Yesterday's Avalanche Training - Adults Playing in Snow

Yesterday's avalanche training at Monarch Pass turned epic with 40" of snow in the last 72 hours, 24" in the last 24 hours, 20-30 mph winds, with gusts to 45 and 18 degree temperatures. Now you may think that this would be cause to re-schedule, but the thought is that we may be working in these types of condition, so we should train in them.

Leaving home it was had to believe what it would be like, since it was bright and the sun was out.

We stopped at Mac and Don's on the way to Monarch, and I had the opportunity to try out their new oatmeal breakfast, not sure if this really turned out to be an opportunity.

As many of you know I did a review of oatmeal's (Jamba, Starbucks, Caribou) a couple of years ago, and I thought this would be a great time to try the largest food retailer in the worlds offering.

In a nutshell, this is the worst excuse for oatmeal I have ever had. It was soupy(Actually, I have had thicker soups.) to the extreme with some cut up apples and berry's (I think). It is an embarrassment for MacDonald's to even think about serving this poor example (not sure it could even be considered an example) of oatmeal. It was thrown away.

So, Pat how did you really feel about MacDonald's Oatmeal.

In the five miles between Salida and Poncha Spring the world changed. The sky went overcast and the road was now snow covered. We began the slog up Hwy 50 to Monarch Pass.

This I suppose should have been expected with it being Saturday, and the prodigious snow fall in the previous days...everyone was out for fresh pow.

We had taken off earlier then the rest of the team because we needed to pick up an ice axe purchased off of craigslist in Salida.

Being the first ones at the pass we were the first to

get stuck in the parking area, since I could not see

anything and drove into a snow bank and had to dig out.

We were also the second to get stuck, since after digging us out, I backed into another snow bank.

By the time I dug out this time the others had shown up, and the my first error of the day became apparent.

It was snowing hard and I had not put on my waterproof coat while shoveling during the excursions into the various snow banks. I was now real wet. As we geared up I put on a gore tex pants and coat over the wet fleece I had been wearing. The wet underneath would turn to ice as the day progressed.

We hit the trail about 10am...wait there was no trail only unbroken snow.

We spent the morning breaking trail up the eastern side of the pass in the area of the summer chairlift.

Even in snowshoes with deep snow extensions on their tails, when breaking trail you would sink in to your thighs. If you weren't breaking trail it wasn't as bad. We did though trade off lead often, but it still made for a burn.

We were carrying 24 hour packs (everything needed to survive 24 hours in the current environment), which helped to add to the calorie burn, during the hike up the slope to the area we would use for training.

The folks down in the parking lot, who were going back-country skiing, wisely waited for us to make a trail that they could skin-up afterwards.

Marlys is turning into quite the little snow bunny.

Yes, Marlys is carrying a 24 hour pack and is using the snowshoes she got for Christmas about 10 years ago.

Although the last two avalanche training sessions we have used our gore tex lined backpacking boots, you need to keep moving to keep your feet warm. Note to selves: Get plastic mountaineering boots for next year.

Those of you who know Marlys, know she can get cold in 90 degree weather, if the sun goes behind a cloud, so you can really appreciate her ability to work in these conditions.

By this point our Camelbaks had frozen up, and that was the only liquid we had brought up. Marlys would solve this dilemma later, which saved our bacon, especially mine since I can dehydrate easily and quickly, leading to the dreaded stomach cramps and need to find a tree. Which I would end up having to do later in the day. This would mean undressing the lower half, wearing snowshoes, on a slope, in these conditions, it would be...uncomfortable. I now appreciate Marlys' hunt for women's clothing with a trapped door. If you know of any drop a line.

We got to a place that was fairly sheltered and packed it down to serve as an area to operate out of for the day. The skiers and boarders would stop and check in at this packed down area all day. There was even a chocolate Lab that couldn't seen to get enough of the snow each time it went by.

This didn't mean the hard work was over.

We now could get started on the avalanche training.

Last time (a month ago) we spent the time practicing with avalanche beacons, snow probes and shovels. This time we were going to do that again, adding in searches for victims without beacons.

A little soapbox time. Don't even think about going into the back-country without being equipped and knowing how to use an avalanche beacon. You and your skiing, boarding, snowshoeing, snowmobiling(largest group of victims) partners are the people who have a chance at saving a life...time is short when buried. We have watched a number of real-life avalanche rescue videos over the last two months and the chances of your partners finding and getting you unburied without a beacon is very low. Generally by the time a trained SAR Team can get there, it will more then likely be a body recovery versus a rescue.

The work of the morning began with the snow pits being dug to assess the different layers of snow for stability.

Two pits were dug in different locations. Both had to be dug to ground. Marlys' group chose correctly, as the Crusader said in the Indiana Jones movie.

Therefore, it could be surmised my group did not.

Our pit ended up being between 9-10 feet deep. This means moving a lot of snow...while wearing snowshoes...using little shovels...with short handles...with three full grown (maybe I am a little more then full grown-by girth) men doing this dance standing in a pit. I am amazed no one took a shovel hit.

Marlys and her group dug their pit on a open slop, They barely had to go Marlys deep (5') to hit ground.

After the pits are dug, a number of readings are taken; e.g. temperatures and gradients, snow crystals inspection (there is even this microscope type of gadget), credit card test for layer assessment etc.

Then we dug to create a block of snow for a slide test. Will the digging never stop.

This went pretty quickly.

We broke for a rest and some lunch...Marlys and I had frozen PB&J's.

Benny though showed us his premium three layer PB&J that he had learned needed to be made with PB on both sides of the center slice of bread to prevent soggy center slices.

It is amazing what we learn out here.

This is also where Marlys taught me how to drink out of a Camelbak with a frozen hose. She is amazing, and this did save my bacon (but not before the dreaded tree visit). Note to self, you either need to bring liquids in bottles or a long straw.

After this rest, standing around in the snow, with skiers going by asking what the pits were telling us, it was back to the snow pits.

The last test involved someone standing on top of the blocks we had dug out and stomping to see if and where the snow would slide.

Ours did at about the two foot level, but it took a bit of jumping to get it going. All-in-all pretty stable at this point on the mountain, at this time, etc (many qualifiers needed here).

Before Marlys and Samatha would collapse their pit they wanted to have a portrait of their work.

Theirs too collapsed, but it was pretty stable in their area.

And in keeping with "leave no trace". We got to put the snow that had been shoveled out of the pits...back into them. This went quicker.

The rest of the afternoon was spent doing different rescue scenarios, running around in snowshoes up, down, across the slope looking for beaconed buried victims.

We ended the day with a two victim search, one with a beacon and one without. It took us 17 minutes to find and extract them both. I found the beacon-less victim (a buried backpack). I would like to say it was do to skill and experience, but.....

About 4pm we called it a day and headed to the Salida Cafe for some warm coffee, then home. It was a great day playing in the snow. I was a beat puppy, but Marlys was still her normal exuberant self.

I think our next alpine training is going to be on St. Mary's Glacier to work on self-arrests, roping up, belaying, etc. in the snow. We are on the look out for another ice axe and two pairs of crampons...hello craiglist/ebay.

Note: I mentioned all the qualifiers on the testing for avalanche conditions. Well yesterday there were two avalanches at Monarch Pass and one caught a skier, luckily a DOT crew saw his ski pole sticking out of the snow and got him out.

Strange Hawaiian Petroglyphs

What can I tell you, when you are walking lava covered beaches you tend to look down (so as not to face plant) and you can see things that can cause you to question your reality plane.

While walking a beach on the west side of Hawaii, in the Kona district we came upon a number of petroglyphs, actually rock engravings, but I don't know what those are called.

One of the first ones we came upon would/should be part of a "Chariots of the Gods" investigation for the History Channel, as it appeared to represent an alien being.

Not sure how old it may be, but as you can see it has Spook-like ears, an SNL cone-head cranium shape and if you look closely there are faint antenna like "My Favorite Martian".

I guess if I were visiting earth, why go to somewhere the weather is an issue , e.g. Minnesota in January. I too would land in Hawaii as I guess these extraterrestrials did sometime in the distany past.

The next rock engraving changed how I understood that spread of Christianity to the islands. I always understood it to be Catholic Missionaries in the 1800's.

This engraving would seem to indicate that the Lutherans made it here first, and far earlier then the 1800's, it is a rock engraving after all.

From the looks of it, it was probably the same Lutheran sect that now makes the little chrome plastic fish seen on many car bumpers.

We didn't find any with the minnows following so that must be a more recent addition.

The last engraving I found the most amazing. I always understood the initial discovers, from my small understanding of island history, to be the Polynesian tribes moving north from the South Pacific islands to lay claim to the Hawaiian Islands.

This engraving would indicate that another tribe made it here also, namely the Martini's. I felt proud of this since, I to partake in one of there current daily worship sessions called "Happy Hour".

I think this also proves that the sacred drink should always be drank "up" and with an "olive", although I am not sure where they got olives on the islands, but may indicate the Martini Tribe developed in the Mediterranean area.

Winter Encampment 2011 & Dash - Kona

The end of January the retirement roadshow moved from Colorado to Kona, HI, for a week.

The warm, humid weather we faced getting off the plane was in sharp contrast to the day before, where we were doing on-mountain avalanche training at Monarch Pass.

The objective for the trip was to do a shorter version of the Cannonball Baker Sea to Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash. In our case it was going to be from the south side of the island, to the north end. We had the whole week to accomplish the feat.

We started the event by first provisioning at Costco, which was made easier by our traveling companions, Bill and Cathy from Buurmidji, MN. Cathy brought this amazing clown car of a suitcase that she kept pulling things out of from food to coolers.

Also they had the Costco membership.

On the way to provision we also rolled into Aloha Woods, where I picked up some Chocolate Heart, Koa and Macadamian wood to feed my current OCD phase around bottle openers. This of course required the purchase of another suitcase to get the lumber back to Colorado.

After the torture of provisioning, we could not start the Dash. We spent the rest of the day lounging by the pool and since we didn't want to start in the dark, the start time of the Dash was put off until the next day.

Our starting point for the Dash would be South Point, the most southerly spot in the U.S.A. After a bright and early start (we were still on Central and Mountain Time), we got there a little before 11AM for the official start. There were no starting flags or cannon shots, since we were going low key to avoid attracting the attention of anyone wishing to derail our attempt at the establishing the Big Island Dash record.

We simple took a picture.

Then the team, with the clock now ticking, decided a hike to a noted Green Sand Beach was in order. We anticipated doing this pretty quickly, so it shouldn't hurt our overall time too much...and what the heck we were here, it was here, so why not.

About four hours later we made it back to the car. The beach turned out to be a 6.39 mile round trip hike on volcanic rocks and sand. It always seemed to be over the next ridge.

We jumped back into the magical Mazda and off we went. Actually, we kinda slumped into the car and decided to have a picnic lunch in the AC it provided. But by mid-afternoon we were on our way north.

Late afternoon brought us back to the Kona area and we had gone about 60 miles in a couple of hours. Long, traffic free stretches of road on which to open up the Magic Mazda did not seem to be happening. We decided to call it a day, and retire to the condo instead of continuing in the dark and possibly hitting a wild goat or donkey, on what we anticipated to be a fast transit across the lava field north of Kailua.

After waking the next day, and realizing we may have over done it yesterday, we decided to take a Bye Day (just like the NFL) and went to a beach that Bill-Our-Leader had picked out. It would also allow us to scout the area just north of Kona for the next leg of the Dash.

Our overall elapse time was suffering a little bit as we were now 48 hours into the Dash and only covered about 60 miles, but it was felt we could make it up at the end.

The pressure of the Dash was starting to weight on the team. In order to put us in the right frame of mind we went on a tour and beer tasting at Kona Brewing. This went well! We were especially fascinated by their rodent control management system, which seemed to be everywhere at once. Here in Colorado we would have used a cat, but they had a real machine, an Indian Mongoose running around. I have since looked into getting a breeding pair for Pinon Rock, but alas they cannot be brought into the US (Other then zoos) as they can be detrimental to cat union, and tend to decimate the local critter populations.

We awoke the next day with only thoughts of getting back into the running on the Dash...you betcha. No, the team decided after a day soaking in the sun and tasting the local barley pops, another rest day was in order.

Even the NFL teams take a whole week, so what would another day mean in the scope of things.

We went looking for volcano's and beaches with different color sands and since we knew the way south we ended up backtracking the only progress made so far on the Dash...back to South Point and points east.

We did though scout an alternative route on the way back, through Hilo and the Saddleback for our return once we make to the North Headlands of the island, but it too proved for naught.

At the end of this bushwhacking through Hilo rush hour, road construction and the abdication of our leader (Bill), we decided to re-group back at the condo. The lack of a clear leader and chain of command would prove to be challenging in the days ahead.

We were now 72 hours into the dash and have gone only 60 net miles, an average of only .833 miles per hour. The team knew we were way off the bubble, but hey tomorrow is another day.

After the trials and tribulations of the day before the now leader-less team decided another day at the beach was order. We took another rest day to contemplate...well things.

For those keeping score at home we were now 96 hours into the Dash, and made only 60 miles toward our goal...boy, do we suck at this Dash thing.

So here we are with only two days left to complete the journey and what does the leader-less team decide to do...you got it, lets take another rest day to recharge for what would be our final push to gain the finish before getting back to the airport on Sunday night for the red-eyes home.

As the team seems want to do on rest days...we went to the beach. Here we discovered some unusual petroglyph's that will be covered in a subsequent post, due to their importance.

Score: 120 hours - 60 miles.

So it is now our last day on the island, the team hit the road bright and early, at the crack of noon.

Our travel up the previous scouted route (it has now been scouted 3 times, while on the way to our favorite beach) went uneventfully, right up to the point a detour to Waimea was decided upon by the leader-less team. And a stop for lunch. And to watch the first quarter of the Superbowl. This detour cost us the most direct route to the finish line, we now had to transit an up-mountain area to get back on course.

I won't keep you in suspense, we did make it to the finish line, as this picture of the headlands can attest. It was a journey with many different turns to it, especially since we were leader-less.

The final finishing time was just under 144 hours to cover approximated 120 net miles for an average speed of .833 MPH. We never made up our time deficit from the first day, but the team endeavored to finish no matter the obstacle.

We were able to limp back to the airport with our heads held high...we had finished!

On to the next adventure.