08/18/08
Avalanche Incidents Down Under
While Colorado skiers celebrated an August dusting of snow, the other side of the world remains locked in a recently unruly winter.
All heli-skiing operations use experienced judgement to continue operations
despite rising avalanche hazard. However, the "Considerable" conditions in the Richardson mountain range of New Zealand and continued heli operations there combined on August 17th to result in a 2m-deep burial of a client, who was promptly and successfully dug out alive. With three guides digging on scene and beacons available for locating the buried subject, the response seemed to be a best-case scenario for such a deep burial.
Not all deep burials are so lucky. Two brothers and their friend, all expert skiers, were skiing in Southeast Austraila (New South Wales) in Kosciuszko National Park also on August 17th, and one triggered and fell with a cornice collapse, which subsequently triggered a large avalanche. It is unclear whether the brothers carried beacons or other safety equipment, but it appears from the three-hour-plus search response that beacons did not play a helpful role even if they were worn.
This incident is rather interesting since the unburied brother, who witnessed the slide and burial, started digging in the location he felt his brother had been buried. The news points to some clues that he noticed, including skis (not attached to the subject) found sticking up out of the snow. However, he later abandoned his individual digging efforts to help the searchers who arrived on scene. Three hours later, his brother's body was recovered in the spot he had initially been digging at. The burial depth (3m) possibly would have prevented successful recovery even if he pursued first digging effort, but in this case the intuition of an on-site witness was spot-on.
Tragically, two other skiers died from collisions with trees in-bounds at Mount Blue Cow and Sun Valley ski resorts in that same area of Australia also on August 17th. The news has given much press to the unfortunate and unlikely event lineup.
XML Feeds