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Blog: Kessler Accident Follow-Up

Mark Staples
Director, Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center

On Thursday, March 8th, two skiers were caught in an avalanche on Kessler Peak in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Read the full report HERE. They were extremely lucky and were not injured or buried. An interesting component to this avalanche was how they got there in the first place.

Kessler Peak is a very complex mountain. Avalanche starting zones exist at a variety of elevations and many face several different directions. This terrain makes the snowpack complex, variable and difficult to assess. This terrain also makes it difficult to choose safe ascent routes. A recent study found that 3 out of 10avalanche fatalities of tourers involved people going uphill.

Because the Wasatch is a relatively crowded place, decision making is made more difficult. The party involved in the March 8th close call reflected on the avalanche and came away with several lessons learned. Theyshared them in the original report. One factor was that they were unfamiliar with the terrain and they followed a skin track set the previous day. They are not alone in doing so. We all take advantage of skin tracks for ease of travel and in navigating new terrain. (As a relative newcomer to the Wasatch, I frequently follow other's skin tracks. -MS)

Below is an email exchange between the originator of the skin track and our staff regarding the incident. The person who wrote it agreed to let us share it. We sincerely appreciate the willingness of all the parties involved to share their thoughts so that we all might learn from this close call. Reflection about these events is a powerful way for us to learn as individuals. Sharing our stories with each other is a powerful way for us to learn as a community. Thank you.

Follow up after the avalanche:

Email to UAC staff:

I’d like to buy new skis and bindings for the skier who lost his in the Chutes and Ladders slide. Could you put me in touch with him?

Staff Response:

That is incredibly kind and generous. We really appreciate your offer to that skier. It really helps us work on building a community in which we can share stories and report accidents without shame. It’s very powerful and we can’t express how much our entire staff appreciates your offer.

We forwarded your email to him.

Reply to staff response:

Well, you see, I was the one that set the skin track that took them into danger. Like them, I didn't know the area well and when I skinned it on Wednesday (to ski Catcher's Mitt, one of the best runs of my life), we started too far to the looker's left, coming up through Chutes and Ladders. We had a moment when we had to decide which way to go and we skinned over into trees, then across the face (where the avalanche broke) back to the ridge line leading into Catcher's Mitt. I knew as I was doing it that it was a terrible choice, but we had boxed ourselves in (ironically, by trying to get to a safe place). So we tried to make the best of it by going one by one across the face. I had my heart in my mouth the entire time.

Now that I've done it, and have seen the terrain by day (we started dawn patrol and were skinning up in the dark, going off the WBSkiing map to try to figure out the ridge line to follow up), I would skin it very differently, and perhaps would skip it altogether by following a better track up Argenta and dropping in through East Couloir as three other skiers did an hour or so after we had left the area on Wednesday. This experience has taught me many lessons (fed, in part, by your excellent write-up).

I know they needed to make their own choice as to where to skin up. I also think they were unwise to go out with the rapidly heated snow. BUT I also know that I did them a disservice by (unintentionally) setting a terrible skin track for them to follow, and I've done my fair share of dumb things touring, so I'd be a kettle calling the pot black if I were to try to blame them.

I can't imagine how much worse I'd feel if they'd been hurt. Replacing skis is cheap by comparison. I hope they'll reach out to me to let me get them some new gear.