Some Pics from Mt. Washington, NH

[peter]

Bit of a blustery weekend in New Hampshire:

http://pic1.piczo.com/mcmac-in-france/?g=27747393

photos curtesy of Dave Reid and Peter McVey

[prof]

Cheers for the account Peter. It looks like you had an entertaining stay. Pity you had to start so late each day but I guess that's all part of the deal. I liked the response from the avalanche guy

[chossmonkey]

Nice trip report.

[Rich]

looks badass!

[waterat]

Pete... upon reading the account and looking at the snaps, it would seem that we had NH weather here in Scotland and you got the usual shite we get !...pity....ha ha ha ...welcome to my world.

[Elvis]

FYI, from the international scale

-Moderate
Natural avalanches unlikely. Human triggered avalanches possible.

Use caution in steeper terrain on certain aspects.

-Considerable

Natural avalanches possible. Human triggered avalanches probable.

Be increasingly cautious in steeper terrain.


-High
Natural and human triggered avalanches likely.

Travel in avalanche terrain is not recommended.


-Extreme
Widespread natural or human triggered avalanches certain.

Travel in avalanche terrain should be avoided and confined to low angle terrain, well away from avalanche path runouts.


More info at http://www.avalanche.ca
E.

[Elvis]

Further to my last,

New storm snow can take from 24 to 36 hrs to settle. So waiting for a few hours and then going up is probably not a great idea. Then going up and climbing in terrain traps like a gully (natural funnel for an Avi) is also a bad idea.

If the hazard is considerable and higher then indeed you need to be avoiding terrain traps and waiting for conditions to improve.

Good to see that no one got hurt.

Keep your head up out there.

E.

[peter]

Thanks for the feedback on the avalanche risk.

The advice we received was that if the route had avalanched already, apparent from debris or otherwise, it would probably be safe to climb, as the gullies are narrow, the accumulation/transport not huge, and multiple slides in the same area unlikely. We waiting only to give it a chance to slide.

The centre had slid in some parts of North Gully, but not all. There was clear ice to climb in several sections. It was only the deep snow at the top that spooked me, but we only climbed a small section of that. We anchored mainly on rock, at sheltered locations.

Judgement was called for, no doubt about it.

[Elvis]

Hello Peter,

Hear is a link to a online tool that I sometimes use to make decisions in Avi terrain.

http://www.avalanche.ca/default.aspx?DN ... ,Documents

Looks like you scored a 4 out of 7 to me... not sure where you got your "advice" from but sounds to me like you might of been misguided into thinking that route was a safer option??

Food for thought.

E.

Thanks for the feedback on the avalanche risk.

The advice we received was that if the route had avalanched already, apparent from debris or otherwise, it would probably be safe to climb, as the gullies are narrow, the accumulation/transport not huge, and multiple slides in the same area unlikely. We waiting only to give it a chance to slide.

The centre had slid in some parts of North Gully, but not all. There was clear ice to climb in several sections. It was only the deep snow at the top that spooked me, but we only climbed a small section of that. We anchored mainly on rock, at sheltered locations.

Judgement was called for, no doubt about it.