Avalanche at Wisp?

Did anyone hear about the avalanche at Wisp? There's a full trip report at TGR.

TGR Thread

Scroll down for pics of the actual avalanche. CRAZY!

yeah and thats extra scary because man made snow is heavy.

this kinda of cool and has happen before on ripcord, avalanche at springs, that place in indiana, and I have even seen a 10 inch fresh snow at blue knob slide down extrovert.

for those not wanting to venture over to maggot land here are th pics of the slide.

Wow, I may have to get a beacon this year....

Thats insane. I wonder what would cause it. Could it be due to ground not being cold enough to hold snow??

Awesome pics though!!

Really interesting -- has all the dynamics of a natural snow avalanche. That is one heck of a slab. They need to use more glue between the grass and snow....

That was my thought too. I also suspect that poor snowmaking practice may have contributed; loading a slope with far more weight of snow in a short time than it can support. Probably a bad water/air mix as well. There is a class of slow wet spring slides of natural snow. I wonder if there were witnesses and if it was such a slow wet slide.

the kids in the TR set it off.

Probably also a problem because the ground underneath may not have been frozen when they started making snow, allowing for the snow to slip at the base

Someone could have got hurt...

Not only that but it's probably a layer of dense man made slow on top of very light natural snow. You can see two distinct layers in the first picture.

It looks like they bonded fairly well, though.

Yea, you're probably right. In the bottom of the image you can see a chunk breaking off. It looks intact from top to bottom.

Looks like it broke off at a water bar.

Since when do they server water at bars?

Back to the slide, I've noticed from personal (uneducated) experience that snow often doesn't adhere to the base surface (frozen or wet.) Given that the snow was recent and hadn't settled, I guess that is not too surprising. I've found those slides to occur at steeper slope angles than what is in the picture.

Still, this is a useful reminder to always expect the unexpected.

And what a snow sports enthusiast poaching a run on a closed trail might experience if the grooming crew has not groomed a suitable base.
The Colonel

No, no, no, a thousand times no. It's a reminder to get ready to be surprised.

Otay, I'm on beer number six? tonight and hitting three different web sites at once, so I'm missing the subtle difference. Or am I over-thinking things? Help a brutha who's down on his luck...

Yes. My tongue was making a hole in my cheek. Owch.

*spills drink out hole onto T-neck*

That's OK, beer number seven is testing good right nwo.

Yeah that is interesting, pretty nice early season base they were working on! Looks like it occurred on The Face, one of the steeper trails on the front side. There's a good pic of Tommo on The Face in this old trip report:
http://www.dcski.com/articles/view_article.php?article_id=953&mode=headlines
Sometimes they build big hits on that trail for competitions, looks like they got a start on a big jump.
Hope no one was hurt when it broke off.

You hit the nail on the head. Succintly

A similar thing happened last year at Holiday Valley in Western NY on the "The Wall' slope. This slope has a 38 degree pitch. The slope was closed at the time.

http://www.holidayvalley.com/winter.cfm?subpage=630