By Jim Stanford on December 30, 2008
Cafe Swept Away? A resort employee surveys the damage following the Headwall avalanche. Photo submitted by anonymous reader. Click to enlarge.
Wow. The events of the past three days have been dizzying, leaving many of us confused, upset and even afraid.
I want to address two undercurrents of the comments posted on this blog and discussions I’ve been a part of around town.
First, the conventional wisdom seems to be that Jackson Hole Mountain Resort brass has been pressuring the ski patrol to open the mountain for the peak holiday crowds despite the extraordinary avalanche danger, resulting in unsafe conditions.
A popular target.
I’ve spoken to several mountain employees with intimate knowledge of the fatal avalanche Saturday and yesterday’s Headwall slide into the Couloir restaurant. They had no reason to lie, and they assured me that resort management has put no pressure on anybody to do anything other than what’s in the best interest of safety.
The Jackson Hole Ski Patrol decides when and where slopes should be opened, and resort management defers to their expertise. The mountain operations manager, Tim Mason, is no corporate bean counter but rather a longtime resort employee with years of experience running the lifts and working with patrol.
Second, the clamor has been growing louder that the resort is trying to cover up these incidents, or at least control the flow of news. Yes, there has been a frustrating lack of information at times, and continued conflicting reports, but let’s remember that these employees have been dealing with a crisis for several consecutive days, just as the holiday rush arrived.
Those who are not a fan may be surprised to learn that Jerry Blann, president of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, was at the scene of the Headwall avalanche Monday, grabbed a shovel and dug out at least one of the buried ski patrollers. Along with other executives, Blann remained on top of the gondola well into the night as workers cleared debris.
I’ve never known Jerry Blann to duck a question, and it’s a shame that in the wake of these two incidents the resort did not hold a press conference where Blann and someone from ski patrol could answer the public’s questions and provide an accurate account, with a map, explaining what happened and where. (My guess is that someone high in the resort hierarchy comes from the Dick Cheney school of public relations.)
There are some profound and heart-wrenching stories to tell, like how Saturday’s avalanche victim, Dave Nodine, reportedly yelled out to ski patroller Mike Rheam something along the lines of “Save me!” as debris swept him down the slope.
On Monday, from what I gather, the patrol was set to open the mountain after bombing the Headwall once and triggering a fairly large slide that fractured on the lower half of the bowl and ran to within a short distance of the restaurant. Perhaps uneasy about the snow that remained above the crown, avalanche forecaster and patroller Jim Springer called for one more bomb to be placed near the top of the Headwall-Casper hiking trail in the area patrol calls “White Spider.” The four-pound bomb took down an even bigger slide that plowed into the restaurant as six patrollers scattered for cover.
This decision may have prevented a potentially catastrophic avalanche from crashing into the crowded gondola unloading area once the public climbed the mountain.
The aptly named Cornice private dining room inside the Couloir building.
I’m sure there are other similarly powerful tales that have gone untold as the resort has tightened the spigot of information to three sparse press releases. Wouldn’t it be better to open the Jackson Hole News&Guide today and read about how two patrollers were knocked over by the air blast in front of the avalanche, and how veteran patroller Jerry Balint was briefly trapped inside the patrol shack when the slide rammed the building, instead of the rather sterile summary of events related by resort spokespeople?
How many thousands of pounds of bombs have been detonated to try to tame Rendezvous Mountain this week? On Monday, after the Headwall slid, the patrol lowered a hundred-pound bomb on a sled into a chute that had been bombed repeatedly, slid several times, and practically moguled out by skiers for a week since it was opened. The entire slope released.
These details are not only fascinating but also instructive for alpinists planning an excursion into the mountains, or at least trying to gauge the conditions before making a judgment. It’s in the resort’s best interest to have its clientele, many of whom are keen on ducking ropes and venturing out of bounds, precisely informed of the hazards. As reader Mark F. wrote, “Seeing photos of the damage sends a thousand-word message.”
Commenters on this site and other blogs have raised valid questions yet to be answered. But I’ve cited a few specific examples to try to show that this isn’t a black-and-white case of corporate villainy, like many readers and acquaintances have made it out to be.
As with high water on the Snake or wildfires raging in the forest, these are humans struggling with a force of nature they cannot control; they can only manage the risk.
•
The Couloir restaurant sits on the edge of the Headwall slide path. Casper Bowl appears to have slid as well. Frederick Reimers photo.
These aerial photos, shot this morning by Frederick Reimers, illustrate the position of the Couloir restaurant and ski patrol shack beneath the Headwall at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. Click to enlarge.
If you look closely, you can see how wide the Headwall slide ripped out, going clear to the edge of Casper Bowl. Other slide debris is visible at the bottom of Toilet Bowl and Casper Bowl.
Last night the winds roared with a fury throughout the valley and in the high country, depositing more snow on the Headwall and quickly covering much of the crown.
Bomb blasts continue to shake the valley today as all the upper lifts on Rendezvous Mountain remain closed (Apres Vous and Sweetwater are open). The ski patrol likely is detonating 100-pound sled bombs, after pummeling the slopes with the Howitzer cannon yesterday afternoon.
The faceted snow at the base of the snowpack, below the rain crust, could be the most troubling layer, as the crust has prevented compaction by the new snow above. This faceted snow fell early in the season and languished on the high peaks, especially shaded aspects. Now as the crust collapses, by bombing or a skier/boarder landing a jump, the sugary base cannot hold the weight of the slope in place.
I am no avalanche expert, so continue to tune in JHAvalanche.org or call (307) 733-2664 for updates and analysis.
The edge of the fracture can be seen on the ridge dividing Headwall and Casper Bowl, directly above the restaurant. Frederick Reimers photo.
Posted under Media, Ski Resorts, Sports
Is this Tower 3 info just conjecture or is it true?
If true it is yet another reason why there should be some sort of avenue for the patrols’ snow / avy info to be accessable to the public. Scary stuff. We have one of the most experienced and educated backcountry ski communities here and details like this tower 3 slide can really change how you look at things.
Help us help ourselves, JHMR! skiers should not have to relay on shady blog info for life/death details.
Just a word to say how much I appreciate your editorial about the recent avalanche activitiy at the resort. Comments and blogs have been at times unduly harsh and negative. To have serious questions and doubts about safety related processes or skier irresponsability is natural. Sadly, however some of the vitriol has been more destructive than contsructive, and your secondary source reporting fills in some blanks without adding to the rumour mill.
Jim,
I really appreciate the work you do, and I love jhunderground. (Just wanted to let you know.)
Of course I appreciate the work ski patrollers do, especially since I’m related to one, but also because they are so brave, and their job is excruciatingly hard. I’ll be praying for them all, as well as anyone else in avalanche terrain. Be safe out there everyone!
Thanks again!
Suzy
jim stanford,
you reporting is beyond excellent, so true and seeing the big picture, and my utmost respect to the trollers, the last of the real true ones,
respectfully, peter stiegler
Jim, Very well said. S
Well done Jim. Finger-pointing is generally the first reaction and it’s hard to stem the tide of half-truths without reliable information coming from the source (the resort).
Bottom line is that there were actions taken that may have saved the lives of others, and patrol should be commended for that. The Village brass should continue to let patrol do their jobs and defer to their expertise.
I heard that a male ski instructor was allowing TGR to film and capture the ski patrols radio transmissions yesterday during the Headwall fiasco. I do believe in transparency but that is beyond cool. What if someone HAD perished? This is serious business and adults are acting like adolescents. I see JHMR lifties bad mouthing the village. I hear locals disgruntled because lifts are closed and cursing JHMR. Grow up people. You may not like the higher ups at the village or the cost of a pass, but REAL people work at the village and have made it their careers. And why not stand for those hard working people instead of against them. Oh right, suck down another PBR and hope to get some footie in the new TGR flick. At the resort you just flung crap at.
ask your JHMR contacts why JHMR mgmt and, according to Steve, some patrol were upset that pictures of debris in the restaurant were posted? why (try to) control that particular piece of info? privacy concerns? bullshit. the “we’re in a crisis” excuse doesn’t fly, either, nor does some crap about SAR volunteer’s responsibilities.
this is more than the “frustrating lack of information at times” that you mention, it is active censorship of information that was already out, with an assist from law enforcement. You suggested yesterday that you would re-visit this, but I don’t think you’re giving this issue enough coverage. Again, the question is why? there were no bodies in the photo, no concerns along the lines of other grisly and insensitive first-responder documentation of accident scenes, just a restaurant with piles of snow in it.
I hope we see big full-color versions of every photo they tried to censor in the NAG tomorrow.
THE OLD WE TOLD YOU SO BECOMES REALITY!
A DECADE AND A HALF AGO THE HEADWALL TOOK OUT THE THUNDER HALFWAY HOUSE AND RAN TO THE BASE ALMOST TO THE RESIDENTUAL AREA.
IF YOU REMEMBER THIS THEN YOUR A REAL LOCAL.
A MAJOR RELEASE OF THE HEADWALL ISN’T NEW AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE REALITY. I THINK I REMEMBER HEARING, WE’LL BOMB IT AND LET PEOPLE SKI IT AND THAT WILL KEEP IT FROM SLIDING OUT OF CONTROL?? YA RIGHT. YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A ROCKET SCIENTIST TO DISAGREE WITH THAT ONE.
KEEP IT DEEP JH.
The Snaz took on this issue, and I added my two cents.
http://www.thesnaz.com/2008/12/30/one-avalanche-after-another/#more-276
ah yes, thanks for the link. good to see this pursued. the perception of JHMR having something to hide is something I’d think they want to desperately avoid right now. Absolute incompetence from their PR dept.
I found your article to be well balanced and free of some of the knee jerk hysteria that grips people - apparently many more people than I imagined. Clearly the situation with snowpack at this time consists of many related issues that have not come up in combination for some time - expecting it to be handled effortlessly and perfectly is really asking a lot. As it is, our patrollers are doing a fantastic job. As for the resort, perhaps rather than being evil, they are trying not to panic the folks that are planning to come here. True, the resort makes money from the tourists. But we all make money from the tourists. If the tourists don’t come (especially in this economic environment), we will get laid off, all the way from mountain operations to restaurant personnel. Maybe the resort could handle things differently and maybe the next time (God forbid) they will take lessons away from this incident, but quit the Evil Empire conspiracy theories. This is a group of people doing the best they can in a pretty rotten situation.
Best summary I have read so far. Thanks for additional details on this crisis.
heard on the START bus early Saturday - from a JHMR employee “Jerry Blann is hoping mad about the upper-mountain not being opened yesterday”
Now I realize that safety concerns override the corporate prez’s emotions on things like avi control and guest safety etc…but you can’t tell me that those decisions aren’t influenced by such factors.
On the secrecy and lack of details - on the one side you have morbid curiosity seeking out details and pictures to post to blogs such as this one and so they can be the first with bad news in their circle of friends - then when the resort withholds those details the morbidly curious public throws things out there like “for safety’s sake we need to see the true power of these things…” and other like-minded cries for more details…bullshit I say, you’re just gawkers, myself included. On the other hand you have a corporation who has made poor business decisions with putting a building in a slide path and they don’t want the visiting public to get freaked out and cancel their trips so they cite “privacy” concerns…again, bullshit and even more so when they involve and enlist the help of public servants to deliver their message. The quote I heard on the radio today was something like this slide was “unprecedented”…again, bullshit…I was here in the 80’s…I think someone said 88, but I thought the big slide was either 85 or 86..at any rate I remember kegs from the halfway house at the bottom…pretty trippy so I don’t think it was unprecedented at all.
L.A. Times has a good summary of what’s going on around the West:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/europe/la-na-avalanche-deaths30-2008dec30,0,56304.story
Actually the slide that took out the Thunder shack occurred in Jan or Feb of 1986. There were several other major in-bounds avalanches that year, as two patrollers lost their lives. Jim, I don’t know if you’re looking for another angle on this whole situation but it would be interesting to compare that year to this one. I’d like to hear some of the old salts’ take on that.
Excellent work on this, Jim, thanks!
Rod Newcomb said it best. “If you try and put a restaurant up there it will only be taken advantage of by mother nature…..
I think we all can learn something from this…
Our thoughts and prayers are with all Locals and Workers at JHMR.
Jim, you are great.
I am writing from Houston, Texas and I must say I really wasn’t totally surprised when I picked up the phone at work and the first words out of my daughter’s mouth were “I just want to let you know before it comes across the wires that there has been an avalanche at the lodge”. She went on to say “everyone is okay and accounted for”, “everyone” meaning her friends who were about to begin their day working in the restaurant.
I knew the day would come when I would get such a call as my daughter has been spending her winters in Jackson Hole working at the lodges for a few years now. I must say, I worry constantly about the chances of her getting caught in an avalanche or a white out. There is not a day that passes that I do not check the weather and the avalanche reports, as well as the surrounding news stations, newspapers, and all of the webcams.
Yeah, I know, both paranoid and obsessive but I will always do it. I want you to know that no matter what the cause, the incident frightened people, and rightfully so. Ya know, here in Texas these people start whining when the thermometer hits 40 degrees and we get a few inches of rain. I just wanna smack them, they have no idea what it’s like to live and/or work in below zero conditions in an area where snow is measured by feet, not inches, and an avalanche can drop when a fox or a deer walk by, and by winters end hundreds of inches of snow have fallen.
My thoughts are with the people who live, work, and play in Jackson Hole. It’s a beautiful place and I hope to visit it soon myself.
Jane, no need to worry so much.
When the ski patrol reopens this mountain, I would ski every inch of it without fear (but with a healthy respect).
In the forty-plus years the resort has been open, the patrol’s safety record is pretty impressive.
Should I be wearing an avalanche transceiver in bounds now?
Or maybe I should just bring my trusty Colt .45 and shoot a few rounds off before taking first tracks in the bowls and chutes.
Jim, good perspective here. I think we all appreciate your digging deeper into the situation. I remain incredibly supportive of the work patrol is doing and recognize the stress they are under. I also realize that none of this is easy on management, but what we have here is more than just “a frustrating lack of information.” JHMR has a real community and customer relations problem, and it goes much deeper than this current “crisis.”
The lack of detailed information about the incident and the request to remove photos from TetonAT are just the most recent evidence of this problem. Other examples include employees who can’t solve customer problems and end up pissing them off, who would rather believe customers are trying to scam them out of a ticket during times of confusion than give them the benefit of the doubt, and who badmouth their employers in public, not to mention a long history of management falling short on local public relations initiatives. There are many stories and too many that I can give from personal experience.
I’m not going to go into it here because I already spent too many words over at The Snaz, (follow Jim’s link in comment 15) but suffice it to say the Mountain Resort seems to squander opportunities for positive relations with this community at nearly every turn.
Thanks, Jim Stanford, good reporting. My husband and I are coming out there in a few weeks, so we have been paying close attention to this story. We had even made a reservation for dinner at Couloir. Scary stuff, hope you’re doing well, good to see you’re still living and working in JH after all these years.
@tellybelly and others, re: naive
It’s not hard to get people to complain about their job, particularly their bosses. Especially if you work for the biggest corporation in the valley.
That said, I asked several friends point-blank whether there was any pressure from upper management to open the mountain. They told me no, unequivocally.
I guided rafting trips on the Snake River last summer through three weeks of high water. I know what it’s like to have other people’s lives in your hands, particularly tourists who may have no idea of the risks. My boss cut the passenger load in each boat by 33 percent in the interest of safety. That was a huge chunk of the profit he was making. As guides, we never felt any pressure to do anything that we didn’t think was safe, and we were encouraged to speak up if we didn’t feel comfortable.
I think if you own a business like this involving recreation and risk, you have to take a long-term view and always err on the side of caution.
If the patrol had not opened the upper mountain, they would have gotten a lot of pressure — from skiers. And they are skiers, too, and naturally want to open the best skiing on the mountain.
*good photos of all the slides triggered by bombing (Tensleep, Laramie, Expert Chutes, etc.) are posted here:
http://tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145375&page=12
**also, lo and behold, today Angus Thuermer of the N&G gets the full narrative of the Headwall slide, even with Larry Dietrich’s joke upon being dug out and seeing Jerry Blann’s face that he thought he had gone to hell:
http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/article.php?art_id=4085
Breaking: Word from a reliable Village connection says somebody “just got slid near Laramie Bowl.”
No word yet on injuries.
no injuries — slide came down on the cat track as it was being groomed.
photos here:
http://iyh4qw.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pABHSreNwwiaIcsfRIqrsAcmVvxSWFUlvUwv1hJ5Quuj2Abg3MuEZYSPyzqBwsd5QaVRUm4sBlYA/DSC00974.JPG?download
http://iyh4qw.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pUjL3wML3ywoPwPwOyqKuIbIbi8FxlJ7DzTfePVXIbPmCJLSDaOcq3Nw10-1NAqkuMXi2N2a5kLo/DSC00975.JPG?download
http://iyh4qw.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pIAuW-4QfSHoCQcBuPFaHdThXkyFxfR8uzbeWiUlD2C8zTI5DdVUZpaXQD1rFzB8PskRHtjcX05k/DSC00976.JPG?download
http://iyh4qw.bay.livefilestore.com/y1p8KjGl3RdPwRnDLAKa6VIyxF_11RobSg8ZvEKi4-QzJju23dGo6z5YRFOTUstgZhHkYzCnKdrX1w/DSC00977.JPG?download
Uh…That doesn’t look safe.
Jim, Thanks for providing this great venue for discussion of these recent events. I can’t imagine how frustrated we would all feel if this happened before the days of blogging. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for good info and for hosting a forum for reasonable and informed commenters. The http://www.jhsnowobs.org/ website is up and running again this winter, after last year when it was “buggy”. I encourage the backcountry users around Jackson and Teton Valley to start posting their obs there, please. Make it a useful resource for us all.
Good to see some insightful reporting. Having been on pro patrols and having been involved in wildland fire management for many years, the issue of “pressure” from management, in my view, is of course there is. But if it is done in a respectful manner is crucial. Ultimately, it becomes a managers decision and the specialists (either avalanche or fire) should be expected to provide professional assessments. But the responsibility and liability needs to be well defined.
Interesting photos-Of course the corp is trying to control the flow of info. That’s reasonable from a business standpoint. Nobody wants to admit a mistake. But even in Europe, where they have watched slopes for decades- they build something only to have it wiped away. So it’s easy to second guess things. It’s a great mtn, but the mountains can be unforgiving. And the conditions this year are definitely complex and risky. The rain layer will impact the avvy conditions all winter long… so get used to it.
first of all jerry blanns only interest is putting money in the resorts pockets not the safety of skiers, i happen to know that the day of the headwall avalanche he was at the gondie despite the warnings from patrollers not to load, and ordered the gondie to be loaded, after the FIRST slide hit and the general public was sent down while the employees remained to work, along with a number of patrollers. The second slide hit without warning to anyone, again despite the jhnews article in which blann was quoted saying “employees were told to go to the center of the building.” which is a complete lie, we had no idea there was any danger. after the second avalanche hit and the 3 patrollers were buried, the was building staff digging out the patrollers within seconds, BLANN was no where to be seen, minutes later other patrollers showed up along with the heralded hero blann to dig out the victims who dug with about 20 other people. so the answer is YES THEY ARE TRYING to cover up these incidents, however blann fails to recognize the effort of patrol and other mountain employees BLANN is full of crap and are all the statements they made to the public