Chair 6 taken out by avalanche at Crystal MT

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How in the world was it able to snag a chairlift though? I'm east coast so don't have much experience with slides, but can they really get big enough to drag down a chair?
 
^ yeah chair 6 is perpendicular to the slope and I guess it just took it out. Obviously it's never happened before
 
Probably pretty good, since he may have saved a whole lot of human lives. Imagine if that would have ripped out on a busy day, and carried 50+ people with it.
 
On the bright side, there will be a lot more ways to hit the cliffs to looker's left of the chair without all the trees there.
 
this was a huge slide!!! the further down the mountain the avi flows the deeper it gets!!! the lift was taken out at the base where you can see how deep the debris piled up!! be safe out there!! the weak layer at the bottom is there!!!
 
Things like this are about the only advantage to not skiing out west. Here in Iowa we don't have any avalanches, controlled or not. Sometime ago a lift got taken out during summer at my home hill by a mudslide.
 
People tour around the MIssissippi bluffs and have def set off little slides, maybe a 6'' to 12'' crown. Even in the midwest small avis can happen!

That was one BIGGGG slide! That right there is why ski patrol need to be making $100/hr, w/o them all the owners would be bankrupt from inbounds avis!!
 
DOESN'T THAT STUPID CHAIR READ THE AVI REPORTS?!?? THIS KIND OF IRRESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOR BY A WANNABE HOTSHOT CHAIRLIFT FOR A CHANCE AT AN ABS SPONSORSHIP OR SHOT IN A GLOSSY MAG IS JUST IRRESPONSIBLE AND QUITE FRANKLY IT'S BULLSHIT. SOMEONE COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED.

 
That's crazy. One time in early February of 2005, my dad and I were on the Hi-Lonesome Chair lift at Mary Jane / Winter Park, and we saw the patrollers blowing out the cirque right at the West Headwall, which triggered a decent avi. We heard later It got all the way down to the Pioneer lift, and i don't think there were any skiers taken with it or anything bad like that, but this was the year before Eagle Wind lift came in, so it wasn't as popular of an area as it is now. We also later found out from my dad's buddy on patrol that it was a mistake on one of the new patrollers part and he threw the stick in the wrong place, which triggered everything.

So has anyone out there actually been on a lift while, or before an avi hit? Interested to hear the stories.
 
There are some east coast avy zones. Chic Chocs for example.

Also very minor, but on a steep run at a small hill near Ottawa (Edelweiss) they had snow making going on what must have been a pretty icy surface. In the morning when I got there you could see a pretty perfect looking foot and a halfish crown. not huge, but the slab was probably 30 feet wide and 15-20 feet long. Could easily still do damage if someone got caught up in it. place you would never expect any sort of release
 
this. id say the lift could of been the least of their worries when their could of easily been 60+ people buried, and even more.
 


Some raw news footage after the slide. Gives a good sense of just how massive this thing was.
 
The whole PNW has has had some abnormally dangerous conditions in the past month. Stevens pass set a massive slide off doing heli bombing. Baker set one off as well. Stay safe everyone. Already had far too many fatalities this year.
 
man this is one of the first seasons of me seeing this happen. i was up watching as aspens ski patrol was shootin mortars like it was world war fuckin two about 3 seasons ago, nonetheless we had a great powder day and drank too much afterwards
 
" how do you get to the 6 chair from the bottom of Chrystal MT ?'"i heard ski patrol blew it up"

was that funny? probably not.

anyways that fucking sucks
 
Not saying that anyone should ski OB without a beacon, but the reality here is that nothing could have survived this slide. That's at least 3 times bigger than the biggest slide I have ever seen. The shape of the debris field with the huge crevasses; it looks more like a glacial flow than an avalanche. Assuming you could even get to a buried victim, it would take heavy excavating equipment to dig someone out of that. I don't think anyone will risk trying to take a groomer out on that, and people could die just trying to cross it on foot. I can't imagine how any of that terrain will be skiable until next season. That is just the stuff of nightmares.
 
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