Avalanche

We just watched it.

What is different at "Alpine" today?
Well, it's no longer Alpine Meadows anymore, its one half of Palisades Tahoe with a long gondola connecting it to the old Squaw Valley.
But I was wondering the same thing about the structures. Did they build back out of the avi zone? I was there a few seasons ago. Awesome place. If I knew what I know. now, I'd try too find where that building was.
A few skiers got buried and killed at Taos a few years ago up near the bottom of Kachina. My instructor told us that he was up there and it happened while he was on the lift. Gruesome day for him and anybody who was near there, poking around with probes trying to find the guys.
 
I worked there as a liftie in 94/95. They rebuilt the mountain operations building in a different spot. At least then the lodge, parking lots, lifts etc were all in the same place. They took avalanches very seriously at that point but I think they took them pretty seriously all along. That was just a monster storm and all four slides breaking loose together to form one giant mass has to be a low probability event.
 
A few skiers got buried and killed at Taos a few years ago up near the bottom of Kachina. My instructor told us that he was up there and it happened while he was on the lift. Gruesome day for him and anybody who was near there, poking around with probes trying to find the guys.
That must have been chilling.

I was skiing Taos a couple days after the avalanche in January 2019. Hard to see in the photo, but they had only recently groomed out the area near the top of the Lift 4. It was easy to see where the snow broke free and how far the slide ran into that area.

There are more gas explosive devices set up on Kachina now.

Taos Kachina slide Jan2019 - 1.jpeg
 
That ^^ pretty much answers my question @Brownski.

The movie seems to imply that "Alpine" is more prone to avy then other Tahoe ski areas including "Squaw." I wondered if that was true, and if so, how have they avoided another destructive slide for so many years. Have they had other big avy's since '82?
 
The deaths of the three condo dwellers out for a walk (two men, one child, and it resulted in a successful lawsuit against the mountain) justifies Alta's interlodge law to me. Puts the legal responsibility on the avi victim if they decide to put themselves in danger. I wonder if this incident and lawsuit inspired the law?
 
The deaths of the three condo dwellers out for a walk (two men, one child, and it resulted in a successful lawsuit against the mountain) justifies Alta's interlodge law to me. Puts the legal responsibility on the avi victim if they decide to put themselves in danger. I wonder if this incident and lawsuit inspired the law?
From what I can find on the Internet, the original Town of Alta Interlodge law dates from 1980.

When did the deaths you are thinking about happen?
 
Wow that was a well done documentary. Amazing even 1 person survived.
I remember seeing this on the news when I was 8. While watching it I was telling Jessica that I thought I remembered that they found one or two people still alive which really made the tragedy seem less tragic and gave the story a bit of silver lining. That’s one of those very random memories that somehow stuck.

I’m going to say that I bet in similar storms now they quickly close off public and most employee access as soon as things are looking sketchy. The whole base and access road are below serious avalanche terrain.
 
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