Eastern Snow & Avy Workshop = Nov 10

[Jonathan S.]

Save the date:
The 2012 Eastern Snow and Avalanche Workshop will be held on November 10 (Saturday) in the North Conway area!

The What will be held When and Where?

Okay, so if you missed the inaugural 2011 “ESAW” then you missed out on a day of avalanche safety presentations, followed by a social hour (and then some...), complete with prize raffles and vendor displays.

So even though you may not have attended, 85 of your fellow backcountry enthusiasts did, and we had to turn away about 40 more beforehand because of space limitations. (Apologies again if you fell into that latter category!)

This year we are looking into a larger venue to accommodate everyone.

ESAW is a joint effort of the American Avalanche Association and the USFS Mt Washington Avalanche Center. To get on the official email distribution list, send an email to the ESAWavalanche google mail account. (And yes, we’ll eventually have an ESAW.org website.)

Article on last year’s event (and yes, I can provide the original pdf if this jpg is too low in quality):



And here’s a nice write-up from Dave Lottmann (the EMS guide and avy instructor):
http://davidlottmann.wordpress.com/2...kshop-11-5-11/

Also, as the presumptive Member Affiliate Representative elect to the AAA Governing Board, first and foremost, I really like using the word “presumptive” (just like that other guy from Massachusetts running for some office or other). Second, I can reassure you that lots of schwag is already coming in for raffle prizes – Mister Ups is getting quite the workout bringing everything to my door (along with the usual Chinese plastic contraptions for our toddler daughter). So although ESAW is not free, you stand a good chance to win back your registration fee in prizes! (And it’s a small price to help keep yourself safe...)

Finally, while I have your attention (unless I’ve already lost it?), the dates for my own L1 avalanche course (the subject of a 2011 ESAW presentation):
http://avycourse.blogspot.com
... are November 18 classroom (in Northfield MA) and March 2-3 field sessions (Mt Washington).
The November 18 classroom session can also be taken as a standalone refresher course, since it’s almost entirely discussion, group exercises, etc. (with the “traditional” PowerPoint reduced for this, the classroom sessions’s fourth incarnation, down to about half an hour total throughout the day, since the basic technical knowledge foundation is achieved via pre-course reading on your own, not getting lectured at all day).

[icelanticskier]

thanx for posting this jonathan. nice to know they will be accomodating more folks. i may attend.

rog

[userA]

rog i am stoked to see this posting as well and here's to a deep winter to put the skillz to the test.
setting a good example for the next gen. riders.
bobby

[icelanticskier]

rog i am stoked to see this posting as well and here's to a deep winter to put the skillz to the test.
setting a good example for the next gen. riders.
bobby

ya chris, we gotta a tight lil winter bc scene up high nh. just a handful of regulars for much of the winter. our snow rangers are great folk that put out very simple straight forward bulletins. given our maritime type snowpack lingering instabilities are VERY limited and mostly just involve new windloaded snow. pretty simple really. living in utah had me walking on eggshells much of the time, raised blood pressure touring. not so much here. get on the steeps much more often on the regular here.

rog

[userA]

my wife has always told me there is a committed b/c scene back east, i just didn't believe her till i met you

[icelanticskier]

well if yer wife ever drags you (kicking and screaming) back east to visit family or something, make sure you hit me up for a tour up high (late dec-feb is best) for healed soft steep lee or character building (better know how to ski) windward. it gets good here, really good.
and more than most would imagine. 1" of snowfall or less oftentimes equates to feet of fluff in the lee. with 200+ inches of snow per winter, that's lots and lots of feets daily/weekly.

i'm actually getting excited to ski. doesn't usually happen till december. yikes.

rog

[Jonathan S.]

A few ESAW updates:

1. Location will be the John H Fuller Elementary School, just around the corner (literally) from last year's venue, to be followed by vendor displays and socializing at IME (just like last year).

2. Registration is now available at: http://www.esaw.org/registration/

3. One of the presenters will be Karl Birkeland: http://www.montana.edu/wwwes/facstaff/birkeland.htm

4. The official update email to the mailing lists is copied below.

Also, unrelated to ESAW, but related to eastern avalanches, registrations are starting to come in for my own avy course (and I've finally resolved some annoying NSP red tape), so if potentially interested:
http://avycourse.blogspot.com
http://avycourse.blogspot.com/2010/0...bus-dates.html
http://avycourse.blogspot.com/2010/0...tion-form.html
... please send in the registration materials and/or ask me any q's if anything is still unclear after reading the website.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Christopher Joosen <esawavalanche@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 1:20 PM
Subject: Eastern Snow and Avalanche Workshop - (ESAW) November 10, 2012 Registration

ESAW'ers, The age old truth continues today, “when an avalanche happens don’t be there”. How do we do that?- Never rest in the pursuit to know more about the avalanche enigma and phenomenon. As every snowflake is different so is each snowpack situation on any given day in any given winter. When we think we’ve got snow figured out we’re surprised again. Avalanche professionals around the globe acknowledge no one knows it all, we must continue to learn, discuss and share avalanche knowledge to enjoy a long life in the mountains. There are no experts, we are all students. In this vein I am happy to announce ESAW 2012.

The Eastern Snow and Avalanche Workshop in North Conway, NH is a place to bring together avalanche-minded individuals to share their enthusiasm for snow and discuss topics related to the winter in cold steep climates. We hope this will continue to be an annual gathering of avalanche professionals, educators, guides and backcountry skiing and climbing enthusiasts in the Northeast. It may be for personal interest, to fulfill continuing education and professional development needs, or the impending excitement for the upcoming winter.

Last year we launched the first ESAW which was grassroots and very successful. I hope, even with some modest growth this year, that we continue the same feel that we had last November, intimate, interactive, and fun. In order to allow more participants we are going to move a few doors down to the John Fuller Elementary School Auditorium, while keeping the vendor and social setting with our friends at International Mountain Equipment (IME). Registration and Workshop updates will all occur online at www.esaw.org so follow this link to sign up today. (You can continue to contact us at esawavalanche@gmail.com.) Your registration fee includes all the talks, several raffles throughout the day, coffee, donuts/fruit and social at IME with hops and barley. Any remaining funds will go to The White Mountain Avalanche Education Fund set up to educate kids of the northeast about avalanches. For more information follow the proceeding link to the Mount Washington Avalanche Center website. http://www.mountwashingtonavalanchec...ducation-fund/

We look forward to seeing all of you at ESAW 2012 in North Conway NH on November 10th!

[icelanticskier]

should be a great event! love chris's take on things. took me a good 20 years to figure out how to get caught real good with my pants down (well not really, i kinda knew it might go) in a sizeable avalanche. thank god i'm a strong swimmer.

interested to see how many folks are considering airbags round here. with trauma the most likely cause of death here, airbags may not make a huge difference.

how many folks are expected?

rog

[Jonathan S.]

how many folks are expected?

With 85 in its very first year, and with more turned away beforehand because of space limitations, over 100 is most likely this year.

[icelanticskier]

i'll see if i can make this year.

rog

[Jonathan S.]

interested to see how many folks are considering airbags round here. with trauma the most likely cause of death here, airbags may not make a huge difference.

Funny you should bring up that subject, since the Canadian avy journal just arrived today, and I immediately turned to the article on an all-Canadian airbag dataset, by the collaborator of my Swiss contact for my article this past spring on airbag stats for the American Avy Ass'n / The Avy Review.

Granted his all-Canadian dataset is quite small, but still, I was very surprised to see the 37% deployment failure rate, and that of those who did successfully deploy an airbag, 24% were buried to the extent of airway impairment, and 17% died. (The latter is not necessarily a subset of the former, b/c of trauma.)

Those #s are much worse than the Euro-dominated (especially since it was out of date by a year) dataset I used for my TAR article.

Hard to say whether the differences are explained by North American at-treeline vs Euro truly above-treeline, or changes over time, etc.
But the paper on the full dataset is being presented on Friday:
http://www.isswabstracts.com/abstrac...s_id=111397389
Looking forward to reading more details -- I suspect that airbag packs will still provide a statistically significant and plain-old significant survival edge, regardless of terrain, time period, dataset, etc., but I also suspect that edge might be eroded somewhat as compared to expectations (especially driven by the "97%" survival claim in marketing materials).

[icelanticskier]

well, airbags certainly aren't gonna keep more folks off of suspect slopes, and they probably won't decrease the number of folks of all snow skill sets in the bc on above low days. more folks may wear em, but more folks may feel compelled to push things just a lil bit further due to the technology, which may only increase avy related death numbers on a whole.

spoke with one of our local airbag company reps the other day and he brought up my avy incident. he said he is with SAR and someone had reported my slide from wildcat. well thank goodness i gathered my shit up quickly and schussed my ass down to pinkham right quick to report that everything was a ok.

he then asked if i wear an airbag. "nope", i said. the conversation ended there

rog

[cat in january]

interested to see how many folks are considering airbags round here. with trauma the most likely cause of death here, airbags may not make a huge difference.


rog

Hi Rog,
Wondering if that is something you think (trauma, not suffocation/hypothermia from burial) being the leading cause of death here in the northeast or Presidentials more specifically.

Did a quick search online and the MWOB had a listing of deaths in the Presidentials broken down by cause (as a side note I was quite suprised that lightning had not killed anyone as that scares the bejesus out of me when I am up high). They described one death and that was by burial and then list the others. I knew two of them-the teacher upside down in the GOS and the canadian buried in the camp to the right of Lions Head. So all 3 that I know of are due to burial.

Not getting in a pissing match. My knowledge is limited to those I listed. I think there was a book which broke down how exactly each person had died.

[Jonathan S.]

My detailed analysis was previously posted on time for tux.
I can repost it here later today if you can't find it.
But bottomline is that we definitely have a higher trauma rate than any other region.

Sent from my ADR6300 using TGR Forums

[icelanticskier]

Hi Rog,
Wondering if that is something you think (trauma, not suffocation/hypothermia from burial) being the leading cause of death here in the northeast or Presidentials more specifically.

Did a quick search online and the MWOB had a listing of deaths in the Presidentials broken down by cause (as a side note I was quite suprised that lightning had not killed anyone as that scares the bejesus out of me when I am up high). They described one death and that was by burial and then list the others. I knew two of them-the teacher upside down in the GOS and the canadian buried in the camp to the right of Lions Head. So all 3 that I know of are due to burial.

Not getting in a pissing match. My knowledge is limited to those I listed. I think there was a book which broke down how exactly each person had died.

in the 5 or so incidences i've been present for up there including the school teacher one in which you speak of, the dual fatality in 96", my own, and my partners, the dual 96' was fucking massive and did include wicked trauma (lots of blood when we found em with snapped trees with blood. the teacher one where the dood was buried with just legs sticking up with his gal watching, stuck herself, till his legs moved no more (awful)
mine, which coulda been non trauma due to treeless runout as i chose to not try to outrun it to the left as it woulda put me above a ton o trees so i took the huge white wave instead, and my partner who almost died due to be being strained through big lunch rocks boulders which woulda been trauma. so in my experiences that woulda been 3/2 favoring trauma.

our terrain does favor deaths by trauma, even tho we have plenty of steep wide open spaces as well.

surf looks awesome this morning....gotta go!!!!!!bye

rog

[cat in january]

Thanks for the response. Makes sense that trauma would be the culprit as there is so much rock and then tree strainers at the bottom of some runs. I just had limited knowledge and was curious what you knew.

[Jonathan S.]

Lemme know if this link works:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6Q...WpKdGYxWEhXMWc

[icelanticskier]

link works jonathan. yowza, i can remember what the conditions and air smelled like for 3 out of those 7 deaths like it was yesterday. real shit. i was the last to talk with todd and john as they began their approach on skins up into the base of gully #2. man did it look good, so good that it looked bad, so very very bad. john was quite the world traveler, skier, climber, with many notable 1st ascents in the daks and elsewhere. both men left avy gear in the car that day. made my ole pieps 457 optifinder useless. probing sucks. many many hours of probing really sucks.

lucky for me i stuck with my preferred, "tour solo on high danger days", mantra.

multiple folk brings comfort, multiple folk brings complacency, multiple folk brings cloudy skewed decision making. better know yer partner better than yerself.

rog

[Jonathan S.]

both men left avy gear in the car that day.

?!?!?
[I know they didn't have avy gear with them in the field, but they actually owned avy gear yet left it in the car?!?]

[icelanticskier]

?!?!?
[I know they didn't have avy gear with them in the field, but they actually owned avy gear yet left it in the car?!?]

correct. and you shoulda seen (between almost constant plumes of wind whipped snow) the tops of those gullies. 96' as you know was a fat year here and with close to 2 feet o new in 36 hours with winds loading the lee at 80 miles an hour, you can just imagine what it looked like. the gully tops 900-1000 vert above the 38 degree gullies looked like waves about to break, pillowed, shadowed, scary.

not one to hardly ever let a high danger day go unnoticed as i just love to witness stuff as it apears to teeter on the edge of........my plan was to ski, the then very nice well filled in gladed areas off of boot spur kinda below dog leg, which i did, in perfect pow, but not before getting a good look at the scary gullies and a few folks that chose to look a bit closer, too close

i think they just figured, hey we're in nh, on the east coast, it snowed, what can go wrong in these little hills? happens a lot, and people die as a result.

rog

[neufox47]

Man crazy story.

If anyone needs a ride from Boston or along the way PM me.

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[Jonathan S.]

i think they just figured, hey we're in nh, on the east coast, it snowed, what can go wrong in these little hills? happens a lot, and people die as a result.

Singh [Wald's roommate] said she had repeatedly reminded Wald of the dangers of Mount Washington, the highest peak in the Northeast, and the people who had died there.
"He would just look at me and say, 'I have been doing this for a long time. I'm not stupid,'" she recalled yesterday.

BTW, who was the unidentified climber higher up in the same gully (who may have triggered the slide)?

[icelanticskier]

BTW, who was the unidentified climber higher up in the same gully (who may have triggered the slide)?

heh, i never saw ^^^^^^^that quote or article. guess i wasn't off base with my thoughts on the matter.

that climber was booting without ski equipment. he was close to 3/4 of the way up climbers right where the gully is about at it's steepest. i don't think john and todd knew he was above them as the viz was like coastal bc mountains in jan .

i'm pretty sure that climber was the trigger and he luckily just stepped aside as the snow let go.

rog

[neufox47]

heh, i never saw ^^^^^^^that quote or article. guess i wasn't off base with my thoughts on the matter.

that climber was booting without ski equipment. he was close to 3/4 of the way up climbers right where the gully is about at it's steepest. i don't think john and todd knew he was above them as the viz was like coastal bc mountains in jan .

i'm pretty sure that climber was the trigger and he luckily just stepped aside as the snow let go.

rog

Wait, what? Does anyone know who the clymber was? Did he assist with the rescue or did someone trigger a slide on people and then hightail it out of there?

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[Jonathan S.]

Wait, what? Does anyone know who the clymber was? Did he assist with the rescue or did someone trigger a slide on people and then hightail it out of there?

Rescuers were alerted to the accident by a man who had witnessed the avalanche from a ledge
above Wald and Crumbaker. According to the Associated Press, the man told rescuers he
believes his footsteps started the avalanche. The witness stepped to safety when he felt the snow
beneath him start to slip.
The man, who asked authorities not to release his name, immediately began searching for the
two victims but could not find them.

The first individual, who was hiking by himself up on the right side of the gully, noticed two
others about 250 feet below him (John and Todd). They were standing in the middle of the gully
where it begins to level out into the runout zone. This area is a classic terrain trap with ridges on
both sides. They appeared to be either removing their skins or their skis. The avalanche
originated approximately 200 feet above the first individual, 450' above John and Todd's
location. He was able to move 4 feet to his right and step out of the moving debris before it had
gained much momentum and yelled down to watch out. Once the avalanche stopped he started
down the Gulf of Slides trail to see if the other two had skied out. When he did not see signs of
them, he started probing the debris with his ski pole. A local university outing club came across
him and assisted in an improvised probe line with ski poles.

I've attended the USFS avy course presentation on this a few times (first as a student, then as an instructor).
I vaguely recall asking questions about the unidentified climber, but I'm pretty sure that no additional details were forthcoming.