East Angle Avi: The Rest of the Story

East Angle Avalanche
East Angle Mountain, Togwotee Pass- Absaroka Range
December 8th, 2007

The following pictures are from my camera on the day that Chuck and I triggered and got caught in the avalanche on East Angle Mountain. Jeramie Prine took a hike in the area this summer and recovered my camera, board and gloves- all of the items that were lost and buried as I went for a ride down the mountain. Thanks Jeramie!

Amazingly enough the camera still worked. I went back over my rather hasty, but sincere, account of the incident and tried to cut and paste parts of the story to match the photos. Kind of eerie considering we're pretty lucky to have survived it all. They could've been the last pictures there ever were of us. Yikes! Glad they weren't.

East Angle Mt early in the morning on December 8th, 2007.

Looking at East Angle from where we parked.

"Chuck hadn't been skiing yet this year and it'd been a couple of weeks for me- so we decided we'd better get out. It snowed pretty heavy in Lander the night before and the roads to Togwotee weren't that good. We decided rather than bring snow machines for this trip, that we'd just take my Subaru and go somewhere off the road. Skies were clearing when we went over Togwotee. It was cold, but quickly turning blue bird. We decided we'd better take a stab at East Angle Mountain again."

Our route up.

"Last year in January we triggered a good avalanche on East angle, while skinning up. Due to our route selection though, we came out of that one unscathed. Today the snow pack was very different. For one, it really wasn't that deep. Two or three feet in the deep spots- one a foot in some places. There were some skiers ahead of us, folks from Riverton and Jackson, I knew the guys from Riverton. We followed their skin track in for a while. When we reached the bottom of the big slide path, conditions were looking good, so we decided to pursue our own route more directly up the mountain- next to the slide path. Since we were thinking about skiing it, I thought it'd make more sense to go up next to it, so we could assess it on the way up."

A look up the slide path and potential decent lines on our way up.

We proceeded to go up in the trees on the looker's right.

"Skinning up went fine. Occasionally in pockets, or where the snow was shallow, we'd get some light woomping and cracking. Some of the skiers ahead of us reported some heavier woomfing on the other side of the gully. We dismissed their warning though, especially after following their skin track to where they crossed the slide path gully in a terrible risky place. We continued up. All along the way I did pole tests and hasty pits. There was a week layer near the ground, but it didn't seem to do much- especially in deeper snow."

Chuck making his way up.

"Once near the summit we boot packed up the side of the gully/ slide path that was more exposed to the wind. I felt pretty safe on that side, since it really didn't have much snow on it. When we reached the summit, we discussed digging a pit, but really the snow up top wasn't anything like most of what we'd be boarding on. We did notice a smaller recent avi on a similar aspect- just a pocket though. Dismissed it. Why? Dunno. Dumb. I decided to board up and try some other quick tests on our way down."

Getting close to the top.

Chuck on the summit, making the switch to ride down.

Super thankful this wasn't my last summit.

"After dropping to the start of big loading zone and what looked like awesome snow, I pulled up. I assessed the slope and bounced it a little. Nothing happened. I figured I'd try a ski cut. I looked for a safe spot on the other side of the gully and then went for it. I hucked off a three or four foot cornice on the slope with thud and then slid across the gully. Nothing. I figured it was pretty solid if my thud didn't bust anything loose. So, after that, I went for it. I carved in a bunch of really nice turns. Things were feeling solid, so I pulled up at the base of the top part of wind loaded zone and told Chuck to go for it. This was probably my biggest mistake. I should have found a safer spot and/or continued down while Chuck could spot me."

Chuck rides. If you click on photos you can enlarge them. You can see our boot track- far lookers right. You can also see my line. You can see where I launched off the cornice and landed hard. In retrospect now, I can see where Chuck went down the most loaded aspect of the slope. Something my huck and cut didn't do much to test.

Great snow and great turns, while they lasted!

One of the last things I remember seeing before hearing the dreaded "Woompf". It's really difficult to determine, but if you click on the photo- you may be able to make out the faint cracks that became the crown. This photo was taken literally seconds before we were caught.

"Chuck made some great turns down to me, and then threw in a big stop. Seconds later... KAWOOMPF! The whole mountain was going. Chuck said, "Oh shit!". I thought the same thing."

To read the rest of my account of the avalanche, follow the link back to December 2007 on the blog- East Angle Avi Story

This was actually the first photo that was on my camera. I took it the night before we left. Glad we made it!