The park's most dangerous entrance
Craig Hill; The News Tribune
There's a side to Crystal Mountain most skiers probably have never seen. It's
a side the mountain's ski area and Mount Rainier National Park prefer most
people don't know about.
It's a steep side with thick trees, cliffs and a perpetual avalanche hazard.
It's the mountain's burly west slope, in the northeast corner of the park. It's
outside the ski area on the east side, beyond its controlled conditions and
under federal regulations.
Under those regulations, nothing that damages the national park's natural state
can be done. That includes setting off dynamite charges to release snow and
reduce avalanche risk.
"In many ways it's an incompatible boundary," said Randy King, Rainier's deputy
superintendent.
In March 2007, after a week of storms dumped 60 inches of snow on Crystal, the
allure and risks of out-of-bounds skiing claimed what's believed to be the west
slope's first victim.
The park and the ski area officials worry it won't be the last avalanche
fatality as long as long as skiers take risks in pursuit of untracked
backcountry lines.
In March '07, Stan Quande, an experienced 54-year-old skier from Burien, passed
avalanche warning signs and ducked the resort's boundary rope for a run down to
Highway 410. Quande didn't break any rules, but the pillowy powder that lured
him would also kill him.
Quande triggered an avalanche that swept him through the trees for nearly a mile
down the 40-degree slope. His partner and the Crystal ski patrol found him in 25
minutes, but it was too late.
Paul Baugher, who helped carry Quande's body off the hill, hopes this will be a
warning for out-of-bounds skiers.
"Eventually the risks catch up with everybody," said Baugher, Crystal's ski
patrol director. "This was an experienced, well-known local skier."
If you head to the backcountry without the appropriate gear and training, you
increase your odds of meeting a similar fate, Baugher said.
While Crystal's west side isn't more susceptible to avalanche than other
Northwest backcountry, it's easier to access than most dangerous areas because
of the chairlifts servicing the other side of the mountain.
"It doesn't screen out (inexperienced skiers) like other backcountry areas
because it's so easy to access for all levels of skiers," said Rainier ranger
Uwe Nehring. And once you duck the boundary rope, as the signs warn, "Rescue, if
possible, may be slow and costly. . . . You are responsible for your own
safety."
THE 410 LOOP
A run down Crystal's west side to Highway 410 can easily take several hours. Not
only must skiers check avalanche conditions and stay alert for hazards, once
they reach the bottom of the slope they'll also have to bushwhack their way
through thick trees to the highway.
"It can take an hour just to get to the highway," said Nehring, who has skied
down to the highway three times.
Depending where skiers reach the road, which is closed in the winter, they'll
have three to six miles of hiking or skating to get out of the park. Then they
must hitch a ride six miles up Crystal Mountain Boulevard to the ski area.
"It's not worthwhile to ski there very often," said Mel Simburg, a Seattle
attorney familiar with the terrain. "It's best in the spring when the snow pack
has built up."
The only closed area on Crystal's west side is an area called Kempers on the
west face of Silver Queen Peak. Kempers has released avalanches large enough to
reach Highway 410.
It's the only section of the west slope that skiers can enter and exit without
descending all the way to the highway.
"We might have 800 people ski down to Highway 410 in a season," Baugher said.
"But we'd have 800 a day on Kempers."
While some media reports of Quande's death stated he was in Kempers, he was
about 100 yards outside this area.
Up until the 2004-05 season, the ski patrol controlled Kempers because of
confusion about the ski area boundary. When the park told the ski area to stop
avalanche control on Kempers, Baugher asked the park for permission to
permanently close the area.
However, even with the closure, Baugher says Kempers still is dangerous.
"It's not a matter of if, but when somebody is going to die there," Baugher
said.
Even with Kempers roped off and clearly marked, he's sure the expanse of powder
will lure skiers under the ropes.
Simburg, a regular Kempers skier when it was open, agrees.
"It's an attractive nuisance," he said. "It's easy enough to access, that people
who don't know any better are going to get in there. It's easy enough to say,
'Well, once they cross under that line they are on their own.' But death is a
pretty serious penalty for that mistake.
"I think the park should allow avalanche mitigation there, even if skiers aren't
allowed there."
This is unlikely. Nehring says allowing avalanche control in Kempers would
require removing it from the national park and trading it for another patch of
land with the U.S. Forest Service.
Baugher says one of the biggest mistakes he sees skiers make is judging
backcountry conditions based on what they see in the ski area.
Inexperienced skiers can be more easily fooled at Crystal because of its expanse
of popular backcountry terrain.
Crystal's North Country and South Country aren't typical of the west side
because they see more traffic, and because the patrol bombs the slopes to reduce
avalanche risk.
BRING YOUR BRAIN
Baugher says less than 1 percent of avalanche fatalities happen inside ski
areas, while 11 percent occur in the backcountry.
"The best thing you take into the backcountry is your brain," Baugher said. "At
the very least, you need to take Level I avalanche training class if you are
going into the backcountry."
Backcountry skiers also need an avalanche beacon, a shovel, a probe, a partner,
and knowledge of how to use their equipment, and they should check avalanche
conditions, he said.
Baugher, director of Northwest Avalanche Institute, has dealt with more than 20
avalanche fatalities in his career.
"It never gets any easier," Baugher, 51, said as he choked back emotions. "I
wake up in the middle of the night thinking about this stuff. I'm always
searching for the way to get the knowledge out there and educate more people,
but that search will never end.
"You get the net as tight as you can, but it's still a net and a net has holes
and some of the fish are going to get away."
BEFORE HITTING THE BACKCOUNTRY
Have the right gear. You need a shovel, a probe and an avalanche beacon.
Know how to use the gear.
Take an avalanche education course. Check the Northwest Avalanche Institute
for classes at avalanche.org.
Check the avalanche forecast at the Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center,
nwac.us/forecasts, or 206-526-6677.
