Avalanche Areas Below Tree Line
Posted: January 14, 2009 Filed under: Avalanche Control | Tags: Avalanche Control, comer's, Lake Louise 7 Comments »In the wake of the storm that left over 60cm of new snow on the mountain, the avalanche forecaster was forced to consider parts of the mountain that normally aren’t a problem with regards to avalanche hazard. While many of the places are in the alpine, there are also a few that are tucked away in hard-to-find pockets hidden in the woods. While hard to find, they’re still in open terrain, so must be considered when planning the day’s avalanche control. Four of these areas are located on the front side of the mountain - Midstation Pocket to the skier’s right of Men’s Downhill, Ladies’ Pocket to the skier’s right of Ladies’ Downhill, Comer’s below Eagle Meadows cat track, and Paradise Pocket just above Pine Cone Way. These pitches aren’t big enough to attract those looking for untouched powder, but they are big and steep enough to avalanche and do get traffic nonetheless.
Comer's
On Saturday, two of us headed towards Comer’s and Paradise Pocket, since both can be controlled on the same lap. Dropping into Comer’s, there was lots of snow, and it was also apparent that there had been traffic throughout the storm, stabilizing the snow. Ski cuts here did not produce any results. Moving down to Paradise Pocket* the signs of traffic became less and less, and when we arrived at the top of the slope, we were pretty sure we’d get results.
Since the pocket looms directly over Pine Cone Way, we called a patroller to do a spot closure at the top of the run. A spot closure is just a temporary and usually brief closure of a run with a patroller standing guard rather than setting up closure fences and signage. Once the run was secured, we began by putting a ski cut across the top of the slope, which produced an immediate result as most of the feature avalanched the full length of the pitch. The skier’s left 1/3 of the slope did not slide, so I ski cut the top and got all of that to go as well. The debris ran to within a metre or two of Pine Cone Way, so not only were we glad to have closed the run, but also to have controlled the slope and removed any avalanche hazard.
The next photos are of Paradise Pocket before and after the avalanche, and you can see in the first how close the pitch is to Pine Cone Way. And, a short video (0:10) shows the first ski cut getting a good result.
Paradise Pocket - before.
Paradise Pocket - after.
It’s always good to go to places that are seldom visited in the course of a work day – there’s always something to be learned.
*It may seem strange that a pocket on the front side is named after a chair on the back side, but Paradise Pocket was named long before the chair of the same name existed. Perhaps it was named after Paradise Valley by Mt. Temple?
