Sketchy

 It’s been pretty deep out in the Sierra’s as of late. Deep is good but sometimes the conditions don’t match up with the safety factor. Our last session out at Sonora was quite the wake up call. The first morning we were hitting a jump and one of our friends was hiking around the side of our run-in. All was going well until a 2-3ft. deep slab broke out from under him. The whole slope slid, down to the rocks, for 300 ft. Luckily he was able to scramble above the moving mess and escaped unharmed.

The next day we were hitting another jump onto a big open landing. This jump had been hit previous to the recent storm and after digging a pit conditions seemed doable. Wrong. After 6 jumps my friend Peter sketched a bit on the landing and the whole slope slid. The crown was 7-9Ft. deep and slid 400 ft. down. Here’s a photo of the mess afterwards. Nobody was hurt but man were we freaked out. The crazy thing is how the slope slid down to an ice layer that fell at the beginning of Nowember. We had been worried about this layer for the whole season and it didn’t raise it’s ugly head til now. Rest assured we will be taking even further precautions moving into the belly of the season.

GT