3pm earliest. This is pushing the limits of what's reasonably safe. As the spring sun starts heating the snowpack significantly throughout the day, the upper snowpack will have far less strength, giving rise to point releases, or in worse circumstances wet slab avalanches. The better decision would have been to start a day earlier and camp at Keith's hut (a hut along the trail), then start the summit attempt at 6am. This would have likely gotten us to the summit in a much safer time frame.
Starting late is not an end all. Trip usually run overtime and margins of errors are usually baked into plans; however, on our ascent, we noticed some avalanche activity on really steep terrain (>60degrees) NE face. This is not normally a cause for concern as the slides do not reflect how lower grade slopes would behave on different aspects, but it was a mistake to not have that factor into our summitting decision at least periodically when we reached crux points. Especially since ambient temperatures reached 10C around noon.
The actual summitting portion is straightforward, albeit with a bit of exposure. However, if you read through some guidebooks, the route suggested is bootpacking straight up the NW col. During spring or unstable conditions this is not really a good choice. The better route to take is via the NW ridge and NOT up the col. The ridge route is significantly safer. Most books do not actually state this. Attaining the NW ridge is fairly straightforward as long as there is snowpack. Several crevasses intersect the knoll you must get over to continue through to the ridge. Timing the season is critical.
If you're European and want to see how steep you can lay skin tracks, you can in theory skin to about 100m below the ridge line. Once you attain the ridge, it's a relatively short walk to the summit and you'll be at the highest point in the Duffy!
The most technical mountaineering part of this trip is the downclimb from the summit to the NW col. It's exposed, narrow, and steep. Don't let go of you ice ax at this point!
We now reach the climax and are stoked to descend. The first person to ski was me. What I should have done prior to skiing down was consider my sluff management. This being the first double black run of the season, I probably should have thought the run out more. About 3/4 down my run, I made an additional poor decision by thinking about where to take a cool shot on the descent and completely lost sense of where I was. I found a spot adjacent but far enough away from a rock outcrop, stopped for no more than 5 seconds and heard screaming from above and giant fury of snow crashing towards me. I immediately darted underneath the rockband at the bottom of the picture below to a location where there was no avalanche debris, collected myself, and regrouped with the next skier off the mountain and off the crevasses nearby. Everyone skied off the mountain without further incident.
Given that the avalanche was a loose wet point release, the avalanche was likely not a remote trigger and likely caused by solar radiation. Release point was about center of the picture above. What was more critical about this moment was what transpired afterwards. Several consecutive point releases went off on the NW col, some very close to where we were skiing. Thankfully, we skied the safer route more towards skiers left. This kept us further away from the subsequent avalanches. It's interesting that these releases coincidentally happened right after we were off the mountain. Point releases of these nature from what I understand are generally not remote triggered. I would consider it fortunate that we skied off when we did.
What I learned from this trip were several valuable lessons. First of which is never prioritize the shot over safety. It's not that I believe the shot is more important than safety, it's more the momentary lapse of judgement in a moment of adrenaline.
Secondly, is regardless of the group experience, it is always important to discuss how people feel during crux points.
Third, is never base safety decisions on optimistic times. They should always be judged based on the slowest member's speed with a factor of safety built in.
If you look at these lessons, you would say that these are common sense, taught in AST, etc. and everyone should be doing this anyways. While this is true, when you start to get complacent or summit stoke, your decision making can get affected.. I'm lucky to have the mountains remind me to continue to treat every backcountry adventure with the attention it deserves.