Wrightwood avalanche search and rescue frequencies?
- Thread starter Bracken
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karldotcom
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atac 1 483.0375
San Dimas SAR was on scene and they were told to put on rescue beacons
San Dimas SAR was on scene and they were told to put on rescue beacons
wires-n-pliers
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Looks like 1 dead, and SAR looking for 1 more. 5 total in avalanche according to 9 News. Slide was in Goverment Canyon. The guy who died was a Mtn High employee who was not working at time of avalanche. The guy they found and is okay had a beacon on. 4 avalanches total for today so far. 3 feet of new snow on area.
One of the scanner monitors from http://socalmountains.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum.php said she was picking up garbled traffic last night about a injured/lost parachutist in Lytle Creek. Anybody hear that? I missed it.
I don't even think you could get to jump altitude in the clouds over the mtns the past couple days. Then again I've seen some full tilt crazy folks jumpin out of REAL low planes.
One of the scanner monitors from http://socalmountains.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum.php said she was picking up garbled traffic last night about a injured/lost parachutist in Lytle Creek. Anybody hear that? I missed it.
I don't even think you could get to jump altitude in the clouds over the mtns the past couple days. Then again I've seen some full tilt crazy folks jumpin out of REAL low planes.
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karldotcom
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Last I heard on the scanner, they were planning to line up in a skirmish line and search the slide area with poles poking into the snow....although now they are saying the area above is cracking
wires-n-pliers
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Eng74
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They just called for another Ambulance to go to the CP. All I can get is D-Fire-4 where I am at. They might have two pt. unknown condition.
Eng74
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LACoFD Copter 19 is on the way to the CalTrans yard. ETA 20 min..
karldotcom
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LACFD is on Blue 12 470.4875 Engine 130 onscene.....CPR in progress on victim.....They just told him to make a different approach due to avalanche concerns.
karldotcom said:
I've always heard this referred to as a "probe line." The chances of a person being found alive after 10 minutes are very slim. Skiing in undeveloped areas during conditions that southern California has experienced the last few days would be hazardous. Just because a beacon is worn does not justify failing to perform a complete field avalanche hazard evaluation. Not doing so is similar to someone who runs reds lights and relies entirely on their air bags.
Most avalanches occur during storms or within 24 hours of the storm. Even then some very large human triggered avalanches with multiple fatalities have happened weeks after the last significant storm. About 30-40 years ago several fatalities occurred at the Mt. Baldy Ski Area just over the hill from Mountain High. It was a youth group involved in snow play while the ski area was closed in the spring. The victims were seen sledding using one of the many "EXTREME AVALANCHE DANGER - AREA CLOSED" sign boards posted by the U.S. Forest Service.
Avalanche physics and dynamics are very complex. Those who keep these complexities in mind have a longer lifespan. The fresh powder is not worth dying over.
karldotcom
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Well, I think the guy manning the CP at that time was a deputy...he called it a skirmish line.... (as in Mobile Field Force)
Fox 11 showed them (LIVE) pulling the 2nd victim out off a snowcat, and loading him on the ambulance, all the while working CPR on him. It was reported the first two were former Ski Patrol members who were skiing out of bounds?
1 more victim in Sawmill Cyn, and another missing skiing on the backside of Mtn High. They will restart searching at dawn for those two.
Also showed an interview with these kid skiiers who used their poles to find and help pull a man out of another avalanche earlier today
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OK, that explains it. A Sheriff's deputy in southern California where not a lot is known about avalanches, who probably has or has been around people with military experience, used the only words he had in his experience to describe the situation. In avalanche work a "probe line" is formed using a few or dozens of people each equipped with an avalanche probe. This probe can be made of a couple of different materials, the best being carbon, which are generally not stockpiled in quantity, or from high grade bamboo. The former packs up in a bag with shock cords running through the center of 18-36 inch segments, which pop together similar to a tent pole. The latter is often shortened to "boo" to gain brevity in radio communications.
Dogs trained to alert on human scents are generally used in conjunction with probes. The probe holes allow more bodily gasses to reach the surface, allowing quicker and more definitive hits by the dogs. Probe lines rarely involve a rescue as the situation has reached the recovery stage at that point. Most of the longer term avalanche rescues I'm familiar with have involved the victim being located within structure debris or in a vehicle.
I once worked an S & R where the initial response was expected to be a recovery as this avalanche had blown apart a three story house, with a basement, into such a state that resembled the results of a large bomb. Conditions were far too hazardous to even reach the house for three days to see if it was even standing. Two of us from the Forest Service had been requested by the county to respond to this private land residence to assist cutting framing and other construction materials up to facilitate digging debris out of the basement. A probe line staffed by Marines from the nearby Mountain Warfare Training Center, along with a couple of avalanche dogs, had failed to locate the victim probing uphill toward the original location of the home. When they reached the debris packed basement area the use of probes was no longer effective. So the Marines dug 15 feet down to reach the top of the basement through dense avalanche packed snow. As soon as the snow in an avalanche stops it immediately hardens into the most dense, heavy snow you will ever find yourself working with. They then dug down into the basement another twelve feet removing snow, 2 x framing, plywood, dry wall, shower doors, pipe, clothing, dishes, curtains, books, furniture, lamps, etc. My co-worker and I would be lowered into the trench to cut what a chain saw could get through and we hit nails and other metal so often that as soon as me made our cuts we sharpened chain by hand up to the time of the next request for cutting. It was exhausting work. As we were traveling out by snow cat at dusk of the second 10 hour shift we were called back as some noises were heard at the bottom of one of the trenches. We returned and in spite of our exhaustion all worked harder and faster than we had so far. Finally a victim was found and allowed out of a very small pocket in the debris. It was the victims dog, who had been trapped for six days and had not peed or pooped the entire time. I bounded to the surface, took a look at the 75 or so of us, ran up the hill away from us and proceeded to lighten his load.
We tried to work on after setting up lights, but all among us were too exhausted, and too cold after being out in temps in the teens for a couple of days. We were facing another night in the single digits or below zero so we had to give up. We returned the next morning and in a couple of hours located the victim very close to where we had found the dog. Unfortunately, he had suffered many dozen head fractures as a result of flying and flowing debris and had been killed during the avalanche.
It is possible to travel and perform work in the mountains while reducing the chance of being caught in an avalanche to a very small one. If these ski patrollers had not performed a field or backcountry avalanche hazard evaluation before going out of bounds they acted irresponsibly. Not only did they get killed, but also exposed a lot of rescue personnel to danger as well. I don't know yet if these patrollers had completed the National Avalanche School training, something I had the privilege to do during my career.
As for structures being built in avalanche run out zones, as the house was in the recovery I was involved in was, it is similar to having homes built in wildland-urban interface areas in fuels where saving them during a fire becomes a life risking activity. Lack of effective zoning combined with the inability of agencies to enforce the zoning (usually caused by the meddling of politicians heavily influenced by the real estate industry) is partially to blame for the wildland-urban interface problem in fire and avalanche management.
As for avalanche fatalities and injuries involving over snow recreation outside of developed ski areas, they are needless. If conditions are marginal, then going to less hazardous terrain (flatter) or going home is the correct course of action. If a person does not know if marginal conditions exist they should stay away entirely until it all melts.
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Ok, I went to the website Avalanche.org and read a couple of stories there. Later on I will access the investigation and read something written by a person who knows something about avalanches, rather than a newspaper reporter who has to write about so many subjects that they don't have time to be familiar with most of them.
The ski patroller was off duty. One of the victims was quoted as having a love for backcountry skiing. The two articles did not confirm or deny whether the avalanches occured out of bounds, but it would surprise me if they were in bounds.
The avalanche awareness of most southern California skiers and the ski area personnel can be best summed up from this quote:
Avalanches are unusual in the San Gabriel Mountains, authorities said, but so was the 3 feet or more of new snow that hit the region in a matter of days this week.
Avalanches are “a freak occurrence” in the local mountains, said Pete Olson, president of Mt. Baldy Ski Resorts.
“We depend on snow-making, and snow-making doesn’t lead to avalanches,” Olson said. “It usually doesn’t snow enough to make anything happen up here.”
When 3-4 feet of snow falls in a short period of time it is almost guaranteed there will be avlanche hazards. Anyone who is traveling in winter conditions they are not familiar with should not leave the confines of developed ski areas until sufficient training is gained. This applies to mountains in Baja, Mexico to Alaska. Small mistakes made in the summer, which might result in someone sleeping out in the open without a sleeping bag, a night without dinner, being thirsty, or taking addtional time to return to a trailhead, can and do result in death during the winter.
The current count of avalanche fatalities in North America this winter is 38, with the U.S. portion being 27. And the beat goes on.
The ski patroller was off duty. One of the victims was quoted as having a love for backcountry skiing. The two articles did not confirm or deny whether the avalanches occured out of bounds, but it would surprise me if they were in bounds.
The avalanche awareness of most southern California skiers and the ski area personnel can be best summed up from this quote:
Avalanches are unusual in the San Gabriel Mountains, authorities said, but so was the 3 feet or more of new snow that hit the region in a matter of days this week.
Avalanches are “a freak occurrence” in the local mountains, said Pete Olson, president of Mt. Baldy Ski Resorts.
“We depend on snow-making, and snow-making doesn’t lead to avalanches,” Olson said. “It usually doesn’t snow enough to make anything happen up here.”
When 3-4 feet of snow falls in a short period of time it is almost guaranteed there will be avlanche hazards. Anyone who is traveling in winter conditions they are not familiar with should not leave the confines of developed ski areas until sufficient training is gained. This applies to mountains in Baja, Mexico to Alaska. Small mistakes made in the summer, which might result in someone sleeping out in the open without a sleeping bag, a night without dinner, being thirsty, or taking addtional time to return to a trailhead, can and do result in death during the winter.
The current count of avalanche fatalities in North America this winter is 38, with the U.S. portion being 27. And the beat goes on.
karldotcom
Member
I think there were 4 victims total, in 4 different areas. The 2 ski patrol dudes (one off duty, and one ex member) the 60 year old actor expert cross country skier and the Mexican snowboarder (on the other side of the mtn)
The snowboarder either sheltered in place and/or walked out 13 miles...I have read several different accounts...but there was a clip of him on the news last night.
The snowboarder either sheltered in place and/or walked out 13 miles...I have read several different accounts...but there was a clip of him on the news last night.
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