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In this thread we discuss mistakes we've made in the backcountry. A learning experience for all.
To get the ball rolling. I've failed to inspect my gear. If you ride dynafit bindings, Check your din, cause that screw will slowly work it's way out. You don't want to be that guy at the trail head, who twists his heel piece and sends springs across the lot. Trust me it's not a good look.
When stoke takes over.
Last year I was with some friends in France for a week. Most of them dont ski offpiste but one other friend did. Zero powder all week but the last day there was 50/60cm of fresh pow. It came with a storm and everything was windblown but we found some fun 30 degree runs between pistes. After the first run we were so stoked we went back up in the lift and talked where to go. We decided in the lift and when we got out me and a friend took a quick shortcut. My girlfriend followed us. The shortcut was through a very small and compact bowl and was filled with windblown snow, the bowl was on the leeward side and around 35 degrees steep. Me and my friend had blasted straight through the pow but when my girlfriend took the shortcut and made some turns the face came down, just a bit, after a couple of meters it settled but my girlfriend had fallen and couldnt get out. Me and my friend didnt see her at first. Going back up took a lot of time and effort. Luckily her head was free of snow but it was pretty confronting.
The stoke, the familiarity of the resort, the powder stress, it took over for 10 seconds when we got out of the lift and took the shortcut.
The slab broke pretty small (although there was a lot of potential for it to break much bigger) and while it wasn't big enough to bury me, things could have gone a lot worse than they did.
#1 Biggest mistake I've made: Thinking that early season snowpack translated to stable snowpack. I triggered the largest slide of my life in mid november. One that would have almost been certain death to get caught it. It ran about 1000 vertical feet and just barely spilled over onto Teton pass. Worse than almost killing myself and my partner, I could have killed an innocent family traveling over the pass.
Years ago when I was young and was over confident but inexperienced with mountains I almost fucked up big time.
Skiing out of bounds at Seymour in Vancouver my partner and I made a 'wrong turn' and headed down a gully (which I think is actually named 'Suicide Bowl' when we should have cut hard out of the gully to end up back at the hill. After a 100M vert or so we realized our mistake but instead of stopping and heading back up (we had no touring gear, no safety gear, no food or water) we said fuck it and kept skiing down. When we hit the snow line we were pretty sure there was an old summer trail that kept heading down the drainage to the valley bottom where a road would bring us back to the city. After not too far of walking down through the forest we got cliffed out and didn't really see a way down.
Now realizing that we needed to walk all the way back up to the ski hill we started to understand we fucked up. We were never lost per say, but running on low energy levels and dehydrated things started to get shitty when the sun went down. Luckily we were both fit and didn't stress out so while semi joking around about where the best place would be to make a snow cave we kept climbing till we eventually made it back to the ski hill. Seymour is open for night skiing until 10pm, we arrived at the lodge at around 9:30pm - just in time to order a poutine and find a ride home.
That day was a big heads up for how quickly the potential for a shit storm can happen when you aren't on your game. The take home: If you realize your doing something wrong - stop immediately and re-evaluate the situation and immediate the problem instead of just going along for the ride. This obviously goes for everything we do out there, especially when dealing with group dynamics and speaking up about your thoughts, opinions, and gut instincts - even if you are the least experienced in the group, don't be afraid to speak up and voice your concerns.
During the spring ski mountaineering season, we tend to get a lot of snow to shed cycles in the NW Montana alpine. Early in the day, things can be locked up, but once they're melted, it's wet slide city.
Last spring, we had multiple wet slides come down a chute we were ascending, and I kicked off a wet slab during a ski cut on the way back down.
A month or two before that, in the midst of a three day traverse, we had to make a cut across a large shelf below some hanging fields to cross to the next pass. Our human factor was commitment; we made the traverse. Ten minutes later, we watched a sizable wet slide take out 30m of our traverse and sweep it over the cliffs below. We would have been dead.
For me, the take away has been that these shed cycles are harder to predict than I think, and that setting turn around times based on solar exposure and temperature can help to mitigate the risk. That said, we did back down from our biggest objective because we couldn't find ideal conditions. Maybe this year it will go.
It's always harder to walk away or turn around. I want to get better at that.
Super early in the season, we were hunting for some tracks in Kananaskis Country. Only one storm had come and gone, not leaving much snow or a snow pack in general.
We found a face to go up, I wasn't feeling it though. It sat in the sun all day(so it was super sunbaked), and we weren't 100% on what the snow would be like, or an exit strategy.
Group vote, I was the only one not really into it, so we went any ways and just enjoyed ourselves.
Skinned for about 20 minutes, then had to hike up a steep drainage bank, then continued skinning for a bit through the forest, then continued with skis on back for the rest of the hike up the ridge.
Had lunch, and then assessed where we'll drop in and ski out.
Come time to drop in, my room mate went first at the top of the bowl, and began skiing down. I continued more towards the middle of the bowl since there was a nice shoulder to ski on.
Then things began to become obvious we failed on communication and making sure the other members of the party know the basics of skiing in the BC. After my room mate dropped in, another guy went in right after him. I was on my shoulder enjoying my turns only to look over and see the whole snow pack (that one storm, about 8 inches of snow to ground,) had began sliding behind them. As I notice this, I turn behind me only to see I did the same to myself. Both our sluff slides took us out, and we went for a little rollercoaster ride. By the time we stopped, we had only gone about 50 feet, and just began laughing at our own stupidity.
Nobody was hurt, nobody was buried, we were all able to just stand up and keep skiing.
I have all these events caught on my POV camera if anyone is interested in seeing it.
After a few laughs, and we regroup, we begin hiking out our planned exit drainage that would allegedly lead us to the road again.
I lead the pack, and we headed down.
The drainage became tight with bushes and trees, so I went ahead to scope out the trail. I found out that it was just a massive 100' cliff we were on, and that we had to go back up and around to get out. So we turned around, headed up cliffside, and climbed down the smallest part of the cliff and started our steep, slippery hike down the hillside underneath the cliff. We all staggered out, since all of us slipped out at one point or another.
Got the the bottom, and just hiked out along the flats back to the road.
Pretty fun time for the most part of it, we never let anything that happened bring the groups moral down. Talked to the group after and we all went over what we did wrong.
Friend hiking down the hillside with the cliff I was on top of in the background
Morning picture of our destination. Middle area is what we skied (lookers left to be more specific), and the planned drainage route home below it.
