Yesterday morning around 11 a.m., a skier atop Saddle Peak near Bridger Bowl, Montana, accidentally broke a piece of cornice, which fell onto the slope and triggered an avalanche that stretched 1,000 feet from end to end, ran 2,000 feet, left a crown the height of a VW van, and deposited debris up to 20 feet deep. It swept away hundreds of old ski tracks and was witnessed by people at the Bridger Bowl ski area and numerous backcountry skiers on Saddle Peak itself. Miraculously, no one was killed, hurt, or even caught.

It’s happy ending after so many sad ones, and maybe it can serve as one of those “teaching moments”. What can we learn from this? Well, let’s start with the fact that you do not under any circumstances want to be caught in an avalanche. They are wild, unpredictable, and capricious. The boom in snow safety gear, from digital transceivers to the Avalung and now inflatable air-bag backpacks designed to keep you on the surface has created a not-so-subtle sense of armature, an implied protective bubble that will keep you alive in a slide. And while it makes sense to gird yourself with all the tools available, it makes even more sense to ski and travel as if you were wearing nothing at all. I met a guide who wore an Avalung-equipped backpack but never took the plastic wrap off the mouthpiece. To me, that’s like locking your lifeboat to the deck of your ship and throwing away the key. By all means, rock the lung. But make decisions as if you were fragile, vulnerable, and very likely to die if caught in a slide–because you are.

Another point to take away from the Saddle Peak slide is that skier traffic doesn’t mean the slope is stable or safe. This pitch was skied and traversed by hundreds of folks before it went; witness at all the tracks to looker’s right. What that means is you have to make decisions for yourself based on data–ground truth, as it’s called–and the number of skiers who’ve gone before doesn’t count.

These photos were gathered by the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center. It’s rare that such a big slide is caught on film by so many different sources, but that speaks to how terrain even in your own back yard can go–and go big. So, be aware. Be careful. And ski like you’re naked.

See more photos at the Gallatin avalanche center site–and be sure to read the nuggets of wisdom in their captions. LINK

Tagged as: avalanche, skiing