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In my experience, the material that really captures a groomer crew’s attention are topics derived from real and firsthand events. One example appeared in SAM about five years ago: the first-person account of Dave Beers, an area operator who was run over by a snowcat (“Be Safe!” November 2012) as he was working on it.

Since I appreciate these topics for my meetings, I’d like to share a first-hand incident from my former workplace. I hope it is as real, as “punchy,” and as valuable to others as their experiences have been for my staff and me.

Safety Topic #1: The Slide

I worked last winter for Park City Powder Cats, a backcountry snowcat skiing operation. We had five cats: a PB200 groomer and four PB300w fitted with passenger cabins on the back that hold 12-17 skiers. We operated these cats in pretty radical locations. We drove on narrow ridgelines, near/above cornices, we broke trail and climbed slopes that totally max out the cats' capabilities.

Of course, we had practices in place to address the safety issues inherent in all these situations. Despite these practices, though, incidents can, and do, happen.

Shortly before the end of our 2015-16 season, one of our cats was climbing a narrow ridgeline that drops off into powder bowls on both sides. The road was in good shape and was marked with bamboo about every 100 feet. However, on this day it was snowing and blowing, and visibility was very poor.

Once the cat reached the point where the lead guide wanted to drop-in, the operator—a 20-year veteran—slowed, selected reverse and started his turnaround, which had to be a tight counter steer given the width of the road. He couldn’t see the road, or where he was on it. The guide couldn’t tell, either. He nonetheless continued his turn—and backed off the ridge into the bowl.

The cat started into a backward slide down the steep bowl. The operator was able get the cat turned downhill, but wasn't able to stop it from sliding. Snow was blowing up over the windshield, visibility was zero, and control was limited.

After sliding about 1,000 feet, the cat dropped over a steep pitch and into a gully. It stopped when the blade hit the gut of the gully and dug about 10 inches into the earth.

Fortunately, no one was injured. Even more incredibly, the guests were eager to continue skiing for the rest of the day, so they transferred to another cabin cat and went on to ski the deep powder.

The series of decisions made at the turnaround point forms the basis for an excellent, if not urgent, safety topic. At least four decisions, and maybe more, contributed to the incident. Each decision by itself may not have created a problem. But collectively, they led to an event that could have had dire consequences.

Let’s look at the decisions:

1. Turning around at the drop point. There were (and are) policies in place, which are talked about frequently, that empower the operators to make their own decisions about how to operate the cat. For example, rather than stopping to turn around right where the guide wanted to drop in, the operator could have turned around at a safer nearby location and come back.

2. Turning on a section of road as wide as the cat? It’s certainly doable, but under less than ideal conditions it was not advisable.

3. Reverse for a turn around? Technically, the cat should do the same thing in either reverse or forward—spin the tracks in opposite directions. However, if you ease off the wheel for any reason during this maneuver, the cat will “migrate” in reverse rather than forward. It’s hard to see out the rear of the cat with the cabin on the back, so if there is any chance of the cat moving as it turns, make it move forward where you can see.

4. Likely the biggest factor was that the operator could not see where he was going. Even worse, the guide couldn’t see and couldn’t offer help, either. One option would be to set the brake and wait for visibility to improve.

Those are some options that come to mind, based on our policies, procedures, discussions, etc. What other options might there be that could have avoided the situation? What other erroneous decisions were made in that moment? Any errors made during the actual slide are almost a moot point; the cat should have never left the road in the first place.

The remaining issue was the cat itself, and how to extricate it from the gully—which was no simple task in itself, and one that raises its own safety meeting issues.

Safety Topic #2: Retrieving the Cat

The remaining issue was the cat; it was stuck at a 47º angle, its blade buried in yards of set-up snow and dirt.

The cat was lodged, blade forward and down, in the gut of a gully in the bowl. It was about 100 vertical feet above the base of the bowl, and it was unreachable from below, by snow cat or typical snowmobile. On the plus side, the stuck PB300 was still in fine mechanical condition. Nothing broke. No hoses blew. The engine started and had good oil pressure—even at that extreme 47º angle. That was very fortunate, because extracting a dead cat is 10 times more difficult than extracting one that can do things to help itself out (like turn its tracks and lift its blade). Also, the cat was about seven miles from our base/shop, so towing it back was undesirable.

 The cat was lodged, blade forward and down, at a steep angle.

Even though the cat ran, with its weight resting on the blade the hydraulics would go over relief long before the blade would move at all. The cat was stuck, and there was no way it was driving out on its own.

Brainstorming ensued. Among our ideas: use a cat to blade out in front of the stuck cat’s blade; use a cat to simply tow the stuck cat down/forward; use hand shovels to dig out the blade.

All these ideas had merit, but the cat’s position was precarious. An attempt to excavate below the blade would be dangerous. The cat could move and crush anyone or anything below it once material was removed.

Assuming the cat could physically be broken free from its hole, the outcome seemed uncertain. Where was the stuck cat then going to go? Possibly right into the pulling/towing cat, or into a person. We decided working below the cat was too unpredictable and too unsafe.

Everyone was excited and eager to get the cat out, but we had to be thoughtful. We had to slow everything WAY down and really THINK about the each of the options, then consider all of their consequences.

I could see only one safe, controlled, and effective solution: the cat had to go backward up that 47º pitch just enough so it could lift and free the blade, suspend briefly, then lower to the base of the bowl in a controlled fashion. This option posed the lowest risk because it put us in control of the cat at all times.

Now, the first question: How to raise a 20,000-pound cat up a 47º pitch that was covered in three to eight feet of snow? A massive crane would have been nice. We had to use what we had, though: our other cats, good rigging, a very carefully executed plan, and good teamwork.

To prepare for the extraction, we needed a working area uphill of the stuck cat. We consulted our snow safety expert about working in the bowl on that snow pack, and he felt it was OK to proceed. So, with two spotters watching/guiding me, I cut a road with the 200 from a spot lower on the ridge, across the bowl, to an area that was somewhat less steep (about 30º) and just above the stuck cat. There, I made the largest flat pad out of snow that I could.

What to Consider

To develop a comprehensive and safe plan, we needed to understand all the basic physics of the situation. I figured that the stuck cat needed to move uphill only about six inches to free/lift the blade before the cat could go forward. Once free, it would need to be lowered no more than about five feet, at which point the front of the tracks would hit the wall of snow created by the blade when it burrowed into the slope. The cat could hold there to de-rig.

Those guesstimates established the required travel distance on our pad for the towing cat(s).

Next question: How much force would we need to move the stuck cat? It weighs about 20,000 pounds. It's on a roughly 45º angle, so that reduces the force requirement (when compared to its weight) ... but then there is the "stiction" of the snow in and around the tracks, blade, frame, etc., to consider as well. I estimated the breakaway force required to move the cat one inch could be as high as 20,000 pounds.

From previous experience, I knew that a typical snow cat could generate up to roughly 15,000 pounds of tractive effort. That meant one cat wouldn’t be sufficient; two would give us 50 percent more power than I expected we’d need. So our retrieval would require two cats, three operators, the platform/pad, and some rigging.

What about this plan poses issues? What could go wrong? Some possibilities:

• The rigging. Chain (at least the chain we had on hand at our shop) is elastic, so if/when it snaps, that is a safety issue. Second, if my assumptions were wrong about our required travel on the pad, we could be stuck there with a cat dangling below, with no way to release it.

Our solution? Wire rope. Then, rather than a train, we planned to set the towing cats side by side, and used two sections of old winch cable, one for each towing cat, so that each machine could pull in its own direction and not affect the other. This also doubled the total pull rating of our rigging to about 40,000 pounds.

• The slope angle we were working on. Every little thing became a huge project on a slope that steep: hauling the rigging up hill, post-holing, propping up a generator so it was level—we needed the generator to run the block heater and a cut off wheel (to cut cable). Even climbing in and out of the cab of the stuck cat was a two-person task; and once you were IN the cat, you were basically falling into the windshield. Everything was exhausting, slow, and frustrating.

That itself is a safety topic! We simply had to accept the reality of the situation, slow down, and adapt to the site. Taking it slow really limited what could get done in a day, especially with our travel time to and from the site.

• The space on the platform for the towing cats to move was another major concern. We estimated we would need five and a half feet of travel to lift, lower, and secure the stuck cat.

But we still needed an “out,” just in case our estimates were too optimistic. To mitigate the possibility of hanging the stuck cat after freeing it, we used fist grips on our rigging, which would allow us a "release" if we needed, by loosening the fist grips.

The Rescue Process

It took three of us more than two hours to get the wire rope laid out, rigged, slack pulled out and adjusted to the right lengths to allow our cats to pull, and then have some rearward travel to relax the load.

Here is what the scene looked like when we finally had everything rigged. Up on the pad, the PB200 grooming cat is in the foreground and a PB300w cabin cat is just beyond it. They're both connected to the stuck 300, each with their own wire rope.

We were all excited to get the cat out and get all our cats back into the shop! But once more, we took the time to slow things down. We reviewed the plan again, looked for unforeseen issues, and made SURE that everyone was on the same page.

Then we went to our cats. I was in the PB200 groomer, and Crae, our operator, was in the towing PB300w/cabin cat. Our plan was to take up slack, gradually apply power until the stuck cat (hopefully) moved, hold it while the operator in the stuck cat (our owner) raised the blade, then ease the stuck cat down until it stopped itself. The owner’s job was to apply some reverse pressure to the tracks (but not spin ‘em!) and get the blade to come up when we pulled, then secure the cat so we could de-rig.

The moment of truth arrived. I started first by slowly pulling tension on my rope, then added throttle until the rear of the 200 was squatting down without spinning the tracks, and I held that tension. My cat was probably pulling about 80 percent at that point. I called on the radio, "Crae, slowly, take up your slack." He did, nice and smoothly, which was crucial.

As soon as Crae pulled his slack tight, he added a little throttle, and MY cat rolled forward just a bit. The stuck cat had moved...it was working! We both still had a good margin of power left; I added a little more throttle, and both towing cats powered forward about four to six inches. The owner called on the radio: "THE BLADE CAME UP! I'm free!"

That was such a relief to hear.

Then it was time to carefully lower the stuck cat until it could be secured. Keeping in mind our limited rearward travel before we would fall off the pad, Crae and I talked over the radio, then went into "neutral" (hydrostatic drive so it only "creeps" backward) while keeping one hand on the brake, just in case.

We rolled rearward one foot or so when the owner was able to get the once-stuck cat set and somewhat secure. Once he confirmed that he was set, Crae and I backed a few inches more, to remove the tension from our wire ropes, and then set our brakes.

I hiked down to the unstuck cat and pulled the anchoring pin for the wire ropes. The unstuck cat was finally free, and the owner drove it down to the bowl’s base. KILLER! We got it out with no injuries and with nothing broken.

It was a good ending to the most complicated, challenging, exhausting, and dangerous snowcat extraction that I've ever been part of.

Working with a great team, having strong communication, and carefully considering our options were key to our success—along with slowing everything way down to reexamine, rethink, and steer ourselves away from risk as much as possible.

Were We Lucky, or Smart?

Despite our best efforts to mitigate risk in this effort, it’s quite possible that we overlooked something—or several things. What were those things? What does your staff think? Add your comments, please—we can all learn from the community’s ideas.