A large avalanche occurred on Tram Face at Squaw Valley this morning, just minutes before competitors were to start their runs. The contest is part of the Nissan Freeride World Tour. Witnesses in the vicinity of tram Tower One said the slide released spontaneously about 30 feet below them. More than a dozen competitors were standing on a knoll about 40 feet from the crown of the avalanche. The slide flushed out the face below the competitors and spilled over a large cliff band. Here’s a video of the slide from the valley floor, near the Olympic Village Inn.
Category: Video (Page 9 of 9)
Short videos
On February 16 a massive avalanche occured on Saddle Peak, just outside the southern boundary of Bridger Bowl, Montana. This peak gets skied frequently as Bridger provides legal backcountry access via the new Schlasman’s chairlift. The fracture line was approximately 1,000 feet long and the slide ran for about 2,000 vertical feet. Miraculously no one was caught despite several people on and around the peak at the time of the incident. The avalanche wiped out dozens of tracks from the day before. This avalanche is the quintissential example that skier traffic does NOT equal a safe snowpack. A snowpit video from December 17 displays extremely hard windslab on top of 3 inches of hoar that was ultimately going to release under the right trigger…in this case a large cornice set off by a skier. The slab shell was strong enough to protect the junk layer from volumes of skier traffic without any stabilization from skier compaction. This slide should win an award as the biggest wakeup call in the lower 48 this year. This truly could have had a devastating outcome. Here is a video of the slide:
Below is a short film of a road trip to Bridger Bowl in January. The movie includes footage of terrain below Saddle Peak. Many lines below Saddle are subject to substantial secondary exposure with limited exit chutes. Although snow conditions were fairly lean during our visit, we skied many classic lines off the ridge and even found quality pow in places thanks to our guide Sam Cox. We will definitely return for more as Bridger offers some of the most dynamic and challenging terrain in the US.
After years of anticipation it looks like the Legend may have finally completed his first ski film in over a decade. Check out the preview of Greg Stump’s latest film, Legend of Aahhhs.
Here’s video of the Lua’s Lane line, skied last Saturday morning. This is the first time that anyone has dropped in from the very top of the line rather than entering from Mole Chute. Skier two drops in from the top of Lua’s Lane at approximately eight seconds. Skier one was already on the face below, having entered Lua’s Lane from the top of Mole Chute (the chute to skier’s left).
Here are some photos. Click one one to see the high-res versions.
Despite icy conditions, skiers hucked huge cliffs — and stuck the landings fluidly — at Squaw’s freeskiing competition last week. The performances were amazing. One after another, skiers dropped big air onto hardpack and skied away. It left me wondering whether improvements in equipment had anything to do with the performances. Fat skis and dampening boots and bindings may help, but most of the credit goes to the competitors. “It’s the skiers” says Shane McConkey, “The level of skiing is much higher than it used to be when I was competing.”
Shane McConkey, Ingrid Backstrom and Andrew McLean were on Good Morning America yesterday talking about Steep. Here’s the clip:https://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4019081
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