East Coast Mags: November 8 = Eastern Snow & Avalanche Workshop

[Jonathan S.]

Since this is now the fourth annual Eastern Snow & Avalanche Workshop (“ESAW”), anyone even vaguely avy aware should by now be aware of this.

But if not, then here is the ESAW website (link here is to the page with 2014 info):
http://www.esaw.org/2014-date-and-new-location/

And here is a link to the articles in the American Avalanche Association’s “The Avalanche Review” for the past three years:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6Q...it?usp=sharing

In brief, although ESAW is by no means a substitute for traditional on-snow avy training, and although attendees without at least a Level 1 education might feel kind of lost, otherwise this is highly valuable continuing education and lateral learning - plus a great chance to socialize with your fellow backcountry skiers (especially since so much of our winters out here are spent jealously guarding secret stashes).

For 2014, ESAW will once again be held on the Saturday of the second weekend of the month, so that will be November 8 this year.
New for this year are some social events Friday evening, plus a new venue just outside North Conway (although we’ll still finish up Saturday evening at IME with socializing and vendor displays).

I’ll update this thread later on this fall as we get closer to the date.

*****

And two other avy items this fall potentially of interest:

September 20 = Ski Patrol Avy Instructor Event
Primarily intended for ski patrollers who are instructors – or interested in learning more about instructing in – avy safety, mtn travel/rescue, or backcountry skiing.
But we also have hands-on refresher skills stations (including beacon practice) that might be of interest to other backcountry skiers.
Cost = free (with lunch included).
Details (including RSVP info):
http://amn14.nmnsp.org

October 25 = “Module 1” of NSP Avy L1 Course
New NSP lingo for 2014-15, as my de facto modular approach has now been formally adopted by NSP. (If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then great, I’ll take it!)
Bottomline is that this format gets all the off-snow portions of the course out of the way during the time of year when we don’t have any snow, so that all the winter course time can be devoted too, well, actual on-snow activities!
Plus by requiring lots of homework, we can spent the in-person time in discussions, small group exercises, decisionmaking scenarios, etc., instead of endless PowerPoint presentations.
As a byproduct of this format, although my version of Module 1 is intended to prepare students for on-snow field sessions to complete a full Level 1 course, Module 1 also functions nicely on its own as a refresher for students who have already completed a full Level 1 course in a prior season (since we won’t be boring you by transmitting all the basic technical knowledge you already had in your L1).
Cost = $50 course fee + NSP fee of either $7.50 for patrollers or $15 for others
Details:
http://avycourse.blogspot.com/2010/0...bus-dates.html

[Jonathan S.]

Facebook "event" page for ESAW:
https://www.facebook.com/events/685473661545990/
(Official registration though -- once available -- will still be on the ESAW website, as well as on-site.)

[Jonathan S.]

Updated info:
http://www.esaw.org/2014-date-and-new-location/
And registration is live:
http://www.esaw.org/registration/

Also, earlier today Chris emailed me some pics of the venue.
The point was to figure out places for vendor displays, but whoah is this place cushy -- big upgrade from the school gym!

[Jonathan S.]

ESAW update follows below.

I've posted the referenced schedule at a temporary link:
2014 Schedule

Only one month and ESAW 2014 will be here. If you haven't signed up yet please do as soon as possible! http://www.esaw.org/registration/ It will help our logistics volunteers greatly in relation to coffee, food, and other refreshments.

We're once again excited to say we've got a great day in store. Our list of presentations is attached and will also be up at www.esaw.org over the next couple of days. We have topics from our local mountains, western professionals, about avalanche rescue and PPE, as well as a great panel round table discussion. To keep our avalanche talks vibrant we have once again brought in speakers from around North America.

Speakers: We have many great speakers at this year’s event and we’ll list more info about them soon on the ESAW website soon. A few highlights: This year we are honored to have Karl Birkeland the Director of the US Forest Service National Avalanche Center. I got to know Karl between 15-20 years ago and he has a truly unique skill in taking very scientific concepts and making them understandable for the field. He has an extremely well rounded background that he brings to his current role. He has been a Patroller at Bridger Bowl, started the Bozeman Avalanche Forecasting program for the Forest Service, was our USFS National Avalanche Scientist and now steers the future of avalanche forecasting on public lands across the United States. Toby Weed is coming from the Utah Avalanche Center stationed at the Logan office. As you know, Utah boasts “The Greatest Snow on Earth” and I know his talks will demonstrate this well. I really look forward to his presentation of an extreme avalanche cycle that gave him a few more grey hairs. Sam Colebeck will be back with us bringing continued relevance of snow physics principles. He helps us understanding why crystals bond, change, fracture and fail leading to merely collapse, or an avalanche. In addition to some of our region’s usual suspects from Mount Washington and NSP, we are also very excited about our partnership with the American Alpine Club. This has produced a new ESAW scholarship award through the "Live your Dream" grant as well as “Avalanches and Climbing - Staying alive while pushing the limits in alpine terrain” a round table discussion with some very recognizable names and talent. These personalities include Kevin Mahoney, Mark Richey, Majka Burhardt, Jesse Williams, and Ben Leoni. I am looking forward to all of it!

Young snow hounds. What really got us motivated to get ESAW going a few years ago was to create a new avalanche venue at a high level in the Northeast. Just as motivating was thinking about the next generation of kids and young adults. These students will not only be heading into the mountains in future winters, but will be carrying the avalanche message forward when we're gone. We need to give them all the tools we can and mentor their development. They are the next patrollers, climber and skier professionals, meteorologists, and avalanche forecasters. We will have more young snow enthusiasts this year than ever before. The White Mountain Avalanche Education Fund has to date sponsored 22 motivated High School students for ESAW2014, many who are involved with ski academies and racing programs. Hopefully some of them will be our next avalanche forecasters, patrollers, physicists, and engineers!

In addition to the four long term partners that have made ESAW possible, namely the Mount Washington Volunteer Ski Patrol, The U.S. Forest Service Mount Washington Avalanche Center, International Mountain Equipment, and the American Avalanche Association we have some great supporters for 2014. http://www.esaw.org/sponsors/ There is no way we could produce the great day we do without their generosity and help. Last year you had about a 1/3 chance to go home with a pretty good raffle prize. This year we’ll try to equal that. I look forward to seeing you at ESAW! Hope you can make it.

Christopher Joosen, Director- Mount Washington Avalanche Center

[neufox47]

Im going, was an interesting day last year, and i got more than my moneys worth in gear. The silent auctions had some steals. Anyone else going?

[Fenris]

Yep

4567890

[cat in january]

Looking forward to it. The round table should be especially interesting. My only regret is the lovely Julie Leblanc will not be there.

[Jonathan S.]

Looking forward to it. The round table should be especially interesting. My only regret is the lovely Julie Leblanc will not be there.

Here's one of the roundtable participants:





P.S. She's already taken.

[cat in january]

Saw some other photos of her when I googled the round table participants as I did not know some of them. ESAW continues to up the game.

[Jonathan S.]

Im going, was an interesting day last year, and i got more than my moneys worth in gear. The silent auctions had some steals. Anyone else going?

I'm printing up the bid sheets now for the silent auction -- $100 opening bid on a Petzl Nao (575 lumens!), and $150 for an Ortovox 3+ beacon.

[grubbers]

Just registered, looking forward to this.

[Jonathan S.]

in addition to the ~60 prizes to be raffled off during breaks in the day's presentations and then after that at the IME social event, we will have the following silent auction items:

LA SPORTIVA Ski Boots: Spectre, Sparkle, Sideral, or Starlet
PETZL NAO Headlamp (575 lumens!)
ORTOVOX 3+ Avalanche Beacon
STERLING Fusion Nano Alpine Touring 9.2mm Dry 40m
STERLING Evolution Duetto Alpine Touring 8.4mm Dry 30m
DYNAFIT jacket (details in transit, along with so much other stuff that the trucks from USPS, UPS, and FedEx might crash into each other in front of my house today)

Most opening bids are at only ~40% of retail, and most winning bids in the past have stayed barely above that.

[dark_star]

Great workshop this year, and great talk Jonathan! Snow is awesome.

[Jonathan S.]

Looking forward to it. The round table should be especially interesting. My only regret is the lovely Julie Leblanc will not be there.

ESAW once again delivers - and even our favorite Quebec avalanche forecaster was in attendance!

[thewon]

i'm sure it was a VERY action packed ESAW, but anything you would like to share for those of us that couldn't make it would be much appreciated. trends, movements, hlghlights, etc

[cat in january]

These are some thoughts I walked away with. Anyone please feel free to correct or add in:

The talks by Chris Joosen and Karl Birkeland both had me rethinking snow slabs in avalanche formation. As I am looking at the snowpack I will not just be identifying the weak layer and slab density above it, but looking at the behavior of the slab itself.

Chris talked about the impact of loose snow sloughing and how this can lead to slab problems low down on a climb particularly on some of the entrances to Huntington. In Tucks he pointed to the choke in the Chute as a place sluff piles up on low wind days. He spoke to upslope snow from December to February with low density being very difficult to forecast and its impact on avalanche forecasting.

Karl talked about looking at how crack propagation of a slab might be the best way to look at assessing avalanche hazard. The one test I am going to watch some videos on doing is the extended column test. This test led to about a 5% False positive (relatively low versus other field tests) and most importantly can work on low angle snow and translate to higher angles. I suspect this is more useful in western mountains where the snowpack is more uniform and is not as impacted by wind and elevation as it is around Mount Washington. Chris, Frank and Ben Leoni all touched on the difficulty of spatial variability on Mount Washington. It definitely is a test I want in my toolkit when I visit the Chic Chocs in February.

Frank Carus went through the snowpack development which led to the unusual summit cone avalanche last March. He looked at the weather conditions that led to the deep weak layer the slab broke on.

Mark Richie taught me if I am ever camping on/near large mountains and I hear a big avalanche crack off I am getting the fuck out of my tent. No draining my lung of fluid without morphine thank you very much.

Jonathan gave an entertaining talk about avalanche packs dispelling some of the advertising literature. He asked us to consider not just the weight penalty and what other items could be brought in place of the added weight, but also that an avalanche pack was a me first tool as opposed to other tools which are focused on helping your partner.

As impossible as it was, Jonathan managed to outdo himself with the raffled prizes. Fair to say everyone who wanted a prize could have one and some of the prizes were very nice. Beer and mingling was good.

edit to add: this conference had a concerted effort to reach out to ice climbers. I did not write Chris's statistics down, but i believe ice climbers have been more susceptible to injury and had more fatalities than skiers. Interestingly the climbers on the panel were less likely to carry avy gear.

[thewon]

wow, thanx cat! great writeup, great stuff to chew on!

[Fenris]

i'm sure it was a VERY action packed ESAW, but anything you would like to share for those of us that couldn't make it would be much appreciated. trends, movements, hlghlights, etc

I've got vague outline-ish notes and audio from most of the day.

First half of the morning
- Intro
- Effects of Sluffing on New Slab Development and Instabilites
- Two Stages of Wet Snow: Basic Physics and Why We Care

Second half
- Mount Washington Summit Cone Avalanche: Persistant? Deep? Cold? A Near-Miss Case Study
- Recent Advances in Understanding Avalanche Releases and Stability Tests
- USDA-Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center - Logan

Round Table
- and NSP presentation

Afternoon
- Into the Black: Forecasting extreme avalanche conditions
- Avalanche Bags: Do they really work? Yes (with some caveats)
- USDA-Forest Service National Avalanche Center - Who We Are What We Do

[Jonathan S.]

^ Whoah, this is putting my draft TAR article to shame!
(Hey, maybe we should make you author these things from now on...)

Seriously though, many thanks for taking such careful notes, and I'll be incorporating some of that into my article revisions.

Just a few corrections though on your notes for my presentation:

"not like a car airbag
except Mammut, snowpulse PAS"
- Needs qualifier along the lines of "perhaps, and only to some small extent" (given the considerable torso exposure even upon deployment).

"4/15 fatalities have been harvard alums or profs"
- Total tally so far is 14. (Could be argued to be 15, given that the victim would not have died were it not for the avalanche, but death was not from avalanche-related injury or asphyxiation.)

"double blind experiment
some skierrs have packs and some don't, but no one knows who has them
Haegeli et all 2014"
- Haegeli is a "natural experiment" so not double- (or even single-) blind, but still, seems to control for pretty much all factors.

"Sealed CO2 cylinder - Scott, alpride - tsa is kinda ok with it"
- More like might/should be ok with it.
- TSA says all compressed-gas cylinders are prohibited, but then makes an exception for life jacket C02 cylinders. Alpride uses one C02 cylinder and one Argon cylinder, so who knows...

[thewon]

liking this TR a lot!

[Fenris]

Just tweaked my notes. The main reason that I take notes is so that I can remember, being able to share is a nice extra. Definitely missed some stuff just due to using a small keyboard, and running out of battery towards the end.

Nicely done to everyone who presented, though I was slightly horrified by how many ice climbers (something I'm now starting to do) don't bring gear during the round table.

[cat in january]

Would also like to thank Fenris for his excellent notes. The prior evenings festivities made concentrating a bit difficult. Reviewing your notes helps to seat the memory better.

It was a bit surprising to see how many identified climbers did not have gear and yet Chris's statistics pointed to their greater mortality.

Jonathan you can send me your Harvard degrees if you think it will make you safer

[bern43]

Just to echo what others have already said, the event was great. The summaries above pretty much cover it all. I won a pair of goggles in the raffle!

The "climbing" panel was strange. After the first speaker stressed how important it was to be "searchable" almost every climber in the panel admitted that they don't usually carry gear, especially on low days. Fine if you're making a personal decision, but shouldn't guides be modeling ideal behavior to clients? One of the guides actually thought it was more important for him to carry a beacon while skiing because he wasn't as accomplished a skier yet.

[thewon]

Just to echo what others have already said, the event was great. The summaries above pretty much cover it all. I won a pair of goggles in the raffle!

The "climbing" panel was strange. After the first speaker stressed how important it was to be "searchable" almost every climber in the panel admitted that they don't usually carry gear, especially on low days. Fine if you're making a personal decision, but shouldn't guides be modeling ideal behavior to clients? One of the guides actually thought it was more important for him to carry a beacon while skiing because he wasn't as accomplished a skier yet.

i've toured with older guides who didn't bother to carry gear. making solid safe terrain choices and general conservatism was/is their MO.

[Jonathan S.]

It was a bit surprising to see how many identified climbers did not have gear and yet Chris's statistics pointed to their greater mortality.

The "climbing" panel was strange. After the first speaker stressed how important it was to be "searchable" almost every climber in the panel admitted that they don't usually carry gear, especially on low days.

Surprising, strange?
Dale's lead-in demonstrated how many avalanched climbers are never even found until they melt out, so those candid admissions anecdotally confirmed his statistics.

Fine if you're making a personal decision, but shouldn't guides be modeling ideal behavior to clients? One of the guides actually thought it was more important for him to carry a beacon while skiing because he wasn't as accomplished a skier yet.

Was anyone who said anything like that a certified guide?
(I checked Fenris's notes but couldn't find any details on that. Of the panelists, Jesse Williams and Kevin Mahoney are fully certified IFMGA guides -- i.e., all three disciplines, rock, alpine, ski -- but I don't think any of the other panelists have any mtn guide certifications?)
[Edit: I meant mtn guide cert in alpine and/or ski, as my understanding -- correct? -- is that the various AMGA rock programs do not involve avy safety to any sort of significant extent.]

i've toured with older guides who didn't bother to carry gear. making solid safe terrain choices and general conservatism was/is their MO.

Since when are making solid safe terrain choices and general conservatism substitutes for carrying avy rescue gear (instead of a complement)?

This reminds me of the variations I've had on the following conversation with various partners over the years before late-spring and early summer tours in the Sierra and PNW:

He- "Do you think we should bring avy rescue gear?"
Me- "Yes."
He- "So . . . you think our route might have avy danger?"
Me- "No."
He- "Then why should we bring avy rescue gear?!?"
Me- "In case I'm wrong."