Sunday, February 9, 2025

So you know, the scale used to measure avalanches

 


2 comments:

  1. I remember hiking a mountain near Snoqualmie Pass in Wash. during summer and seeing sections above and below the trail that were stripped of trees. As an Easterner, it took a short spell to realize that these were avalanche paths of prior winters removing most of the vegetation. One of my favorite hikes of my life other than doing Rainier a few days later (below summit).

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  2. This scale is interesting. I grew up skiing in Utah and most of the resorts there have a skiable vertical drop of about 3000 to 3500 feet and that translates to a path length of probably twice that at maximum for a ~30 degree slope. They shoot down avalanches after every heavy snowfall and I’ve seen the scars of a few that were not nearly as large as those on the scale. I guess regular avalanches keep them from getting so big.

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