With all this talk of avalanche activity occuring on Mt. Mansfield (still my 
favorite mountain when it comes to skiing) I thought I'd recount an 
experience I had about three years ago that demonstrated to me just how 
powerful a "small" sluff is.  No avalanche poodles were hurt in the making 
of this story.

I was attempting a one day climb of the Grand Teton via the Upper Exum over 
Memorial Day weekend with one of my roommates.  We probably started climbing 
around 2 AM or so and I remember being concerned with the snowpack as we 
crossed the meadows underneath Middle Teton.  At that point it was probably 
4-5 AM and the snow was not frozen.  I knew we were experiencing 
unseasonably warm temperatures down in Jackson Hole, but I figured all would 
be good and frozen in the predawn hours above 10,000'.  The soft snow ended 
up slowing our pace to a crawl and it took us 10 hours to reach the start of 
the climb - and we promptly backed off due to the nasty thin snow/ice on 
Wall Street.  Talk about a heart breaking decision to turn around.

Anyway by that time it was close to noon, the temperature was blazing and we 
were tired.  Wet avalanches were coming down all over the place in the spots 
where snowfields and gullies cling to the high peaks.  Talk about HIGH to 
EXTREME localized avalanche danger.  We saw a sweet slide drop some 2,000+ 
vertical feet down the Middle Teton Glacier.  Trudging down the Owen 
Spalding route, we were generally out of harm's way from anything above us, 
but I do remember crossing one snowfield that made the hair on my neck stand 
up.  We crossed without incident.

Back at the Lower Saddle we were greeted with about two thousand vertical 
feet of snow until we got back to the meadows, where it began to die off.  
In at least a couple places the snow was steep enough to glissade and that's 
exactly what we did to save time and energy.  I remember starting one 
glissade and within seconds the snow began to move with me.  It wasn't an 
avalanche, it was more of a small sluff that moved at a remarkably slow yet 
steady speed, maybe 10 mph.  I was never in any danger but I remember 
thinking that this "small" sluff had total control over me.  I wouldn't have 
been able to get out of it had I wanted to.  How big was it?  Probably four 
to five feet wide by one to two feet deep.  Tiny, when you compare it to the 
size of even a small avalanche slope.  I rode the sluff until it sputtered 
out.  The thing never had any potential to bury me or do harm in that given 
situation.  However, under different circumstances that same harmless little 
sluff could have easily carried me over a cliff or buried me in a terrain 
trap such as a crevasse, a brook or a tree well.

This post isn't meant to second guess any decisions anybody made in the last 
couple days up on Mt. Mansfield.  I'm just throwing out yet another of my 
many "damned learning experiences" to illustrate a point.  I wish I could've 
been up there with you guys, sounds like it was epic skiing.  Instead I was 
up doing a winter ascent of Long's Peak this past weekend which wasn't as 
interesting as I'd hoped.  I should be back skiing this weekend after a 
month long ice climbing sabbatical - on my brand new AT gear.



Nick

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