End of an Era at Tuckerman Ravine

By Trish Anderton on Wednesday, May 16, 2001.

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Every spring backcountry skiers, snowboarders and sledders hike up Mount Washington to enjoy the steep slopes of Tuckerman Ravine. Brad Ray has been helping and educating Tuckerman enthusiasts since 1959. Now he's retiring. Ray talked about his work with NHPR'S Trish Anderton during a busy Saturday at the ravine.

IT?S A Pretty typical scene for a Saturday, its our busy day, and as you can see theres a lot of people here and they all seem to be enjoying themselves.

we?re looking at the tuckerman ravine bowl, the ravine itself. Right in front of us is a line of skiers and boarders going up to what we call the lip. Below the lip on the right where people are stopping is chicken rock. 133 that?s where people stop who don?t dare to go up over the lip, so that?s why they call it that?and then all the rock band you see in the middle of the ravine is called the center headwall, you can see some people coming through the rocks.
going to the right you see the sluice, where a lot of ice forms and falls down. often the ice comes down in big pieces. I remember one time we had one we estimate as big as 5 tons. It hits these rocks and shatters into shrapnel and 100 pound pieces are flying everywhere. You get a crowd here and it can be disastrous. That one time I recall we had eight injuries.

There's a lot of contributing factors to an avalanche: how much new snow your?e getting, what's that snow landing on, is it an old rough surface or ice glaze, what?s the wind doing.// basically you start avalanche forecasting before you get out of bed in the morning. you?re listening to the different sounds, to the wind, how strong is the wind blowing, do you hear the snowplow going by, how many times, you accumulate all this info so by the time you get to the slopes you have a pretty good idea what?s going on.

130 I think our biggest job is to inform eveyrone about the dangers. We try to talk to everyone who comes in, and that can be a lot of people, we can get 3-thousand a day. you need to be aware of what the dangers are and come up here and play as safely as possible.