Digging Out
The avalanche that killed my friend, Hans Berg, on Jones Pass on the afternoon of March 7, 2019, was about 2,000 feet wide and ran from its start, beneath a cornice that collapsed, approximately 1,000 feet to its stopping point, across a snowcat road. The avalanche, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC), spread both to the north and south of the spot where the school-bus-size chunk of cornice fell and triggered more breaks on a sheet of snow that sat on what avalanche professionals call a persistent weak layer (PWL). PWLs resist bonding to other layers of snow over time, and when disturbed they can fail, sometimes creating massive avalanches. PWLs are found in every region of Colorado, in part because of the state’s very dry snowpack, and are especially prevalent in the Jones Pass area, just west of Berthoud Pass. Skiing, snowmobiling, or even heading out on a casual snowshoe trek there is a risk.
During the week that Hans died, the avalanche danger in the area was higher than normal. Between March 1 and 3, a storm buried the site the CAIC uses to measure snowfall on Jones Pass in 21 inches of snow. It came with strong westerly and southwesterly winds, which drifted new snow onto the east-facing side of the mountains, where cornices, like cantilevered curlicues, formed. It didn’t snow on March 4 or 5, but the wind continued to blow, adding more snow to the already heavy cornices.
Early on the morning of March 6, another powerful storm moved into Colorado, this one dumping 11 inches at the Jones Pass snow-measuring site and bringing with it consistent winds for the next 24 hours. By noon on March 7, a seven-day total of 34 inches of fresh snow sat atop a PWL that had formed in early February. Knowledge of PWLs does not preclude guiding. Hans and several of my other friends—all employees of the Powder Addiction Cat Skiing operation—had guided hundreds of customers each year, with skill levels ranging from intermediate to expert, in avalanche areas, categorized by complex terrain with well-defined avalanche paths. They used their training to reduce or eliminate avalanche exposure with careful route-finding.
Powder Addiction had, up until that day, a solid safety record. On March 7, around 1 p.m., Hans—who was
