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Just based on that short video I would say the following...

 

I treat a snowpack like I'd treat a random nutcase that approaches me with a knife in the street I.e. until i know I can trust you, I'm going to treat you like you could kill me.

 

- an early season snowpack is a thin snowpack

- a thin snowpack is a dangerous snowpack, possibly some dangerous facets lurking (with fresh snow on top)

- there'd clearly been fresh snow with wind-loading.

- that aspect had obviously had some solar warming.

- looked like some nasty terrain traps.

 

It's certainly got a lot of red flags about it.

 

Of course I'm not there so this is only based on a 30 sec shaky video, it's always easy to "Monday morning quarterback" this stuff.

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I also saw it on the news, and as Method said it's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, but I'd really like to know more about the line they were still hiking up? skiing? at the time, and snowpack conditions. I can only imagine what their families and friends are going through right now. Very sad. RIP :(

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The reports are starting to come online for this accicent. I helped call in the Helicopter for a friend that was a first responder. I can only asume what happened but I dont truly know so I wont go into it.

It was a stressfull time that day as the first phone call I got was from Evergreen Outdor Center saying that my best friend involved in some sort of Avalanche. I cant stress enough how gutted I was for

a few seconds. I quickly called him and he picked up. He informed me that there was a very big avlanche and people are buried. That he didnt know how many but please get me a helicopter. ACT and

Evergreen were contacted again and got the right people to the area but it was too late. A sad start to season.

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least buried person 3 about 1 meter down most buried person 3 meters. The reports will come out on the JAN website at some point let them piece it together. It did release on a faceted layer that was quite hard that report is out there on JAN.

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Not really tubs.

The weak layer would have been destroyed and the facets would have been either destroyed or modified by the temperature change that it would have undertaken.

It would be very interesting to monitor what actually happens there and also to check slopes in thecsame aspect to see if time has helped the snowpack or if there is a persistent problem

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2m is a massive crown, hence why the avalanche was a size 3, that's massive. In most cases, not survivable even if someone was able to dig you out swiftly. A tragic situation and my heart goes out to the families of those involved.

 

Fantastic that the JAN gave us an english translation (thank you JAN :thumbsup: ), it's my one wish that we could get a region-by-region daily summary (using the North American avalanche public danger scale i.e. low, moderate, considerable, high, extreme) with a short précis of current conditions (primary and secondary problems e.g. Loose Dry, Wind Slabs, Persistent Slabs etc ) in english such as you would get on avalanche.ca. Yes I'm aware of the niseko avalanche report, and this is a fantastic resource which I read every day I'm in that area, but to get a more "standardised" regional report (at least for say western hokkaido, eastern hokkaido, hakuba, myoko, gunma, hakkoda) would be a great improvement in safety for the ever increasing numbers of non-Japanese backcountry users.

 

 

 

Not really tubs.

 

Until there's a cold, clear night followed by a storm or there's little to no snow for a while and it's really cold (promotes formation of depth hoar in a thin snowpack)… You would have to be certifiable to head out in this area until there's more snow and the snowpack has had time to stabilise. The most solid predictor of avalanche activity is… well, and this is going to sound stupid, avalanche activity.

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Japan cant even string together 2 lifts on the same hill with the same lift pass.

It would need funding. Im sure the government employs avalanche people but they would be focused on road safety IMO. I doubt they care a lot for people doing bc snow activities

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  • SnowJapan Admin

It would be great to have more of that information readily available.

 

We have actually tried to reach out to try with a view to posting more of that kind of info on SnowJapan, however limited it is - in the same way that we are able to provide the Niseko avalanche reports on our Niseko Now report page each day in season - but without any success.

 

Regarding links. This thread isn't any different from others, so it's not a link directory. If you really want to post one, contact me and ask me before posting it. Sorry, there are various reasons for this that I have gone over previously. I know that some people get all worked up over that and we have also had that conversation before, but sorry - that's the decision we have made. We are the ones operating the site and also know what goes on offline, not people just using it.

 

Thanks.

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