On March 9, 2024, two backcountry skiers were traversing the top of Tuckerman Ravine, making their way to an area above what is known as the Lip, when they slipped and fell about 600 vertical feet to the ravine floor.
One of them, 20-year-old Madison Saltsburg, died from her injuries.
The death became a catalyst for the making of a short film, “The Proving Ground,” which presents a frank portrayal of the risks of skiing at Tuckerman Ravine and Mount Washington.
The film, produced in partnership with the Mount Washington Avalanche Center, shows harrowing skier and snowboarder falls. It’s got a heavy dose of straight talk from the avalanche center’s snow rangers about the hazards of this backcountry mecca, even for experienced skiers.
“There’s days where you could take a fall and you’ll come to a stop naturally, because the snow is soft and it kind of builds up in front of you,” says Jeff Fongemie, the director and lead forecaster for the Mount Washington Avalanche Center. “But there’s other days where you just can’t fall. It’s like a no-fall zone.”
It doesn’t take much to transform a sunny ski day at Tuckerman Ravine into treacherous conditions, what the snow rangers call “slide for life conditions.” This is when the snowpack refreezes so hard and smooth, that a person who falls on a 35 to 50 degree slope can accelerate uncontrollably and be unable to stop until they hit rocks, other objects, or the ravine floor.
“The Proving Ground” features interviews with a skier who suffered serious injuries after a fall. It also has a poignant interview with the mother of Madison Saltsburg, who, like Fongemie and his team, hope the film will inform the public and maybe save some other parents from getting a dreaded call from emergency responders.
The avalanche center’s mission of informing backcountry skiers and providing forecasts is, at the end of the day, to have people return home safely.
On average, 25 life-threatening falls occur each ski season on Mount Washington, and nearly 150 people have died on Mount Washington over the years, according to the center.
Tuckerman Tips
Jeff Fongemie, the director and lead forecaster for the Mount Washington Avalanche Center, discussed “The Proving Ground” with NHPR's Morning Edition host Rick Ganley. Here are a few of his safety tips.
“To me, being prepared means understanding that Mount Washington is backcountry. It’s not a ski area. Risks are unmitigated. The hazards are just what they are, and they change daily.”
“I think for people that are skiing on Mount Washington in the winter or the spring need to have avalanche education. They need to understand the snowpack a little better than somebody who skis lower angle slopes or treed slopes.”
“I think most folks on Mount Washington that are skiing need to have crampons and an ice ax. Our team carries crampons and an ice ax in our pack every day when we’re skiing. A decade ago, people weren’t carrying avalanche beacons and now everybody does.”
Transcript
So down here in Concord, spring has sprung, but this season is known as “the proving ground” for some East Coast skiers. What are the conditions like up on Washington right now, and why is this season so appealing to skiers?
Spring skiing is traditionally busy on Tuckerman because the snowpack is simpler. We call it isothermic. It means the winter layers aren't there. It's not quite so complex to figure out as an avalanche hazard, and generally this time of year, avalanche hazards come and they go pretty quickly. So folks who don't have a tremendous amount of avalanche education to figure out the winter snowpack can be safe, wait till the spring 'til it's more simple and then they go for it. When the ski areas are closing down and people are trying to get in a final ski for the winter, and a lot of people come to Tuckerman Ravine to do that. It's been a tradition for decades.
Yeah. How late into the year do you see people actually going up Tuckerman to ski?
Right now the month of April is really popular. We have a lot of people coming in the weekends or even midweek days if the weather's nice. May tends to slow down. If you have to hike all the way down from the ravine, we see less traffic and honestly into June and even July. If there's a patch of snow in Tuckerman Ravine that's 20 by 20 in August, somebody's going to hike up and they're going to do four turns and then hike back out. It just depends on the snow really. April and into May are busy periods.
I think skiing in Tuckerman or Huntington Ravine would be dangerous no matter what time of the year you do it, so long as there's snow, obviously. What is it about spring that's especially risky?
There's hazards in skiing and Tuckerman Ravine and Huntington Ravine, or even in Mount Washington in general, all winter long. In the winter, we tend to worry more about avalanche hazard, which is a daily thing thing that people have to figure out. As we switch towards spring, there's a little bit less avalanche hazard, although it still exists. We had an avalanche on Thursday where a couple of skiers were had to run out of the way for an avalanche. So avalanche is still exists in the spring, they're just much less common. The snowpack is more stable, and avalanches tend to settle out quickly. As we get into the spring, it's kind of the springtime hazards that we talk about that become more of a danger to people, and that has to do with melting snow. Snow melts, it creates holes under the snow, it's undermined snow, ice fall. We have big temperature swings. Here's an example -- on Friday afternoon, the summit of Mount Washington, it was 45 degrees overnight. We had about a third of an inch of rain. And then Saturday morning it was 16 degrees with 80 mile an hour winds. So we went from a soft, forgiving snowpack on Friday to an icy, hard, unforgiving snowpack on Saturday. So variable weather, melting snow, extremes through their winter like cold or spring-like warmth just creates these spring hazards that we get every year.
The film made the point that as those conditions can change within minutes if you take what you call 'corn' snow, very nice snow to kind of ski down in, and all of a sudden it just changes and ices is over. Once you fall, you just can't stop. And it made the point that if you are falling down that mountain, there's a good chance that you're going to get hurt or worse.
Oh, absolutely. And that's and that's exactly it. It changes so fast. You know, we think of as an avalanche forecaster, avalanches are something we're pretty good at. We can forecast avalanches pretty well. We do a good job of that. Avalanches take a little time to build and they take a little time to settle out. We call it 'slide for life conditions' could happen really quick. On days like Saturday with the warm temperature and the cold temperature, it was easy to predict that, and we had it in our forecast on Saturday morning. But on some days the sun moving around the corner puts the slope in the shade and it freezes up. It can happen fast on any day and so we can't always forecast for it. And you're right, Rick, if the snowpack is that hard, if a person falls, the slopes with people skiing are pretty steep. Anywhere from like, say, 35 to 45 degrees. And if you fall, you're just not going to stop. You accelerate and you go faster and faster, and you can have an ice ax in your hand. And people think of self arrest as a mechanism to stop. Likely that's not going to work. There's days where people are skiing, where it's forgiving, where it's soft, and there's days where you could take a fall and you'll come to a stop naturally, because the snow is soft and it kind of builds up in front of you. But there's other days where you just can't fall. It's like a no-fall zone. You're not going to be able to stop yourself no matter what. And I think it's important for people to be able to figure out which days are which. Some days are forgiving and some days are not. In my opinion, there's some days where I just won't to ski. I won't ski anything in there because the consequences are too great. It's too much of a risk.
You and others at the Mount Washington Avalanche Center are the people that are called in when there is an accident or a life threatening situation on Washington. What do you want people to take away from this film and from our conversation today?
I would like people to come prepared, have the information that they need to stay safe. To me, being prepared means understanding that Mount Washington is backcountry. It's not a ski area. Risks are unmitigated. The hazards are just what they are, and they change daily. So it's a little different than normal backcountry skiing or average backcountry skiing, I'll say, where you're skiing sort of wooded slopes. Skiing alone has hazards, but when you start skiing on Mount Washington, backcountry skiing on Mount Washington, it's more ski mountaineering. So there's a broader skill set you need to go into it. So I think for people that are skiing on Mount Washington in the winter or the spring need to have avalanche education, they need to understand the snowpack a little better than somebody who's skiing and, say, lower angle slopes or treed slopes. They need to have a pretty good skill set that includes mountaineering skills. I think most folks on Mt. Washington that are skiing need to have crampons and an ice ax. Our team carries crampons and an ice ax in our pack every day when we're skiing. What we're hoping to do ultimately is just to create awareness. This slide for life or sliding fall problem that we have is it's not insurmountable. It's an easy thing to fix. I think we've done a pretty good job over the years of helping people understand avalanche hazards. A decade ago, people weren't carrying avalanche beacons and now everybody does. The best thing we could hope for with this film is to have people share it with one another, share it with people that are outside of the normal backcountry community. We're hoping this actually makes change. We would like to see less fatalities from these sliding falls in the terrain. We want people to go there, have fun, and then go home and not be hurt.
