Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Mountain News: Glacier's collapse probed in Jasper

JASPER, Alberta — Last August, 70 per cent of a glacier that had clung to a mountainside in Jasper National Park collapsed.
news_mtnnews1
IMPRESSIVE ICE Most of the Ghost Glacier fell into the glacial pool at the base of Mount Edith Cavell in Jasper National Park last summer. Photo submitted

JASPER, Alberta — Last August, 70 per cent of a glacier that had clung to a mountainside in Jasper National Park collapsed. The ice from the Ghost Glacier thundered into the glacial pool at the base of Mount Edith Cavell, creating an air blast and a wave that destroyed the parking lot, picnic area and a hiking path.

Martin Sharp, a glaciologist at the University of Alberta, told the Jasper Fitzhugh that ice avalanches such as occurred last year are neither common nor rare. In the Alps, such collapses happen enough that glaciers are monitored, in an effort to predict dangers to nearby populated areas.

"The speed of a glacier will often accelerate over a period of several weeks before a collapse takes place," he said. "So if you're monitoring the speed on an ongoing basis, you can build that into public safety planning, and that certainly does happen in places in the Alps where they know there is a real damage potential for property."

Apparently, nobody was hurt when the glacier in Jasper fell from the mountainside.

Zip line at Breck to be 274 metres up

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — The operator of the Breckenridge ski area expects the new on-mountain summer amusements, including a zip line that will take customers 274 metres above ground, to significantly spike business.

The Summit Daily News reports that Vail Resorts, the owner of the ski area, expects the new summer program could draw 150,000 new visitors, almost double the current number of visitors.

"This program is designed to be more than you can do in a day," said Blaise Carrig, president of Vail Resorts' Mountain Division.

He told the Summit Daily News that the activities collectively constitute a program, and the program will be of such broad scope that people can spend several days engaged.

According to the proposal submitted to the U.S. Forest Service, administered on the land on which the ski area has operations, the Epic Discovery program will include:

• an additional 22.5km of mountain biking trails;

• a lookout tower platform;

• a challenge course for all abilities, including rope courses, bridges and zip lines. One of the zip lines is expected to have a high point of 274 metres above the ground. The zippers can attain speeds of 72kph;

• a climbing wall, modelled on an iconic rock face elsewhere in Colorado;

• Canopy tours for those who want to glimpse the forest from above.

Storylines will weave through the new on-mountain attractions, telling the story of Breckenridge, the town at the base, as well as presenting environmental information.

"We have a unique opportunity in Breckenridge to not only tell the environmental story, but integrate that with the cultural history and heritage of the town," said Pat Campbell, chief operating officer at Breckenridge Ski Resort.

This is the second plan submitted to the Forest Service for summer time operations under the new federal legislation that permits broadened, non-skiing attractions at ski areas that operate on U.S. government land. Previously legislation was unclear about permitted activities other than snow-sliding.

Vail expects to get the construction done in a year, beginning operations in summer 2015.

Aspen drills down to search for heat

ASPEN, Colo. — In its bid to secure more of its energy from local sources, Aspen has hired a driller to continue exploration of the underground to see if warm sources of rock can be found.

Miners used to favour certain mines, because of greater heat. With that in mind, the city in 2008 commissioned a study that estimated the temperature of underground water in Aspen at 32C to 60C degrees.

To test whether this is indeed the case, a driller plunged a hole two years ago, but it reached only 329 metres below the surface before work had to be suspended for winter, so as not to disrupt the commercial value of lodging in nearby properties. The new driller will use that same hole and go deeper, to 457 metres.

To get enough heat for buildings, rocks or water that are at least 37C degrees must be found. For electricity, it would take temperatures of 104C degrees.

Elected officials tell the Aspen Daily News that they're skeptical the experiment will pay off. But if it does, the cost will be well rewarded. So far, the city has spent $179,000, minus $50,000 from a state grant.

Park City loses resident to Cottonwood slide

PARK CITY, Utah — Park City has lost a resident to an avalanche. Craig Patterson, 34, was an avalanche forecaster for the Utah Department of Transportation, one of the people who tried to use his knowledge to keep travellers to Snowbird, Alta and other ski areas in the Cottonwood Canyons safe.

He didn't return when expected, and searchers found his body in what looked like an avalanche, reports the Park Record. He was about five kilometres down the canyon from Solitude Mountain Resort.

mine work began 20 years ago

TELLURIDE, Colo. — Telluride's first career as a mining town overlapped by a few years with its career as a resort. The ski area opened 40 years ago this winter, and its last mine, Idarado, finally closed 35 years ago.

But even before it closed, the damages of hard-rock mining were evident, both along the San Miguel River in Telluride and in the Uncompahgre River above Ouray. The mine, which produced gold, silver and other metals, had portals on both sides, separated by close to 10 kilometres of interconnecting drifts and raises.

The Telluride Watch explains that the State of Colorado sued the mining company, Idarado, under the Superfund legislation. A cleanup plan was agreed upon after a decade of negotiations, and the $20 million clean up was launched 20 years ago this spring.

While most of the work has been done, remediation in the area above Ouray continues, due to significant loading of zinc from mine tailings in Red Mountain Creek.

Vail keeps it all open to the wonderful end

VAIL, Colo. — After a rough start to its 50th ski season, and memories of last year's tough, tough snow conditions, Vail Mountain kept virtually all of its terrain, some 1,862 hectares, open until closing day.

Usually, the mountain managers close down Blue Sky Basin, the giant addition added in the 1999 and 2000 ski seasons, a few weeks before closing day, when crowds begin to thin out. This year, however, they decided to keep the mountain open.

Locals say the skiing has been great, and snowfall totals are starting to rise. In Grand County, headwaters for the Colorado River, snowpack levels on April 1 were at 79 per cent of average. On the same date last year, the snowpack was 58 per cent of average. In 2002, it was 62 per cent — although, in both years, hot winds of spring eviscerated the snowpack during April.

Of course, it could be a wet, snowy spring. Nobody seems to be counting on that. Instead, the greater prospect is of marginal rafting this summer and a hot, dry summer.

Divining the nature of mountain runoff

TRUCKEE, Calif. — Given that three-quarters of the annual water runoff in most states of the West comes from snow, people responsible for delivery of water to cities and farms have always wanted to get a firm bead on what to expect in any given winter.

A pairing of two new techniques is being tested in both the Sierra Nevada of California and in the Uncompahgre River, whose headwaters are in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado.

The traditional techniques were to use remote sensing stations and manual on-the-snow surveys, often conducted on snowshoes or cross-country skis.

One new technique, conducted by the Airborne Snow Observatory program, includes researchers flying over the mountains, taking spectrometer readings that measure the albedo, or reflectivity, of the snowpack. Sun rays hitting the snow have a much greater influence on snowmelt than air temperatures. Measuring the reflectivity of the snowpack will give researchers a more accurate idea of the timing of the melt, says Tom Painter, a scientist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

"To be able to accurately forecast the timing of snowmelt, you need to be able to determine the albedo and how that is progressing," he told the Sierra Sun.

Painter made a name for himself as a scientist in Colorado when, while climbing a 4,300-metre peak near Aspen, he observed how much more rapidly snow smudged with dirt melted in the course of a spring day than relatively pure and gleaming-white snow. This led him to investigate the effect on albedo of dust blown on high-mountain snowpacks in the San Juan Mountains between Telluride and Silverton.

How important is the effect of dust on snow? It's a big deal, according to the Colorado River Basin Supply and Demand Study. The study calls for suppression of dust in desert areas of the Southwest as a way to yield more water. Dust can much more rapidly cause snow to melt and also evaporate, resulting in less water reaching rivers and reservoirs.

In addition to the fly-over spectrometer readings, the Airborne Snow Observatory is using remote sensing technology called Lidar to gauge the depth of the snowpack.