Have you been lost in a white-out?

[snosurf 0]

I was just curious as to whether any of you guys have become lost in the clouds or a blizzard during a day skiing/boarding?

 

I have. It happened to me last year when I was hiking Hirafu Peak alone. It had just opened up after being closed due to strong wind, low vis and heavy snowfall. I'd say visibility right at the top was no more than a few metres. I was riding alone (again!) and had no water or avalanche gear (not even a whistle).

 

After I dropped in I instantly became disoriented and tricked my mind into thinking I had in fact dropped down the wrong side of the ridge. Since I couldn't see sh*t, there was no way of knowing where I was. After hiking up about 200-300m (in knee deep powder) I eventually exhausted myself and decided to ride down to the bottom and out of the clouds. I was scared almost to the point of tears and I felt quite the fool when i emerged from the mist to find myself within view of the Hirafu resort chairlifts.

 

Turned out I was never in any real danger but it just proves that when you're riding alone things can turn heavy real quick. After that, I never went out of bounds on my own again.

[YellowSnow 0]

I have been in a few, but not quite lost. One I sat out for about 2 hours behind a dam of snow and netting. Eventually crab walking on skis down the run.

 

What does get to you when you are on a run by yourself and something out of hte ordinary happens, such as a fall or a white out. Mountain faces that are in shadow or opposite the sun with a white out are the worst.

[mattlucas 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by snosurf:
I was riding alone (again!) and had no water or avalanche gear (not even a whistle).

Turned out I was never in any real danger

Interesting point of view

Not that I am one to comment on the alone part but...

[Fattwins 0]

take what the mountain gives you not what you want the mountain toi give you.

 

Whiteouts happen its best to stop and think about where you are if you ever get like that.

 

stop

think

decide

 

Skiing back country alone isnt smart but people do, do it safely but they tend to not ski the hardest areas when alone.

[montoya 0]

glad your experience didn't go pear-shaped snosurf.

 

a couple of years ago some friends got lost in white-out conditions due to fog. they skied down the wrong side and ended up spending a very cold night in a snow-cave. they mentioned they'd be f*cked if they hadn't had their shovels and a gas stove.

 

white-out due to a heavy snowstorm is not very fun. if you stick to low-angle slopes often it's too deep to ride. if you want to play on steeper slopes you risk the mtn sliding on you. if it's coming down that hard, the resort runs should have more than enough pow to keep you happy.

 

if it's a white-out from fog, sometime you can get better visibility by being in the trees. even then it's not that much fun.

[panhead_pete 27]

Had a moment In Colorado in 2000. Got a little worried but just found a tree and hung by it out of the way for a few hours as wasnt sure what else to do, luckily it cleared up and I found out where I was and was able to get out relatively simply. Had ducked the ropes and its wasnt BC as such but if Id kept going I'm sure I would have ended up in the wrong place with an uncertain outcome.

[Fattwins 0]

People get lost even in whiteouts I know guides that have gotten lost. You trying to avoid having to travel in them at all costs. At least you learned lessons and nothing happened. Even by yourself wear a beacon though, at least you give yourself the chance to be rescued.

[eskimobasecamp 0]

Have never got lost on the resort in a whiteout, i know where i am too well up there. Got caught in a whiteout in Tignes once and wasn't quite so sure. Got caught in a whiteout with Fubuki at Tateyama last November, but we just went down instead of going up any further, we both decided it was too dangerous.

[skidaisuki 0]

Haven't had the same experience, but I have been on a lift when the snow combined with fog were such that I could barely see my own skis below me. That was weird and freaky - especially the way such conditions deaden sounds you normally hear

[Fattwins 0]

ebc nobody is that good. I used to be able to ski by feel but where id end up id never know. I have gotten dizzy in a whiteout before but i didnt care cause i was very much inbounds.

[eskimobasecamp 0]

ok i never get lost on happo then except for the time that i ended up behind a dam, but that had nothing to do with whiteouts

[Ocean11 0]

I got caught in fog in the flat bit near the top of Hakuba 47 very early season once. Pretty soon I couldn't tell which way was up and which was down. And going down didn't feel like a particularly sensible thing to do in zero visibility, even on a totally empty groomer.

[AK 77 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by eskimobasecamp:
Have never got lost on the resort in a whiteout, i know where i am too well up there. Got caught in a whiteout in Tignes once and wasn't quite so sure. Got caught in a whiteout with Fubuki at Tateyama last November, but we just went down instead of going up any further, we both decided it was too dangerous.

Not getting lost in a Japanese resort is hardly a boast!
Getting lost in Tignes is more respectable - it's probably the size of all the Hakuba resorts together.

In resort and out of resort are different questions:
Never been lost in a whiteout in the BC (been a bit lost sometimes... but with good visibility, haha). If it's a whiteout, what the fkuc are you doing there anyway?

In resort, been in several whiteouts. I should be used to them having learnt to ski in Scotland, where a thick pea-soup fog means "great! it's not windy!" but they still freak you out a bit sometimes, with the sensory deprivation sea-sickness.

I was riding a kicker not far off piste (400m) near the top of Les Arcs one time, and the weather changed really quickly, and I had just hiked back up to the piste (about 10 minutes) when the fog hit. It was couple of kilometers in total of riding back down, mostly above the tree line, so few visual clues. I was on piste, but I couldnt tell if I was moving or not! I had to bend down and trail a hand on the snow to gauge speed. It's so funny you think, ok I'll stop and get my head together and then you think "why is that rock moving uphill past me?"
Not dangerous if you are careful, and on the marked runs in a resort you know, but gives your legs a wierd feeling

[torihada 2]

Was in a white out on top of a mountain in the Lake District, UK. We were using our compass to navigate when out of the gloom & snow appeared a group of hikers who walked directly across our path. We then thought that we were going the wrong way and the compass was wrong so ignored the compass and followed our instincts DOH! Then we were lost. A lot of pointless wandering around in circles eventually brought us to a ridge and a sudden break in the weather and we got our bearings. I wouldn't like to be out of bounds without my normal hiking gear (map, compass,survival bag, whistle, food etc) in a white out. I've never carried a shovel in England as we don't get that much snow. I have to say that when ever I go out (even on pisted resorts) and am carrying a small rucksac I always have a whistle and a survival bag; it's force of habit.

[SerreChe 2]

Had a weird one once. End of Season in Serre Chevalier, France many years ago with my bro. raining at lower altitude, complete white-out at the top of the resort with freezing temps. The lift seat/back cushion were soaked when I got on it, and I was wearing a very thick sweat-shirt which soaked-up all the water on the lift. When we arrived at the top of the lift, my sweat-shirt had frozen solid and I was stuck with my arms wide opened. anyway, the vis was bad but we still went down a skinny ridge that we knew by heart. That's when the vis went down to an absolute zero! It was incredible, we could not see the tip of our skis (not a figure of speech, I sh*t you not). Each sides of the ridge were very steep drop-offs. After a while down that ridge you have to veer off on the right to reach a marked trail. So we went down by feel, guessing our turn radius (the ridge was maybe 400m long and had a fairly sharp curve right) and distance. When we thought we were above the marked trail we headed right off the ridge and started going down in some crusty snow. We could not see each other and kept on trying to guess where the other was by voice. After about 300m of vert behind us we cleared the clouds and realized that we were spot on in the middle of the marked run we were aiming for! That was lucky. I must admit I was a bit stressed on that ridge, but we had a good laugh afterwards. Really weird when you make a turns going down in zero vis and try to "feel" the steepness of the slope as well as the distance covered.

[torihada 2]

SC: I've got this image of you skiing spread eagle like JC

 

There's nothing like the feeling of relief when you end up in the location you were praying for.

[dizzy 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by Fattwins:
I have gotten dizzy in a whiteout before

really? i don't remember... must not have been too bad then

[eskimobasecamp 0]

[SerreChe 2]

 Quote:

Originally posted by torihada:
SC: I've got this image of you skiing spread eagle like JC

There's nothing like the feeling of relief when you end up in the location you were praying for.

Torihada, I looked so ridiculous, we could not stop laughing. JC in a white-out! Yeah it felt great when we realized we were in the right spot.

[SerreChe 2]

Yes I have felt dizzy as well.

[damian 0]

Yo Snosurf, I might expand on what toque raised his eyebrow at:

 

 Quote:

I was hiking Hirafu Peak alone. It had just opened up after being closed due to strong wind, low vis and heavy snowfall

 Quote:

and had no ... avalanche gear

 Quote:

Turned out I was never in any real danger

I don't believe in preaching to people about how to equip themselves when off-piste. Once adequately informed, how you tackle the game is your choice and your risk.

 

So FYI, you are playing dangerous games mate and don't appear to know it ("Turned out I was never in any real danger")

 

Strong wind... heavy snowfall... previously closed terrain... alone... no avalanche gear.

 

That's one recipe for a very panicked death. Forget the fact that it was a white-out and you were a bit scared at feeling lost, that was the least of your worries. Although, having just said that, the white out doesn’t help much: you cant see terrain features like [cross] loaded ridges and convex rolls. And crew in the resort cant see if you get in an avalanche either (not that you should ever depend on that as some measure of back up).

 

On the white-out topic:

 

Not knowing if you are even sliding, or which direction, is a nasty situation. And like Montoya said, staying on low angled stuff doesn't help, especially if it deep and you keep flopping over and having to un-strap to get going again.

 

Along with standard avalanche and navigation gear, I always ride with an emergency insulated bivi sack, a metal cup, gas, micro-stove, tea bags and sugar plus extra thermals, body vest and beanie. If the worst happens in a back country white-out then staying put for the night is a perfectly safe and sensible thing to do. Keep in mind I am most often in crevassed terrain and don't like the idea of navigating out of that with zero visibility. In that situation, unless we are with an experienced local, we'd just stay put.

[Plucky 0]

yesterday at Kitzsteinhorn, Austria.

 

It cleared up later in the afternoon and I could actually see 5 meters in front of me! I didn't get lost, however. But I have before and it's not fun. The most scared I've ever been on a mountain was when I had to lead a group of 10 people down the side of an arete above the Lemon Glacier on the Juneau Icefield in absolute whiteout conditions. The so called guide had lost the wands and got us so off course as to put our lives in danger. All we could do was blindly down climb (with 75 lb packs and skis on our backs) until a safer place to hunker down could be found. I think I was the only one that realized that we may be above a hanging valley with nothing but air below us. I was scared absolutely sh*tless but had to gain my composure as a few in the group were in tears. We eventually did find a wand and ended up groping our way across the slope to a point where we could make camp. It was one of the most miserable nights of my life. I didn't listen to that east coast rich kid private college wannabe silver spoon pile of marmmot dung punk the rest of the trip as he was a complete idiot. But I have no resentment at all

[Ezorisu 0]

Got "lost" at Niseko Annupuri two years ago. It was the first time I went there, so I wasn't familiar with the trail layout. The fresh fall was so deep that it was barely possible to see the Bernoulli bump that the tip of my board made. I found a sign which I could barely read and just sat down next to it until it cleared up enough to continue. I didn't get that seasick feeling, but that soundless, sensationless motion is really unearthly.

[gerard 6]

I had to ski out of the Tonquin valley (Jasper BC, Alberta) on cross country skis (no skins) in blizzard conditions. The thing is, the evening before, the sky completely cleared after three days of overcast, so it wasn't just scary, it was a serious drag because we were sure we'd finally get to really see the scenery along the continental divide. On our return, we guessed correctly and when we got down lower, the clouds opened up and the snow had turned to rain.

[snosurf 0]

Spud and Toque -

 

You both raise some good points...The fact that I had no safety gear does indicate that i probably was in some danger, had anything gone wrong.

 

I suppose what I meant was that in hindsight, there probably wasn't anything that could've gone wrong seeing as it was a simple peak-hike run that I had done several times already in the 2 weeks before. At the time i didn't know it, but the run i'd done was completely safe. Perhaps the worst thing to come out of it was i rode about 250m of untracked waist deep powder like a grandma when i could've been making some nice turns!

 

I got lost at Annapuri a few weeks later too Ezorisu - once again, alone and with no safety gear (but this time I was riding with someone, just completely lost them right after we dropped in). It was my first time riding Annapuri bowls and so I was pretty worried here as well... fortunately after about 200m vert I was in the clear, but still lost. In the end I had one of the most epic runs of my life featuring trees, open powder slopes then long, natural half-pipe valleys all the way to the bottom. Then once I reached the bottom I took a wrong turn and followed some lines through a forest thinking I was going back to the Annapuri Gondola. But acutally, I ended up at Niseko Moiwa and bought a half day pass and rode there alone (there were 3-4 other people at the resort) for the rest of the day.

 

Man, that was a good day!