Senior POWDER Correspondent Hans Ludwig, who has been skiing on Tioga Pass since 1993, reports on a skier rescue in 'Cocaine Chute' off of the Dana Plateau.
Ludwig: The video below was released by Mono County Search and Rescue earlier this week from a skier rescue on Tioga Pass in California.
Click here to read the entire incident report from the Mono County Sheriff Search and Rescue Team.
Although this looks to be a fairly straightforward accident and rescue, there’s a lot to learn from this incident.
Tioga will be opening on the east side soon, attracting skiers who want to take advantage of the concentration of steep lines and potential for car shuttle runs from the top of the 10,000’ pass.
Guidebooks, Instagram, and FOMO have all led to the Pass becoming a spring destination, with many skiers aiming for the steep and sustained couloirs off the Dana Plateau, of which this is the mellowest.
Losing a ski or falling on the steeper lines there would likely be fatal, and this unfortunate soul is lucky to be (more or less) in one piece.
As the snowpack consolidates and avalanche danger eases we tend to turn down our safety meters—hey, it’s spring, time for fun. Bigger snow safety margins lead to bigger terrain and risk, but that can seem a lot more innocuous when you’re skinning up in shorts for a fun group ski.
The big lines on Tioga are are incredibly aesthetic, plummeting between granite walls toward the surreal mirror of Mono Lake in the desert below. In the right conditions when the corn is shimmering and glimmering they are great runs. But if the snow is refrozen, rotten, or you have a gear or balance issue, the margins are slim. Everything is subject to rock fall, and every line has a different window when the snow is edgeable and not ready to wet slide.
In this case the (reported) scenario is fairly simple—losing a ski on firm snow/steep terrain above rocks. I love my AT gear, but this is a really bad place to find out that there’s some ice in your toe piece, or you didn’t fully close the toe, or your tension setting is a little light.
I love the skiing on Tioga, it’s a really amazing place. I hope people come and enjoy the spring skiing window up there and have tons of fun.
I also really hope they understand that it’s not the place to test your skills, or your gear, or to introduce a shaky friend to steep skiing. On just about every line your first turn of the day will be the steepest and most consequential.
As the video shows well, Mono County SAR is awesome—let’s not make them schlep up there any more this spring. Lock your toes (or use proper alpine gear), and practice those hop turns. If you're standing on top of a 50 degree entrance and it looks refrozen, you've still got a lot of options. But once you drop in, there's only one...
-Senior POWDER Correspondent Hans Ludwig
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