Avalanche with fatalities near Stevens Pass

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bodywhomper

the course that i took in the u.s.a. did not reward me with a certified piece of paper. it was 3 days long, the hazard ranged from moderate (uac may someday call it "moderate x") to high, we intentionally set off avalanches, mitigated vulnerability through terrain management, skied slopes greater than 35*, toured in 3 different areas, and dug a total of 1 pit.

---

You took a 3 day course with no cert? Who taught this?
I took a 3 dday avvy 2 from the fuac/uac but hell i can't find my cert.
Now takin a semester long snow science class 1 night of class and field day a week.
this class for pretty much the same $$$$ is like 100x the knowledge of the aiire or whatever but has no cert.
IMO the whole certified avvy course/class is totally overpriced and just a good old boys network/club speil/scam.
There are plenty of more than qualified people who can teach a thing or two but don't want to pay and jump through the certfication hoops.
I hope more programs like the u of u's become available
knowledge is knowledge and a piece of paper is just that.
Emulate ROJ?
bwwwwwwwaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

bwaaaaaaah what? that class sounds pretty good SFB. just don't ferget to show up, eh?;)

rog

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by skifishbum

You took a 3 day course with no cert? Who taught this?
I took a 3 dday avvy 2 from the fuac/uac but hell i can't find my cert.
Now takin a semester long snow science class 1 night of class and field day a week.
this class for pretty much the same $$$$ is like 100x the knowledge of the aiire or whatever but has no cert.
IMO the whole certified avvy course/class is totally overpriced and just a good old boys network/club speil/scam.
There are plenty of more than qualified people who can teach a thing or two but don't want to pay and jump through the certfication hoops.
I hope more programs like the u of u's become available
knowledge is knowledge and a piece of paper is just that.

---

i did fuac, too. great course, imho. my understanding is that it's not done anymore, which is too bad. it didn't include a piece of paper as far as i remember, which was fine with me. i learned a lot and saw a lot. for me, that particular session focused on terrain management, identifying problem, forecasting problem, and managing problem.

the point in my post, though, was that the focus of at least some courses (or former courses) in the US are not about snow science, mucking around in pits, and stability tests, and that the course encouraged exploration on a "high" day w/ focus on terrain management. there was also an open discussion about developing our own forecast of the risk based on our own observations as some of the instructors did not fully concur with the hazard rating for one of the days.

the u of u course sounds cool. as some have pointed out in that canyons thread, it would be useful to teach an age appropriate avi coursework in public schools in mountain regions.

cheers

Interesting discussions in this thread! I would looooove to be able to teach a course that was longer than 3 or 4 days and well spread out with the ability to get students to go out and do things between class, to actually go and read relevant materials, etc.

The Breadth of Field Snow Science Observation and Application

Pits are wonderful. I'm a geek. I love them. That said, more hasty pits and hand pits are better than one data pit etc etc because you increase your sample size to combat spatial variability on both the small and large scale. How information from pits becomes useful is dependent on the skill level, experience, education, and goals of the practitioner:

I've written on this subject in Slide Zone with regard to what the recreationist with a Level 1 should be doing with pits, reasons to say no: looking to see if the pack is worse than forecasted or if some unknown danger exists plus improving their understanding of the processes at work in the snowpack.

People who are out very often who have more experience and better understanding can do the above with perhaps a little better discrimination by using more pits to form generalizations of the snowpack as it varies between elevations, aspects, angles, mountains, ranges, etc. This sort of information can allow so called "now-casting."

More experience, education, and frequent observation by the professional combined with interprofessional communication and review can allow advanced practitioners to forecast.

Obviously, my little summary here is quite anemic and leaves out many factors involved, but I thought it would break things down as I hear many voices in this thread talking about each of these levels either from the user or the instructor standpoint.

High Days

Traveling on high days can be extremely educational, however, doing so requires excellent discipline and a very skilled eye for terrain management. There are plenty of people who have been out on high days and either gotten away with it or have been surprised that what they thought was safe travel was not. That is NOT the type of surprise one wants. Often skiing is not possible on high days, at least not what the TGR crowd normally seeks to ski, but often there is something low angle if the snow cooperates (this is more true now with fatter skis that let us maintain speed and float in deep/variable low angle snow that would have stopped us dead in our tracks with 60 or 80mm waists).

I love it when an avalanche class occurs during a high day because I can see/show people things that we'd otherwise only be able to talk about. Still, I have my slopemeter out a lot more as the danger goes up because I cannot allow the margin of error that my eyes create when judging angles (and there is still a margin of error with a slope meter!) The difference between 27 and 29 can be a fatal difference some days.

I like to tour on High days, but it depends on the type of "stability problem". Some stability problems are more manageable than others. Individual psychological factors also come into play: am I hungover? Am I in the doghouse? Tired? In the mood to say yes? In the mood to say no?

* Snow science is super fun and interesting, but it's very important to develop an integrated mental model of the physical processes at work in the mountains if you prefer the science route.
* This means learning and understanding the relationship between snowpack -and- terrain -and- weather.
* Understanding the factors in isolation isn't good enough if because the connections between factors can be just as revealing.
* Steep + 40cm new + right side up + crystal branch loss is very different from steep + 40cm new + distinct layers in the new + zero branch loss.

The thing about learning anything is that there are many rabbit holes.

* Once you learn snow metamorphism, you have to be able to connect it to weather and terrain.
* Once you learn terrain, you have to be able to connect it to weather and snowpack.
* Understanding the connections between factors requires a lot of work, even if it's fun.

Here's a model of topics that myself and some other folks have been working on. It's based on analysing themes/details from the literature and to be fair I should disclose that it also uses computational linguistics. This theoretical learning model turns the avalanche triangle into a snowflake and has other points as well.

http://i.imgur.com/80GH2.png

Here is a complexity comparison of several possible course outlines:

SIMPLE:
http://i.imgur.com/Ym5tM.png

CHALLENGING:
http://i.imgur.com/4RZZj.png

COMPLEX:
http://i.imgur.com/VCcVl.png

Analysis:

http://i.imgur.com/Y2MEd.png


Sorry for some of the off-topic inclusions.

Sent from my Paranoid Android using TGR forums.

How does one even learn what a whoomph sounds like without breaking trail on high days.

The other day, I hear the rumble starting where I'm standing and moving up hill into the trees quite a distance. And fast. Lots of tree bomb all over at the same instant. It was awesome.

We weren't worried about a step down into the lower snowpack so we ripped the chutes, got some faceshots and managed some sluff. is what it is

Edit: The place I was at gets skiied a lot though so it pretty much never slides big anymore... There's risk but if you don't get out there how do you even learn anything. That graph with accidents vs experience was interesting. gonna keep that one in mind.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by theshredder

The other day, I hear the rumble starting where I'm standing and moving up hill into the trees quite a distance. And fast. Lots of tree bomb all over at the same instant. It was awesome.

We weren't worried about a step down into the lower snowpack so we ripped the chutes, got some faceshots and managed some sluff. is what it is

Edit: The place I was at gets skiied a lot though so it pretty much never slides big anymore...

---

If you have the time, I highly recommend you read this:
http://www.fsavalanche.org/NAC/techP...SSW_Chabot.pdf

Just skimmed through it and that terrain is huge compared to what I was talking about. But I'll read it. People have died and I don't want to minimize the dangers. The point I was trying to make is that there are safe fun places to hit on high days and I think high days are part of the learning curve.

Point taken though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by theshredder

The point I was trying to make is that there are safe fun places to hit on high days and I think high days are part of the learning curve.

Point taken though.

---

I wasn't intending to be judgmental. Just trying to help share some information and also dispel the myth that frequent skier travel inherently makes a given area safe or keeps it from going big. "It depends" is usually the answer, and learning to use information we have available (weather reports, avalanche advisories) is a big part of the game.

It's a really good article; I recommend reading it on the can or before you go to bed. It's an incident I call a "free lesson" - no one hurt, no one killed, but some pretty good lessons to be taken. Keep on exploring and stay safe!

I'd be more worried about that particular slide after heavy wet snow or really warm sunny weather. wow. Geeze if anyone had been on that slope they probably wouldn't have made it. (as it says.)

Thanks for posting that Shralpmacchio, I'd never seen it.

"Even with the massive avalanche clearly evident, people continued skiing adjacent terrain that did not slide in the days following the avalanche. For some people, no amount of avalanche education or in-your-face evidence will dissuade them from their powder turns or the certainty of their belief that they know exactly what is going on in the snowpack."

Another nice quote from the piece from MT

"However, much to our amazement, there is a sizable population that cannot or will not be reached. Even with the massive avalanche clearly evident, people continued skiing adjacent terrain that did not slide in the days following the avalanche. For some people, no amount of avalanche education or in-your-face evidence will dissuade them from their powder turns or the certainty of their belief that they know exactly what is going on in the snowpack. We need to realize that these people exist, but our time, our energies and our message will only reach those members of the public who are willing to listen."

Coming to that realization may be sad but is ultimately a good way to relieve frustration

Good read, Schralp. Thank you for posting it. Not only was it interesting, but it left me with a lingering sense of the value of a community of like minded people who communicate on the same terms all centered around an area of terrain [kind of made me envious].

C.Monster - I glanced only very quickly at first since terms such as "Information Philosophy Map" tend to put me off. I then took the time to read the images and you are certainly onto something with course curriculum complexity and the educational levels at which they are best aimed. Could say more...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hohes

Good read, Schralp. Thank you for posting it. Not only was in interesting, but it left me with a lingering sense of the value of a community of like minded people who communicate on the same terms all centered around an area of terrain [kind of made me envious].

C.Monster - I glanced only very quickly at first since terms such as "Information Philosophy Map" tend to put me off. I then took the time to read the images and you are certainly onto something with course curriculum complexity and the educational levels at which they are best aimed. Could say more...

---

Thanks Hohes.

I should have mentioned that it was heavily redacted. It sounds a lot less pretentious with complete subject headings. Without redactions the headings read like "Mountain Guides Inc. Avalanche Course Philosophy - Information Map 1". Info map is just pretentious jargon for "outline".

Feel free to say more if you're inclined... criticism welcomed.

Sent from my Paranoid Android using TGR forums.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SchralphMacchio

If you have the time, I highly recommend you read this:
http://www.fsavalanche.org/NAC/techP...SSW_Chabot.pdf

---

This was excellent. Can't believe I've never read it before. Thanks much.

Scralph - thanks for posting. Had not seen that either. Very good read.

Thumbs up, a good read. Raises important questions about open gates and side country. The BB Ski Patrol and Avalanche Center were issuing appropriate warnings, but can you blame people for wanting to ski terrain that is so accessible, especially with so many others skiing it? We teach people to access stability, manage terrain and ski/ride strategically, but who wouldn't feel like a geek digging a pit on a heavily trafficked slope? And managing terrain and skiing strategically quickly become meaningless with so many others on slope.

Perhaps posting the current stability rating at the gate?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CookieMonster

Here's a model of topics that myself and some other folks have been working on. It's based on analysing themes/details from the literature and to be fair I should disclose that it also uses computational linguistics. This theoretical learning model turns the avalanche triangle into a snowflake and has other points as well.
http://i.imgur.com/80GH2.png

---

I like it. It's challenging to make that kind of a diagram because some categories will deserve four subsections and others will only deserve two subsections.

Did you consider changing "Angle" to "Angles" - that would capture the slope angle as well as an analysis of slope shape.

The labels in the Weather circle seem a little confusing. I'd be interested to know what the explanation is for each label.
Why not call "motion", wind to simplify comprehension? Is there another kind of motion I am missing?
What is "mountains" - just an acknowledgement of the rapidly changing conditions (spatially and temporally) in the mountains?
I assume that the "air" category would include ambient temperature and cloud cover (and indirectly, solar radiation)?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by steventy

I like it. It's challenging to make that kind of a diagram because some categories will deserve four subsections and others will only deserve two subsections.

Did you consider changing "Angle" to "Angles" - that would capture the slope angle as well as an analysis of slope shape.

The labels in the Weather circle seem a little confusing. I'd be interested to know what the explanation is for each label.
Why not call "motion", wind to simplify comprehension? Is there another kind of motion I am missing?
What is "mountains" - just an acknowledgement of the rapidly changing conditions (spatially and temporally) in the mountains?
I assume that the "air" category would include ambient temperature and cloud cover (and indirectly, solar radiation)?

---

Thanks for the comments. You've correctly identified the challenges! Your suggestions are great and not something I've heard before. I'll incorporate them and post a new version

The integrated nature of factors is supposed to make it easier to see the connections between factors and their relationship to our perception and decisions. I suppose "weather" could be explained more clearly.

The "Weather" section is supposed to list the factors that create mountain weather "trends". I'm definitely open to other suggestions: "wind" is great...

Sent from my Paranoid Android using TGR forums.