MEAD GRUVER Associated Press writer | Posted: Monday, January 5, 2009 12:00 am
CHEYENNE - Avalanche experts say people headed into the western Wyoming backcountry for fun in the snow this week would be well advised to watch where they ride and step.
"If you're going to go out in this stuff, you really have to know what you're doing," Bob Comey, director of the Bridger-Teton National Forest Avalanche Center, said Monday.
Others said the avalanche risk by now is overblown - and they're open for business.
"We really feel like we've got good skiing and good snow stability," said Jon Shick, owner of Jackson's High Mountain Heli-Skiing, which shuttles skiers by helicopter to the Snake River Range southwest of Jackson.
Avalanches at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort killed a skier Dec. 27 and damaged a restaurant Dec. 29. On Friday, an avalanche killed an ice climber near the top of a frozen waterfall southwest of Cody.
The slides followed a storm that dropped several feet of snow in the mountains around Christmas.
Comey said clear, cold weather over the weekend had abated the risk of natural, spontaneous avalanches in western Wyoming, but the risk of people triggering large backcountry avalanches remained high.
"Our concern the past couple days is that the big storms are over and people start to venture out into the backcountry but there still is quite a bit of danger out there," Comey said.
The problem is a layer of older, icy snow beneath the recent heavy snowfall. When even a small amount of the recent snow begins to move, the icy snow can act like a conveyer belt for snow on an entire mountainside.
The weather's clearing has made the danger more evident. The avalanche center on Monday reported observing that an avalanche 10 feet deep - at the top, not the bottom - had scoured the east face of Buck Mountain, an 11,900-foot peak in Grand Teton National Park.
The center rated Monday's avalanche danger "considerable" at high elevations and middle elevations and "low" at low elevations in western Wyoming. That's the middle of five avalanche threat levels - below "high" and "extreme."
Shick said news about the avalanches threatened to scare off business. He said the places where he flies expert skiers are safe.
"Virtually everything that could slide has already slid. It's filled back in with new snow," he said.
He said media attention to the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort avalanches created unwarranted fear about a danger that passed a week ago.
"Even the forecast lab is kind of reacting to that," he said. "They don't want to reduce that very quickly - let's put it that way - until they're sure."
Jay Zoeckler, who works at the Hoback Sport ski shop in Jackson, said the avalanche danger has kept him out of the backcountry on his snowboard, although he planned to return today.
"I'm definitely going to be getting back out there but I'm still very cautious," Zoeckler said. "I never really feel like you can be too safe in the backcountry, because anything can go at any time."
Zoeckler said the risk of avalanches increases when the weather warms up. He said when that happens, he sticks to ridges and avoids gullies.
"You don't want to be in a situation where if it did slide you'd be buried pretty deep," he said.
Monday afternoon, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort reported getting 210 inches of snow so far this season and 10 inches in the previous three days. The recent heavy snowfall after a dry autumn echoed the pattern last season, when a record 605 inches of snow fell at the resort.
"We're ahead of last year's accumulated snowfall at this point. So we're on track to have another record season," resort spokeswoman Lisa Watson said.
She said ski conditions at the resort have been ideal.
Forecasters say another 18 inches is possible over the next few days. No doubt that would mean more great skiing - and more avalanche danger.
"This will kind of up the ante," Comey said of the forecast. "Things are still very dicey out there."