killclimbz

Seth Lightcap got a broken pelvis last season for not paying attention to the terrain he was was traveling in while riding in Japan. He's put up a pretty good video at Jones snowboards.



Link to the story: Avalanche Awareness: The Human Factor | Jeremy Jones

Well worth your time.

chupacabraman

Really good watch, thanks for sharing.

lethies91

May I ask what they mean by a Gully?

dreampow

good reminder before I get out there next week.

linvillegorge

A gully is basically a big ditch. They don't use that term in Maryland?

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roremc

I finished my AST1 course today and the human factor was mentioned quite a bit. The guides who were very experienced relayed a lot of stories like the one above. Where people got careless and didn't head the warnings around them. Unlike this guy many of them died.

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So many runs so little time.

lethies91

Does it run up and down the mountain or does it run across. We use the word gully but not in the sense of it being something that's at high avalanche risk. There's not enough snow to have avalanches.

killclimbz

Gully's typically run up and down a mountain. The risk is that they are a terrain trap. If an avalanche path funnels into a gully you could be buried deep, very deep. Some people have been buried riding in a gully like a half pipe. The walls above them gave away and caught them roughly at the flat bottom. Instant 10ft deep burial that is very hard to dig a person out of. In bigger gullies, say like the one that runs below the Mines Avalanche paths at Berthoud Pass, could put 30+ feet of snow on top of you.

lethies91

thanks for the info. I always enjoy learning more and now I'll know for when I go out west.

Tarzanman

"Gully" is a standard English word. It probably doesn't see much use in more urban areas where the land has been cleared/filled/etc for development.

One difference between a ditch and a gully (at least the way I use the terms) is that you wouldn't call something big enough to swallow up multiple aircraft or half a neighborhood a 'ditch'.