avy death toll thus far: 6. Other News

A snowshoer was killed by an avy last week. That takes the death toll up to 6 now (in the pnw). That is quite a few. Heartbreaking.
We're getting a lot of new snow. Think I'll dig a few pits this weekend, for the sake of interest.
Skied sweep Christmas eve with some other instructors and patrol. They had so few people on hand, it was tough. 7 skiers were missing, one an 11 year old boy. The boy was found pretty quickly, barely out of bounds. The other six were in 3 pairs, and had gotten turned around trying to find the Doughnut. Ended up circumnavigating the back side of the mountain and went down the Hell Creek drainage (I think?). They were all very lost. The first pair hosed it up, and the next two pair of skiers followed those hosed up tracks. One kid fell into a creek, over his head, with all of his ski gear on. Amazingly, he was the first to make it out. He reached a payphone and called for help. He was the worst off of all of them and is in the hospital. Everyone else -- while shaken and cold, made it out eventually with the help of patrol and SAR.
That was my first taste of skiing sweep. All i did was ski down the hill and then wait around for a few orders, got none, and went on about my business. Saw Jefe a couple of times but didn't get a chance to talk to him obviously. I would not like to do ski patrol. It was scary. And I was stressed out all night worrying about the patrollers and worrying about the kids. What a crummy Christmas eve for those families. So glad that it turned out okay with everyone alive.