TH E A Publication of the American Avalanche Association
RE V I E W VOLUME 22, NO. 2 • DECEMBER 2003 Website: www.a v a l a n c h e . o rg / ~ a a a p
US $4.95
Heuristic Traps in Recreational Avalanche Accidents: Evidence and Implications, Part 1
By Ian McCammon
The starting zone of this particular avalanche path is unsupported with large cliffs in the track. The runout zone is 500 to 750 meters below." Photo by Paul Laca / snowdynamics.com
editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series on heuristic traps.
everal years ago my buddy our climbing adventures years Steve died in an avalanche. before. Things were different now, S It was a stormy day and the Steve said, and he told me about avalanche danger was high, so his wife and his beautiful four- Steve and his partners chose a ski y e a r-old daughter. He believed tour they thought would be safe. his days of being reckless were They had skied the route many over, and the time for raising his times before and were confident family had begun. When he died, that their experience, skill and it was on a popular route in avalanche knowledge would keep familiar terrain, on a slope them out of trouble that day. traversed by dozens of people Several hours into their tour, as every season, in a place that he they broke trail across a low-angle believed was safe. The foolish risk slope, they triggered an avalanche story just didn’t seem to fit what I that swept down on them from knew about Steve and the above. The avalanche caught all accident, and I began to suspect three of them, breaking one man’s that such stories were really about thigh against a tree and something else. completely burying Steve. Other Exactly what these stories skiers nearby heard the accident meant became clear to me when I In This Issue and came to the rescue, but Steve noticed the striking parallel From the Director ...... 2 died before they could dig him between each story and the From the Editor ...... 2 out. perspective of the teller. The Metamorphism ...... 3 In the aftermath of the foolish risk story was often told by What’s New ...... 7 accident, people tried to make people who prided themselves on Media sense of what had happened. their ability to avoid foolish risks. Surviving Digital Photography . 9 Some claimed that Steve’s death A story about the need for better Crown Profiles was the result of foolish risks, but education often came fro m Big Chief Incident ...... 11 I knew better. Weeks earlier, I had educators or science types. Pisco Dreams ...... 13 shared a lift ride with Steve at Snow Science Continues on page 16 Alta, and we had laughed about Hazard In Kazakhstan ...... 15 PAGE 2 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003
THE FROM THE DIRECTOR: MARK MULLER
REVIEW he calendar aside, my year seems to begin in the the avalanche community as an AAA Board Member fall. The anticipation. The changing colors with please contact me. T the first dustings of snow. Fall also brings the time I’d like to take this opportunity to acknowledge a DECEMBER 2003 • VOL. 22 • NUMBER 2 when we renew bonds and friendships with our new AAA Life Member, Dave Hendrickson. Dave has colleagues at preseason meetings and seminars. The been an AAAProfessional Member for many years and a The Avalanche Review is published each fall through Association held its annual meeting October 3rd a t legend in southeast Alaska. Life membership involves spring by the American Avalanche Association, Inc., a Snowbird, Utah. In conjunction with the meeting a two- substantial financial support for AAA. Thank you, Dave. non-profit corporation. The Avalanche Review welcomes Membership and subscription renewal requests went the submission of articles, photographs and illustrations. day continuing education seminar was held on the 4th out this past summer. Most of you have already renewed. Please send submissions to: and 5t h. A A A’s goal has been to provide some Blase Reardon –– Editor If you are unsure, check the mailing label of this Avalanche 636 Columbia Avenue educational opportunities during the fall in between R e v i e w. The date indicates when your membership Whitefish, Montana 59937 ISSW years. In 1997, an explosive workshop was held expires. If you have any questions do not hesitate to tel: (406) 862-0812 and in 1999, an avalanche education workshop. This work: (406) 888-7926 contact me. Only members in good standing will be [email protected], y e a r’s workshop themes were one day of mountain included in and receive the 2004 A A A M e m b e r s h i p [email protected] weather and a day of avalanche education topics. Those Directory who attended were treated to interesting and thought I was sorry to hear recently from Norm Wilson that a Advertising : p rovoking presentations and discussions. Seminar Halsted Morris –– Advertising Coordinator friend and colleague, Nic Kindschi passed away last 867 unit A evaluations were passed out and this information will August. He was in his 80’s. Probably not well known in Hill and Dale Road help to shape future professional development events. the United States, Nic was Chief of the Parsenndienst Golden, CO The primary goals will remain providing state-of-the-art 80401-8580 (basically the ski patrol), Davos, Switzerland, for many [email protected] information at a reasonable price to AAAmembers. Look years until he retired. The Parsenndienst and Davos are tel 720-746-1542 for the next AAA Continuing Education Seminar in the discussed at length in Colin Fraser’s classic book, The fax 720-746-1543 fall of 2005. Avalanche Enigma. Nic was a real mountain person who Business and Subscription Office: At the Annual Meeting the board pre s e n t e d spent a lot of time keeping up with the latest innovations Mark Mueller –– AAA Executive Director information about several activities in which AAAand its and trying to keep people from getting avalanched. After P.O.Box 2831 members are involved. A A A and the Explosives his retirement, he continued to advise the Swiss Army Pagosa Springs, CO 81147 Committee of the National Ski Areas Association are [email protected] about avalanche matters and on his 75th birthday he nearing the completion of materials that will assist ski tel: (970) 946-0822 climbed the Finsteraarhorn- a well known, spectacular, patrol training in safe explosives handling for avalanche fax: (970) 731-2486 and not undemanding Swiss summit. control. This effort is an outgrowth of the traveling I met Nic at Squaw Valley in 1982, when he was regional explosives handling seminars sponsored by The American touring U.S. ski areas with Norm Wilson. Almost twenty AAA that visited many western ski areas several winters Avalanche years later I met Nic again by coincidence at the Jamtal Association ago. In another major effort the AAA Research and Hutte in Austria’s Silveretta. My skill in German had Standards Awareness Committees are working with the improved some and we visited. Nic, with friend and U.S. Forest Service National Avalanche Center in creating mountain guide, Walter Berliner offered some much- a U.S. Observation Guidelines and Reporting Standards needed advice on getting to a group of mountains my for weather, snowpack, and avalanche data. The wife and I wanted to ski. I marveled at these classy Executive Director ...... Mark Mueller Canadian Avalanche Association has provided invaluable mountain men who were still getting out and about in the assistance with both of these activities. Look for more AAA Officers mountains they loved in all seasons. I look to them as *President...... Russ Johnson about these endeavors in The Avalanche Review, your examples of where I hope to be in my years to come. *Vice President...... Bill Williamson source for the latest avalanche information. *Secretary ...... Andy Gleason By the time you read this, winter will be upon us. I AAA will be conducting its bi-annual elections in the *Treasurer...... Dave Ream wish you all a safe and successful winter. Good luck, summer of 2004 for Executive Board and Section Committee Chairs good hunting, and stay on top. Awards...... Denny Hogan Representative officers. If you are interested in serving Data...... Dan Judd ❊ Education...... Don Sharaf Ethics ...... Janet Kellam Membership...... Stuart Thompson Research...... Ethan Greene FROM THE EDITOR: BLASE REARDON Search & Rescue...... Dale Atkins Ski Area ...... Onno Wieringa Standards Awareness...... Craig Sterbenz t the A A A education seminar at Snowbird in many other educators – have approached avalanche *Publications...... Steve Conger October, avalanche educators demonstrated some education over the years. For years I’ve responded to Publications Committee remarkable teaching tools, many of which I’ve students’ requests for rules and definitive answers with Editor...... Blase Reardon A Assistant Editor ...... Lynne Wolfe appropriated for my classes this winter. These techniques “It depends…” Like many avalanche professionals, I Editor Emeritus...... Steve Conger are remarkably effective at conveying knowledge about hold to Ron Perla’s “tThe only first rule of thumb in Editor Emeritus...... Sue Ferguson snow and avalanches. But recent research suggests that regards to avalanches is that there are no rules of thumb.” Editor Emeritus...... Bruce Tremper often it’s not knowledge about snow and avalanches that McCammon and Munter, in different ways, argue Advertising...... Halsted Morris Web Asst...... Jay Gress, people lack when they get into trouble in the backcountry. that avalanche educators should not resist students’ drive Karl Birkeland, Janet Kellam, Gary Murphy Two articles in this issue of The Avalanche Review for rules of thumb. Everyone – including avalanche Section Representatives highlight this gap. The Big Chief accident description is a professionals – makes decisions using heuristics. Their Alaska…...... Bill Glude firsthand account of the difficulties that even experienced, approaches imply that in light of this fact, we should give Eastern Section...... Bob Bailey knowledgeable people have assessing avalanche risk in students rules and behaviors that will help them when European Section...... Peter Höller the backcountry. And in the issue’s lead article, Ian they don’t have the experience to cut through data Intermountain North...... Fay Johnson McCammon examines behaviors in several hundre d overload or assess the results of inconsistent stability Intermountain South...... Dave Ream Northwest...... Jon Andrews avalanche accidents; his analysis shows that avalanche tests. We should give people practices to follow when Rockies...... Woody Sherwood victims, even those with advanced avalanche training, t h e y ’ re tired or stressed or their group isn’t Sierra...... Gary Murphy typically make decisions in the backcountry using communicating well, if at all. We should re p l a c e Member Representative...... Halsted Morris heuristics - rules of thumb - that work well in everyday heuristics that work well in freeway traffic with those that Executive Committee denoted by * life but which ultimately expose people to more risk work well when hazard is “Considerable” in the winter The mission of the AAA is: when applied in the backcountry. backcountry. And we should teach these things first. A. To provide information about snow and avalanches; McCammon’s research has challenging implications I am not sure what to make of this yet, much less how B. To represent the professional interests of the United States avalanche community for avalanche education. If snow and avalanche to do it. Many avalanche educators don’t. It is by no C. To contribute toward high standards of professional competence and ethics for persons engaged in avalanche activities; knowledge isn’t keeping people out of trouble, then what means clear that the statistical basis for Munter’s methods D. To exchange technical information and maintain communications does? Some recent developments, particularly Munter’s is valid in North America or that his methods will take among persons engaged in avalanche activities; E. To promote and act as a resource base for public awareness pro- 3x3 and reduction methods, address this question with hold among North American backcountry riders and grams about avalanche hazards and safety measures; probabilistic or rule-based methods for decision-making. skiers. And while McCammon’s detailed research is new, F. To promote research and development in avalanche safety. These methods provide formal frameworks that minimize Fesler and Fredston pointed avalanche education towards Subscription: $20 per year (4 issues). The price of subscription is knowledge about snow and avalanches and substitute human factors on page 1 of Snow Sense long ago. I’m included with membership dues to AAA. See www.avalanche.org/~aaa for subscription and membership informa - behaviors that might reduce a person’s chances of being pretty sure recent approaches don’t demand abandoning tion. caught in a fatal avalanche accident. It’s an approach knowledge-based teaching. They likely entail focusing Contributions: Please submit material eight weeks prior to publica- tion date. Include address and telephone number. Please submit used in health education ads, which don’t detail the classes on cognitive skills as much as snow and avalanche typed manuscripts by e-mail or disk (3.5", Zip or CD), using any popular word processing program. Submit any figures in B & W, or chemistry of cholesterol. Instead, they tell you to reduce knowledge. That means finding memorable heuristics as a TIFF or EPS file (300 dpi resolution at 100%). We will return materials if you include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. your chances of heart disease by not smoking, eating less and rituals as well as ways to demonstrate them in hour- Articles, including editorials, appearing in The Avalanche Review red meat and exercising regularly. long awareness classes. It requires creating exercises that reflect the individual views of the authors and not the official points of view adopted by AAA or the organizations with which the authors The approach isn’t new to avalanche education. help students experience the difference between everyday are affiliated unless otherwise stated. Richmond’s Rituals (One at a time, never ski above your heuristics and backcountry heuristics so they have useful © 2003 by the American Avalanche Association. Materials may be reproduced for research or classroom use. Permission is also partner, and always have an escape route) are a familiar tools when they are in the backcountry. But it also means granted for use of short quotations, figures and tables in scientific ru l e b a s e d rule based approach to decision-making in less emphasis - and less course time - to on snow books and journals. For permission for other uses, contact The Avalanche Review. avalanche terrain. But McCammon’s emphasis and metamorphism, mountain weather, terrain, and beacon Munter’s methods nonetheless run counter to how I – and skills – the very things for which many of us have worked VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW PAGE 3
hard to develop effective teaching The approach isn’t new to avalanche tools. Though that may be hard to education. Richmond’s Rituals (One M E TAMORPHISM & AAA NEWS accept, the point of Perla’s circular at a time, never ski above your heuristic may be that with partner, and always have an escape avalanches we need to keep an open route) are a familiar rule based New Professional Members New AAA Certified Avalanche mind and be willing to change our a p p roach to decision-making in Gary Brill Seattle, WA Instructors: practices as our knowledge changes. avalanche terrain. But McCammon’s Doug Driskell Aspen, CO Sam Davis Salt Lake City, UT The Avalanche Review: it exists emphasis and Munter’s methods Clark Fyans Girdwood, AK Jerry Hance Bozeman, MT somewhere between peer-reviewed nonetheless run counter to how I – Steve House Mazama, WA Janet Kellam Ketchum, ID journals and informal patrol-shack and many other educators – have Ron Matous Kelly, WY conversations. TAR is less a venue a p p roached avalanche education Ian McCammon Salt Lake City, UT Steve Conger has moved from Boise, for definitive conclusions; and more over the years. For years I’ve Carl Skustad Girdwood, AK ID to Vancouver, BC to start working a forum where avalanche responded to students’ requests for on a Masters Degree in the p rofessionals pose questions and rules and definitive answers with “It New Member Affiliates Engineering Department at suggest solutions, usually based on depends…” Like many avalanche Gary Clawson Boise, ID University of British Columbia. He h a rd-won experience. For the professionals, I hold to Ron Perla’s Kenny Hier Snowmass, CO will be working with Dave McClung. publication to be meaningful; “The only rule of thumb in regards to Matthew Pierce Ft. Collins, CO however, it must involve avalanche avalanches is that there are no rules Ben Prichett Crested Butte, CO professionals across the community. of thumb.” Billy Rankin Crested Butte, CO Whether you are ski patro l l e r, McCammon and Munter, in Ron Rash Basalt, CO avalanche forecaster, or backcountry different ways, argue that avalanche Ilya Storm Cornwall, VT enthusiast, you continually assess educators should not resist students’ David Sweet Boulder, CO risk and make tough decisions. Are drive for rules of thumb. Everyone – Doug Workman Jackson, WY ❊ recent developments and re s e a rc h including avalanche professionals – a ffecting your practices and makes decisions using heuristics. operations? How? Articles planned Their approaches tell us that in light The Avalanche Review: TAR is accepting articles, stories, for the next issue of TAR include a of this fact, we should give students queries, papers, photos. We can help second installment of McCammon’s rules and behaviors that will help A Call for Submissions if you’re not sure how to write it up. research and an informal discussion them when they don’t have the Seen any good avalanches lately? of how the growing awareness of experience to cut through data Got some gossip for the other snow TAR Deadlines: spatial variability is changing overload or assess the results of nerds out there? Vol. 22, Issue 3 is January 15, 2004 backcountry and operational stability tests; we should give them Developing new tools or ideas? Vol. 22, Issue 4 is March 15, 2004 practices. Add to those discussions; practices that they’ll follow when Learn something from an accident send us photos, an article, a letter to t h e y ’ re tired or stressed or their investigation? Send text as .doc or .rtf files. the editor, ,; share your insight and group isn’t communicating well, if at Tell us about a particularly tricky help to avalanche pro f e s s i o n a l s all. We should replace heuristics that spot of terrain; Send photos as black and white .jpg improve merge theory and practice. work well in freeway traffic with Send photos of a crown, of avalanche files. At the AAAeducation seminar at those that work well in workers plowing roads, thro w i n g S n o w b i rd in October, avalanche “Considerable” hazard in the winter bombs, teaching classes, or digging The Avalanche Review educators demonstrated some backcountry. And we should teach holes in the snow; [email protected] remarkable teaching tools, many of these things first. Pass on some industry news; C/O Blase Reardon which I’ve appropriated for my I am not sure what to make of 636 Columbia Ave. classes this winter. These techniques this yet, much less how to do it. It’s Write it up; send it to us. T h e Whitefish, MT 59937 a re remarkably effective at by no means clear that Munter’ s Avalanche Review is only as good as 406/862-0812 conveying knowledge about snow methods are valid in North America the material you send. and avalanches. But recent research or will take hold among North suggests that often it’s not American backcountry riders and ❊ knowledge about snow and skiers. And while’s McCammon’s avalanches that people lack when detailed research is new, Fesler and they get into trouble in the F redston pointed avalanche b a c k c o u n t r y. Two articles in this education towards human factors issue of The Avalanche Review long ago. I’m pretty sure re c e n t highlight this problem. The Big approaches don’t mean abandoning Chief accident description is a knowledge-based teaching. They firsthand account of the difficulties likely mean focusing classes on that even experienced, cognitive skills as much as snow and knowledgeable people have avalanche knowledge. That means assessing avalanche risk in the developing new ways to teach backcountry. And in the issue’s lead h a z a rd recognition and risk article, Ian McCammon examines assessment for changing audiences. behaviors in several hundre d It means finding memorable avalanche accidents; his analysis heuristics and rituals and ways to shows that avalanche victims demonstrate them in hour- l o n g typically make decisions in the awareness classes. It means creating backcountry using heuristics - rules e x e rcises that help students of thumb - that work well in experience the diff e rence between everyday life but which ultimately everyday heuristics and backcountry expose people to more risk when heuristics so they have useful tools applied in the backcountry. when they enter the backcountry. McCammon’s re s e a rch has Over the next few issues, The challenging implications for Avalanche Review will continue avalanche education. If snow and examining how recent developments avalanche knowledge isn’t keeping affect . people out of trouble, then what Among the articles planned for does? Some recent developments, the next issue of TAR are a second particularly Munter’s 3x3 and installment of McCammon’s research reduction methods, address this and an informal discussion of how the growing awareness of spatial question with probabilistic or rule variability is changing backcountry based methods for decision-making. practices. For the discussion to be These methods provide formal meaningful, however, it has to frameworks that minimize involve avalanche pro f e s s i o n a l s knowledge about snow and across the community. Whether you avalanches and substitute behaviors are ski patroller, avalanche forecaster, that might reduce a person’s chances or backcountry enthusiast, you of being caught in a fatal avalanche continually assess risk and make accident. It’s an approach used in tough decisions. Do these ideas and concepts hit home for you? Let us health education ads, which don’t know. Ultimately the point of Perla’s detail the chemistry of cholesterol. c i rcular heuristic is that with Instead, they tell you to reduce your avalanches we need to keep an open chances of heart disease by not mind and be willing to change our smoking, eating less red meat and practices as our knowledge changes. exercising regularly. ❊ PAGE 4 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003 Research Notes Chad will use these recording sets to Education Work attitudes. There was bro a d By Ethan Greene, AAA Research collect blast power measure m e n t s ; , Session Report agreement that young people are Committee Chair and he will then useuse an audio an avalanche education priority analysis package to determine Continuing Education because, not only because of their ast spring, the Governing Board preferred hand charge orientation. Seminar, exposure at present, but also as a of the American Av a l a n c h e This fall, the A A A a w a rded a AAA Fall Meeting, way to indirectly educate their L Association awarded the first Graduate Research Grant to Simon p a rents, and to create a new Practitioner Research Grant to Chad Trautman for his proposal entitled: Snowbird generation of hopefully more Hults. Chad is a member of the ski Investigations of wet snow stability in the avalanche-savvy adults. Yo u t h patrol at the Stevens Pass ski area, intermountain climate zone. Simon is a hen the AAABoard met last c u l t u re shifts, re q u i r i n g Washington. He will be working graduate student in the Earth Science spring to plan for the fall educators to constantly develop with Jon Andrews (Stevens Pass) and Department at Montana State W seminar, we felt we needed new teaching appro a c h e s . Dave Engebretson (We s t e r n University working with Dr. Steven to include a work session on ways to Suggestions included working Washington University) on a project C u s t e r. The American Av a l a n c h e i m p rove avalanche education. We t h rough schools and youth entitled: Directional properties of hand Association awarded $1000 and the decided that the best ideas would groups, emphasis on fun in our charge air blasts, relative power measured use of a Campbell Scientific 21x data come from the audience and that we courses, and actively developing using minidisk audio recorders. The logger to this project. Simon will use should pool our collective expertise a positive, respectful attitude group will study the effects of hand the funds to build an instrument that rather than present a panel toward young people, including charge orientation on the blast power measures creep within the snowpack discussion. cultivating immunity to the adult d e l i v e red. They will conduct and air temperature. He hopes to The session began with an tendency to put down younger experiments this winter near the find a correlation between expects the excellent PowerPoint put together by people’s dress, hairstyles, music, Stevens Pass ski area. The American data collected with this instrument Dale Atkins that outlined the problem speech, and choice of ride Avalanche Association awarded this and to show a correlation between using graphs of avalanche statistics. whenever it makes us proposal $1000 to purchase a set of creep rates and wet snow avalanche Dale is working the statistics up for a uncomfortable. microphones and minidisk recorders. activity. future paper, but the most pertinent ❊ changes to summarize for our • Snowshoeing’s popularity has purposes were in the distribution of risen sharply, and snowshoers’ avalanche deaths among the states, fatality numbers have risen as Guidelines for Snow, suggestions, but in general the docu- the activities of the victims, and their well. There was not much discussion, but we speculated Weather, and ment was received favorably. The ages. working group is incorporating the • Over the most recent ten years, that many new snowshoers Avalanche comments generated from those dis- from 1993/94 to 2002/03, the five might be casual users who will Observations in the cussions and will release a draft ver- states with the most fatalities respond better to short courses sion of the document by the first of have shifted to Alaska, Colorado, than to the traditional Level I. United States the year. The proposed schedule for Montana, Utah, and Wyoming, By Ethan Greene completing the new guidelines is as • Snowmachine access skiers, follows: • The victims in the earlier period b o a rders, and climbers were he American Av a l a n c h e f rom 1950/51to 1992/93 were identified as a new and rapidly Association (AAA) has part- • December 2003 - Draft version of primarily backcountry skiers and growing group. These folks sled T nered with the USDA-Forest the guidelines completed climbers, trailed by out of bounds into the backcountry for the Service National Avalanche Center • January 1, 2004 - Public comment lift skiers, and primary purpose of skiing or (NAC) and the Canadian Avalanche period begins. During the public motorists/highway workers and s n o w b o a rding, but often mix Association (CAA) to compile a set of comment period, copies of the miscellaneous recreationists (tied activities and may do as much guidelines for making and recording draft version will be available to for fourth). Over the more recent snowmobiling as anything else. snow, weather, and avalanche obser- all interested parties and com- period from 1950/51 to 2002/03, They may build a big kicker, then vations. The goals of this project are ments will be collected. The climbers, backcountry skiers, and session it with skis, snowboards, to: AAA will publish details of how snowmobilers led the list, trailed and their sleds. This represents to obtain a copy and submit com- by miscellaneous re c re a t i o n i s t s another key demographic shift to 1. Provide a valuable resource for ments its web site, www.ameri- and out of bounds lift skiers. multi-sport users who no longer avalanche programs in the c a n a v a l a n c h e a s s o c i a t i o n . o rg, by identify by only one category. United States mid-December. • Victims’ ages continued to be Users may shift their activities or 2. Encourage common practices for • March 1, 2004 - Public comment dominated by the 25-29 year old add new ones, so our teaching observing and re c o rding snow, period ends. age group and the 20-24 year must be broadly inclusive. weather, and avalanche observa- • March 2004 - Final version of the olds, with a second peak in the tions document prepared. 35-39 year olds, but perhaps the • T h e re has been an increase in 3. Promote a common language for • April 2004 - Final version pre- most notable shift was a sharp accidents involving urban US avalanche programs in the U.S. sented to the Governing Board of increase in fatalities in the 15-19 visitors to Canada. They are out and North America the American Av a l a n c h e year old group. of their home area, often without 4. Establish a method of observing Association for ratification. a guide, lured by hut systems, and recording data that can be • 2010 - First revision of the guide- With this introduction, we posed favorable exchange rates, and used for statistical fore c a s t i n g lines, with subsequent revisions the key question for avalanche great snow; but need better skills. techniques and re s e a rch into scheduled every five to ten years. educators today: s n o w, weather, and avalanche If we are doing such a good job, • Our consensus was that we serve phenomena. The substantial public comment then why are so many people dying? the traditional backcountry users, period is intended to facilitate the cre- We began with a discussion of skiers in particular, quite well. ation of a useable and accessible doc- our target audience, including There was little discussion, other Last spring the Governing Board ument. Although there will be some whether there are several audiences, than a comment that we might of the American Av a l a n c h e limitation on the distribution of this how audiences may have changed, well drop our level of effort with Association tasked Craig Sterbenz document, we hope that an open dis- and whether our curriculum or this group in favor of outreach to (AAA Standards Committee Chair) cussion will improve the quality and approach might be alienating some currently underserved groups. and Ethan Greene (AAA R e s e a rc h usefulness of the final document. audiences. Committee Chair) with evaluating Please direct any questions or com- • The group quickly identified • Lift access backcountry users are the feasibility of this project. They ments on the project or the process to snowmobilers and snowmobile not a new group, but we noted assembled a small working gro u p Mark Mueller, American Avalanche guides as a key target audience. that their numbers have grown and approached the National Association Executive Dire c t o r, at Serving this audience well sharply, and that this group now Avalanche Center and the Canadian a a a @ a v a l a n c h e . o rg. You can also re q u i res a big change fro m includes more young people. As Avalanche Association for assistance. help by providing us with any good traditional skier/climber well as powder-seekers, many The Canadian Av a l a n c h e photographs of weather stations, oriented teaching. The consensus new users are skate culture riders Association has generously offe re d snow pits, stability tests, ski cutting, is that we are not re a c h i n g who are going out of bounds to their assistance, experience, and good study sites, poor study sites, snowmachiners eff e c t i v e l y build kickers and practice aerials expertise in this project. Efforts are equipment problems, or anything enough. The exceptions are areas they aren’t allowed to do being made to create a document that else you think we could use. Please w h e re riders have experienced inbounds, often in avalanche is similar in structure and practice to send hard copies t:o: friends’ deaths, and areas where terrain. the CAA’s Observation Guidelines and guides are seeking training, in Recording Standards for We a t h e r, Mark Mueller part driven by land management • We felt we need quality Snowpack and Avalanches (OGRS), yet P.O. Box 2831 agencies. educational programs for also maintains common practices cur- Pagosa Springs, CO 81147 aspiring snow pro f e s s i o n a l s , rently used by avalanche programs in • The next target group we including patrollers and guides. the United States. You can also email them to him at the identified is younger people in There was not much discussion, I presented a very rough draft of address above. general, and “skate culture” in but there was general agreement the proposed guidelines at the AAA particular, a group often at risk that it is important to train the and NAC annual meetings in but frequently alienated by our next generation of avalanche October. These groups made some ❊ traditional approaches and specialists. VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW PAGE 5
• We agreed that we need training group and stick to the activities to make classes happen are the approaches might work, what is for industry and transportation you have genuine enthusiasm for. need for the education, a venue already out there that we could learn workers to deal with on-the-job Build community re l a t i o n s h i p s . for classes, and teachers to do the from, and how do we best improve e x p o s u re in power plant, Connections with individuals, classes. our education efforts? h i g h w a y, railroad, mining, schools, community • The lead comment was that we logging, and similar operations. o rganizations, businesses, and • We need to teach people the habit should completely rethink our • Climbers remain a high-fatality ski areas, and government all of trip preparation using a p p roach. Our audience has group, despite years of including help you be more effective and p replanned options and changed, and we cannot keep them as a target group. Many credible. Respond to search and alternatives. repeating a now-obsolete avalanche specialists are very ski rescue calls even if you aren’t formula. oriented. Climbers’ needs and paid to do it. Help out with • We need to learn how to teach the values are distinct. community events like ski sales concepts and actions that value • We agreed that we need a broad and safety fairs. living. mix of courses. In-depth courses • N o rdic skiers were mentioned, should look at snow, not just as it both the traditional gentle • Think of your teaching as • Ski patrols need to be especially pertains to avalanches, but as a terrain, light gear nordic skiers entertainment. Animate the conscious of their role as the first b roader topic. Include winter who may occasionally venture message, use games and humor contact with snow professionals e c o l o g y, snow hydro l o g y, and into avalanche terrain, and ones to capture attention and get your that many young people have. If other aspects of snow science. who move into steeper terrain as points across. they are respectful and encourage their interest and abilities change. the kids, they can serve as • We need to instill enthusiasm. • Take informal opportunities to positive role models and People can see snow study as a • F i n a l l y, we identified a stro n g answer questions and give information sources. Beware lifetime of learning, with the need for pro f e s s i o n a l information. Attend the trailhead your internal stereotypes and introductory course as just the development and continuing barbecue, the snowmachine actively work to counter them. first step. education, like our A A A races, the extreme competitions, Take interested folks on seminars. the ski swap, or the alpine avalanche control if liability • An advanced workshop during touring race. Have a logo on your concerns can be addressed. periods of high avalanche We turned our attention to better jacket or sled’s windshield that danger, so people see unstable ways to reach our target audiences, identifies you. Always be open • Rescue dogs can present another conditions firsthand, would be and how we might better “market” for questions and discussion first taste of avalanche great. In some areas, courses have our courses. This discussion came whenever you encounter people knowledge to people. Use the field trips to two field areas with up with a number of ideas: in the field. avalanche dogs and handlers for different snow climates. There is • We need to recognize that many outreach. no substitute for learning at gut g roups are turned off by the • Snow science can be a curriculum level. notion of going to school. element in the schools. There was • More ski areas should use beacon C l a s s room memories may some discussion of how to reach gates as an out of bounds • A once-weekly evening informal include humiliation and feeling curriculum committees and how p recaution and to pro m o t e lecture and discussion series has stupid. Many among our key to fund curriculum development, avalanche awareness. worked well in some target groups are likely to have but no consensus; in some areas it communities. had bad school experiences. We requires a major campaign to fit We moved to considering the need to use methods other than another unit into the curriculum, mix of courses should we be • Videos can be a great tool, and traditional courses, and create a in others it’s just a matter of o ffering, including whether our educational videos can be positive environment when we talking to the science teacher. traditional course mix is effective, included with the snow action do use the classroom format. Mountain and rural schools are our curriculum needs improvement, videos, especially in DVD form. more likely to teach snow science our courses are long enough, and Creativity can be used to boost • Recruit the stars to spread the to all their students, it is more whether there is enough field and attendance. Prize drawings, message, especially to youth. d i fficult to reach students in hands-on time. What diff e r e n t cooperative pro m o t i o n s , Have them go with you, or give urban schools, where the need them the resources they need to may be seen as peripheral but go on their own, or use w h e re many backcountry multimedia to bring them to the travelers come from. audience. Then we looked at whether our • Assimilate fresh approaches and courses are making people safer; are faces. Again, this especially helps people retaining what we teach and reach younger audiences. Train a applying it in the field? What parts young apprentice, and take of our courses help our students advantage of their ease of make better decisions? Are our communication to build your students smarter about risk? And own skills and credibility. are they still our there having fun? In other words, are we actually • Be positive, especially with doing as good a job as we think? youth. Scare stories are a turnoff. • The first comment was that our Emphasize that avalanche students are definitely NOT knowledge is a way to find better digging pits. Whether they are snow and have more fun, and being lazy or acknowledging the that managing risk is part of reality of spatial variability and having fun. practicing smart risk re d u c t i o n through other means is not clear. • Use the web, DVDs, and electronic media. Young people • We can emphasize probing and especially are totally at home in quick pits as tools for faster the digital world. You need to be evaluation. able to go there to reach them. Ride first! Start your course out • Ask people what they want to with some turns. Play. Make your know early in the course, and be courses fun. Fun is the big s u re to cover those re q u e s t s . motivator. Adjust your approach to suit the group’s needs. • Relate to the activity or group by becoming part of it. If you want • Keep it simple, especially for to reach the kids, spend some kids, but also for adults. time with them in the terrain Emphasize key points instead of park. Learn to snowboard. Spend overwhelming students with enough time on a snowmobile to everything you know. become a skilled rider. • We need to make snow study the • Learn to teach with all the tools; cool thing to do. learn to communicate from the viewpoint of every user group. • Relate avalanche stru c t u re to At the same time, if you really good ski and riding conditions; don’t like an activity, it is better to always emphasize fun. let someone else teach that user • The three necessary ingredients PAGE 6 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003
trailhead flyers, and talk shows a more traditional knowledge- have all been used. based approach is appropriate.
• Many Level II students are not • We need to teach lower- r i s k really ready and hold the others travel procedures as daily rituals. back. We might consider Avoid overload. Keep it simple; something between Level 1 and emphasize repetition and Level 2 courses, perhaps a one practice of the basic principles. evening one day refresher, one or Resist the temptation to tell war two day field observation or risk stories about unusual or odd management seminar, or a phenomena that just confuse touring day with avalanche beginners and introduce more emphasis. Another approach is to uncertainty than they can handle. require field notes from at least10 Use short courses as a teaser to days to qualify for a Level II. encourage people to take in- depth courses. • Knowledge ¹ behavior. In other w o rds, our goal is behavioral • Short courses should be change, not just knowledge inexpensive. Sponsors can help transmission. keep cost down. At the same time, beware pricing courses so • It is difficult for avalanche low that participants do not value i n s t ructors to assess our them or take them seriously. outcomes. As our students spread out into the hills, we lack • Ta rget courses to the at-risk accountability and feedback for g roups, by activity, age, and how well we have taught. One location. idea is to conduct a survey to evaluate short and long-term We closed with a comment on the retention, and especially to assess four levels of learning: behavioral changes. • Bliss – you don’t know what you don’t know. There was widespread support for short courses, which we clarified • Te r ror - You know you don’t as being typically one evening and know. one day. Our consensus felt that this sort of course better fit our new • Overconfidence - You know you audiences than the traditional Level know. I. Some of the data Ian • Expertise - You don’t know that Bill Glude demonstrating the avalanche board. Photo by Bruce Tremper. McCammon presented earlier in the you know. day suggested that short course graduates are more susceptible to And we added a fifth: some of the heuristic decision- making traps. Then we posed the • Wisdom - The more you learn the question of how to make short less you know. courses more effective. • We agreed that short courses The larger questions to consider for should have an introduction that the future include: How do we make covers key concepts and clearly it happen? What steps will lead us to identifies the problem. The improvement? What next? We hope course should cover rescue, then to provoke discussion; we invite focus primarily on risk contributions and debate. management through terrain Send your ideas to Bill Glude: analysis, minimizing snownerd@mac.com consequences, proper travel procedures, and developing the Bill Glude compiled this summary of habit of choosing lower risk e v e r y o n e ’s comments. If he got your alternatives. Stability evaluation comments wrong, he apologizes and and snow study, other than the challenges you to write them up more recognizing most basic signs of clearly in an article for The Avalanche Above, Nancy Pfieffer demonstrates the balancing act education tool. Photo by Bruce Tremper. instability, should not be part of a Review. Below, Participants at the AAA Avalanche Education Seminar try out the short course. avalanche spoons game. Photo by Kirk Backman. ❊ • Teaching tactics comments included that we need to determine where our students are at before we can move them where they want and need to go. At a minimum, intro d u c t i o n s should include a summary of b a c k g round, avalanche experience, and “why are you here?”
• A couple of brief case histories can be a great introduction since people love and relate well to stories, but take care to avoid scare tactics.
• Scenarios and games are good ways to teach a variety of topics. Be inventive. Movement and hands-on, participatory learning are good.
• We need to find ways to teach a p p ropriate pro b a b i l i s t i c methods of risk re d u c t i o n . Learning for beginners needs to follow a more rule based approach. For advanced learners, VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW PAGE 7 W H AT’S NEW
Teton Gravity athletes in the video are Jeremy Nobis Avalanche Jam II event was “guerrilla” in nature and Research Introductory (skier) and Victoria Jealouse (snow- Raises Over $10,000 therefore less expensive to produce. boarder), with TGR lead guide Jim He said next year BCA will focus on Avalanche Safety Conway hosting. TGR re c o g n i z e s for CAIC increasing participation to offset the Efforts that no one can travel safely in the relatively fixed expenses of the backcountry simply by watching a venue, event insurance, and enter- By Jim Conway he second annual Av a l a n c h e video, so the video also encourages Jam, organized by tainment. viewers to take an avalanche course T Backcountry Access, raised just Sponsors of the Av a l a n c h e or over a decade now, the and to begin the life long learning over $10,000 this September for the Jam included organizer Backcountry E x t re m e / F reeride scene has p rocess of becoming a re s p o n s i b l e Colorado Avalanche Information Access, beer supplier New Belgium F been the main focus of ski and backcountry user. This video is a Center. B re w e r y, Kodiak Island Salmon, s n o w b o a rd filmmakers and maga- non-profit enterprise by TGR and the The event took place outside Rescue Te c h n o l o g y, Atomic, Lowa, zines. This exposure has created a first of a series of educational projects the American Mountaineering Rossignol, MSR, Lowe Alpine, The new backcountry user group that is that will become progressively more Center, in downtown Golden, CO. It North Face, Patagonia, Mountain perhaps different culturally than tra- detailed. featured music by Boulder funk sen- Hardwear, Burton, Black Diamond, ditional backcountry users. Te t o n sation The Motet, plus copious Cloudveil, Couloir magazine, La amounts of Fat Tire Amber Ale and Sportiva and Suunto. Pro snowboarder Jeremy Jones digging a snow pit in a scene from the barbecued wild Alaskan salmon. In addition to The Motet, the TGR introductory avalanche education video. Jim Conway photo. Ticket sales increased by 4 percent life of the party centered around the over the 2002 event, with a total of CAIC booth, where participants just under 500 total attendees. Silent flocked to watch a compelling video auction revenues were up 11 percent, created by Toepfer. The video fea- to $9,365. With expenses totaling t u red numerous skiers and snow- $15,292, the event netted $10,018. This boarders getting caught in avalanch- marked an increase of three percent es. At one point, the band com- over the inaugural 2002 Avalanche plained that the crowd was being dis- Jam. tracted from the music by the action- “It was an outstanding packed video production. event,” said CAIC Director Knox “We ’ r e looking forward to Williams. “The planning was great doing this event next year at the same and everything went smoothly. We’re exact time,” said BCA Sales Manager very pleased.” Steve Christie, who took charge of “ We don’t often get the gathering sponsors. He said the first opportunity to meet face-to-face with Friday after Labor Day weekend our users; that to me was the most works well because most people interesting part,” said CAIC forecast- choose to stay in town after the long er Scott Toepfer. “It’s very gratifying weekend and it’s the perfect time to to see this kind of support from back- “kick off” the ski season. country users.” Gravity Research, one of the most In a similar effort, TGR is running While revenues were up, so —Nick Logan popular and influential film compa- an interactive online educational pro- w e re expenses, according to BCA nies popularizing this movement, ject, the “Online Avalanche Class.” P resident Bruce McGowan, who recognizes its responsibility to not This project is under development pointed out that last year’s inaugural ❊ only promote the sport, but also to and is being produced by Jim promote safe and responsible back- Conway. The first three lessons are at country use. Thanks to the support of w w w. t e t o n g r a v i t y.com under snow safety gear manufacture r Conway’s Corner. With the support Backcountry Access, TGR has devel- of the ski industry, TGR hopes to oped an introductory backcountry expand these to 25 lessons ranging skills video that is aimed specifically from basic to advanced subjects. at this new user group. The Backcountry video will be an At about 15 minutes, the video added feature on all DVD sales of covers re q u i red equipment, basic TGR’s newest film High Life. avalanche beacon skills, route find- Interested educators may also obtain ing, and snow pits. TGR hopes to a copy by contacting Dirk Collins at speak to the young freeride crowd in TGR (307-734-892 or dirk@tetongrav- a language they can relate to, and ity.com). To give feedback on content with personalities that have credibili- or other technical issues, contact Jim ty in their culture, by making use of Conway (801-278-5534 or current and former professional ski [email protected]). and snowboard athletes. The main ❊
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The ISSW Video Library is a box phone: set of 8 tapes in VHS format. Kellie Erwin 250-344-5707 Cost is $89.99 (US). Ryan Gallagher 250-344-4666. ❊ PAGE 8 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003
Forest Service snow-pack and avalanche Liam Fitzgerald, long time snow mechanics. As those who have heard National Avalanche observations. Ethan and Karl worked safety director at Snowbird and Ian talk will attest, he has a gift for long and hard on the Guidelines, and current Lead Forecaster for the Utah translating rigorous scientific Center Holds Annual they were well received by the group. Department of Transportation in investigations into usable Avalanche Center Bruce Tremper, Director of the Little Cottonwood Canyon, offered information for practitioners. Utah Avalanche Center, told about his some more soul. Liam dramatically In the afternoon, the first topic Meeting trip to Norway to attend an described the often difficult and gut- was wet snow avalanches; MSU By avalanche seminar and participate on w renching job of fore c a s t i n g graduate student Simon Tr a u t m a n Doug Abromeit and a panel that included avalanche avalanches when lives and property discussed his wet snow research near Karl Birkeland experts from around the world. are at stake. Bridger Bowl and Glacier National B ruce re p resented the US and Chris Joosen, Director of the Park avalanche forecasters Blase described how US avalanche centers White Mountain Avalanche Center in R e a rdon and Chris Lundy share d n October, the Forest Service gather data and disseminate New Hampshire, described two their eye opening experience dealing National Avalanche Center information. s e a rch and rescue missions in with a large wet slab cycle during the (NAC) held its annual meeting for I Colleen Graham, President of the Tuckerman’s Ravine this past winter. opening of the Going-to-the-Sun regional avalanche center personnel Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center Chris put an end to stereotype that highway last spring. Doug Abromeit at Snowbird, Utah. The annual and a Black Diamond Equipment avalanches do not occur in the then made a presentation on meetings enable the centers to share employee, discussed the very northeast. avalanche forecasting in Switzerland. information and ideas, and they help successful Black Diamond/UAC We finished the first day with Pascal Hägeli, a PhD candidate from a s s u re operational consistency. Fund Raiser. Her discussion included wrap-ups from each avalanche the University of British Columbia, Participants discuss and share suggestions for other Friends groups. center, and then we retreated to the closed out the day with a summary of relevant management and technical F o rest Service Regional Tram Bar to continue discussions. Werner Münter’s risk reduction and 3 information. This year the NAC held Recreation Director Liz Close gave The second day of the meeting by 3 methods. Pascal’s presentation the meeting in conjunction with — her perspective on the avalanche was devoted to technology transfer, led to a lively debate about the and two days prior to — the centers, including funding. Liz has with plenty of time allowed for methods and their use in the United American Avalanche A s s o c i a t i o n been very supportive of the NAC and discussion throughout the day. Karl States, which in turn led folks to head meeting. About 50 people attended the avalanche centers, and it was Birkeland discussed the status of to the bar for beers and even more from as far away as Alaska and New great to have her at the meeting. several projects, including utilizing spirited debate. H a m p s h i re. The participants Doug Chabot described the the Swiss models SNOWPACK and The core missions of the NAC included representatives from nearly exciting SnowPilot project that will NXD2000, and the new include helping to coordinate the every U.S. avalanche center and give Palm Pilots to avalanche center SnowMicroPen. In addition, he and avalanche centers, maintaining several other people involved in personnel to record snow pit data Montana State University (MSU) consistency between them, and avalanche research and education. with this winter. Doug also discussed graduate student Spencer Logan p roviding technical information to The first day was devoted to both the excellent Snowmobile Brochure presented an outline of an ongoing avalanche center personnel. Our the soul and the nuts and bolts of developed by Jill Fredston and Doug two-year spatial variability pro j e c t annual meetings are helping us to running an avalanche center. Tom Fesler for the state of Alaska. Jill and that the National Science Foundation meet that mission, while allowing Kimbrough started things off with a Doug and Alaska have allowed other recently funded. Kelly Elder, a friends and snow geeks to gather and wonderful slide pre s e n t a t i o n states and organizations to use the researcher with the Forest Service’s share stories and drink a few beers! reflecting on his many years as a ski brochure. Rocky Mountain Research Station, p a t ro l l e r, avalanche forecaster and Doug and Karl gave a run down gave an excellent presentation on climbing ranger. Tom’s presentation on NAC activities the past year snowpack energy balance and its included Buddhist poems and including the military artillery implications for avalanche tributes to fallen comrades. p rogram, a Homeland Security f o recasting. NOLS instructor Ian Ethan Greene and Karl discussed explosives audit and several research McCammon presented an possible guidelines for weather, projects. illuminating talk about fracture ❊ VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW PAGE 9 M E D I A
Surviving Digital Photography, Part 2: Editor’s Note: This article is the second installment in a two part series. In the first installment, which appeared in the October, 2003 issue of The Avalanche Review, Managing and Editing Images Bruce described the advantages of digital photography, using a digital camera for taking pictures of snow, and file types. By Bruce Trempe
aptioning Photos incorrigible geek. In this article, I much more powerful and usually dialog box on the right (if it’s not One of the coolest things will assume that you are using the gives you better results. For aver- open, click on View > Channels) C about digital photos is that cheaper and more user- f r i e n d l y age photos it works fairly well, click on Lightness. This changes most image editing pro g r a m s Adobe Photoshop Elements, and I but for most snow photos it leaves the photo to black and white. allow you to edit the “meta data” will list the commands for some of something to be desired, where- Now, do the sharpening on this for each image. In other words, the essential operations. upon you must use the following black and white version of the you can add photo captions, key- method: photo. Finally go back to Image > words, a copyright, and so on. Mode > and click on RGB Color to This information is embedded turn it back into color again. into the file and no matter if you edit the photo, save it as a differ- How to Turn a Photo into Black ent file type or e-mail it to some- and White. one, it’s always there. If someone If you are sending a photo to wants to see the captions or key- The Avalanche Review, you can words of the photo, they simply make the file size smaller simply view it in a program that allows by leaving out the color. To make them to look at the file info. For a black and white image, you can instance, Microsoft Explore shows simply go to Image > Mode and some of that information when click on Grayscale. you hold the mouse over the file. Advanced technique: If you If you right-click on the photo, have Photoshop 7, go to Image > then click P ro p e r t i e s and then Mode and choose Lab Color. Summary, you will find even more Then in the Layers box on the information displayed. Try to get right of your screen, click the in the habit of captioning your Channels tab, then click on photos within a couple days after Lightness. Now, go back to the you take them. Otherwise, you Image > Mode and this time click tend to forget the details and on Grayscale. It will ask you Figure 1: The Levels dialog box in Adobe Photoshop Elements dates. In Photoshop 7 or whether you want to discard the Photoshop Elements, you can cap- color channels. Answer yes. tion photos or view the captions Make the Snow White instead of Go to Enhance > A d j u s t Now, you can adjust the photo entered by others by going to File Grey Brightness/Contrast > Levels (or using the Levels command (Ctrl > File Info. Just like with film cameras, if use the shortcut Ctrl L). Now, you L) until it looks right. you fill most of the frame with can run the little sliders at the bot- Editing Images on the Computer snow, it will almost turn the snow tom of the histogram. The middle How to Prepare Photos for E- One big advantage of digital dirty grey. Why? Because the slider adjusts the overall bright- Mailing or Posting to the Web photography is that you can edit camera doesn’t know that you are ness, the right hand slider adjusts To e-mail photos or post them the image to your heart’s delight taking a photo of snow. It the highlights and the left slider on the web, you need to turn them after you take the photo. Modern assumes that every scene should adjusts the dark areas. Try sliding into a small file. Virtually every digital cameras are re m a r k a b l e be a neutral tone—like the inside the right and left sliders so that image-editing program allows machines because they automati- of your living room, for they are at the edge of where there you to save your image as a small- cally correct most of the problems instance—and it turns the nice, is some data in the histogram er file. For posting on the web, try common with untrained photog- white snow into a neutral tone. (where the graph jumps up from to keep them under 100 kilobytes raphers and the limitations of Try this experiment: with a cam- the base line). This tends to make and for e-mailing, most e-mail film, so digital images usually era set on automatic mode, shoot the whites, white and the blacks, programs will balk at attachments don’t require much editing. But a black wall, then shoot a white black. If you want to see a little larger than one megabyte, so the digital photos of snow suffer from wall. Surprise…they will both more detail in the shadows and smaller the image, the more many of the same problems as look identical—dirty grey. With the highlights, run the right and images you can attach. Always photos using film, so you will film, the time-tested solution is to left sliders a little farther away save them as either a JPEG or as a need at least a simple image edit- overexpose snow by about a stop from the edge of the histogram. GIF. ing program to make them look and a half. And correspondingly, Then, finally, adjust the middle In Photoshop Elements, go to their best. to make dark things look dark, slider to make the image look File > Save for Web. For width I have played a little with the you have to underexpose by right. Experiment. and height, you can adjust the size consumer-oriented image editing about a stop and a half. With dig- to about 600 x 400 pixels, which programs, and from my limited ital cameras, you will have to do How to Sharpen Photos will fill up about half of a typical experience, Adobe Photoshop one of two things: Almost all photo editing pro- computer screen or you could go Elements seems like the best of the grams have a sharpening feature for 800 x 400, which would fill up bunch. It only costs around $70, • If you are shooting in auto- and most of them don’t work very most of the screen. Notice that the and it will do everything most of matic mode, try to include a well. It just makes the photo look file size listed at the bottom of the us need. You can download a one significant amount of other grainy and pixilated. In box will reflect your choices. You month trial version at objects besides snow in your Photoshop Elements, go to Filter > will also notice two diff e re n t w w w.adobe.com. I have also photo, such as blue sky, trees, Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. In the images, the original on the left read good reviews of Ulead Photo people or rocks. dialog box change the amount to and the compressed image on the Impact and Jasc Paintshop Pro. If • Shoot in manual mode and 85, the radius to 1 and the thresh- right. Adjust the number in the you have some serious time and overexpose the snow by about old to 4. This is a good, all-pur- Quality box until the image still money on your hands, you should 1.5 stops. (Advanced tech- pose sharpening that doesn’t looks good but it’s a small enough spring for the full $600 version of nique: an incident light meter overdo it too much. If you need file size for your needs. On the Adobe Photoshop 7. But realize works great for snow photos) more sharpening, do it twice. lower left of each photo you will that Photoshop 7 is an extremely Advance technique: If you find the image size and the time it sophisticated program, and it In the editing process, one have Photoshop 7, here is a much would take to send the photo on a takes a year or two of diligent quick way to correct a dirty gray better way to sharpen the photo, 28 K dial-up connection. Since work to learn it. Also, once you photo is to choose Enhance > Auto which only sharpens the black most people use a minimum of a get started, it’s extremely addic- Color Correction in Photoshop and white part of the image but 56 K modem these days, you can tive, so you will also need an Elements. Don’t be tempted to leaves the color alone and doesn’t cut these times in half. Then click understanding spouse. Sadly, I’m use Auto Contrast or Auto Levels leave the image as pixilated or OK and save the image under one of those addicted to because they are both pretty lame grainy. Go to Image > Mode > another file name. I usually put Photoshop 7, but then I’m an utilities. Auto Color Correction is Lab Color. Then in the Channels WEB somewhere in the name, so I PAGE 10 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003
know it has been shrunk down for Snow trick I learned in a Photoshop your adjustment. Whew. It’s long the web or e-mailing. For whatever reason, this is prob- seminar. First, click and hold on and involved but it works great. ably the hardest task in any image the eyedropper tool and choose Automating the File editing program. For years, this “Color Sampler”. Then find the Summary Compression Process problem drove me crazy. Here are brightest white part of the snow in OK, I said that this was a Now that you know how to four tricks that work fairly well. your photo and click there to quick, basic primer on digital pho- c o m p ress files manually, No one trick works in all cases, so anchor the sample point. Either tography and, as you can see, it Photoshop Elements, as well as you will have to have a few in right-click the sample point or go quickly turned into a tome. several other programs, have a your quiver. to the menu above and change the Digital photography can be just as g reat utility for automatically First, I’m assuming that you sample point size from 1 x 1 pixels complicated as it is powerful. As resizing and compressing a num- a l ready tried the Auto Colors to 3 x 3 or 5 x 5 to sample a larger the technology progresses, many ber of photos at the same time. command and it didn’t work very area. Then, make sure the Info of the more labor-intensive and You can imagine how excited I well. Sometimes it works great menu is open on the right. If not, complex tasks will become more was when I discovered this utility. and sometimes it makes the photo click on Window and click Info. automated. If you’re a beginning It’s easy. Simply put all your pho- look horrible. If this is the case, In the Info window, you will user, start with the small and sim- tos you want to compress into a then try the first slick trick: notice that the first point you ple things. Organize your photos separate directory. Then, go to clicked will show up as #1 in the on the computer. Give them cap- window and will show you the tions and keywords. E-mail them values for R, G and B (red, green to friends. Intermediate users will and blue). The idea is to make all learn to post their photos on the these values the same, which will web and adjust their size and res- create a color-neutral white. olution to look good on the web, Go to Image > Adjustments > yet download quickly. Advanced Levels (or use the shortcut Ctrl L). users will buy the full version of In the top of the Channel box, you Photoshop 7 and begin the long can click the down arrow and process of learning how to tweak choose to edit either RGB, red, their photos to look their best. green or blue. Look at the Info As you can probably tell, I box and see which color has the love the exciting new medium of highest number and you need to digital photography. I feel like a adjust the other colors to bring kid again—learning a whole new them up to that number. Since we art form. I just wish I had all these are trying to take blue out of the tools available 30 years ago. snow, the blue will be the highest number, so back in the levels box, Bruce Tremper is the Director of the click on red in the drop down F o rest Service Utah Av a l a n c h e menu to get the histogram of red Center and made a living as a photog - colors in your image. Now, run rapher before he caught the avalanche Figure 2: The slick little color correction eyedropper tool. the right hand slider at the bottom bug 25 years ago. He spends his sum - of the histogram to the left until mers as a photographer and writer. File > Create Web Photo Gallery. Slick Trick Number 1: Photoshop you can see the values for the red Bruce recently won the prestigious This utility is designed to create a Elements has a slick utility in color in the Info box equal the val- Nature’s Best Magazine photography web page so you can publish all Enhance > Adjust Color > Color ues for blue. Next, do the same competition for the People in Nature your photos on the Internet. Cast. Simply click the eyedropper thing for green. Now, your snow category. His image is on display in In the Folders section, click tool on a grey or white part of the should look perfectly white. the Smithsonian Museum of Natural Browse and specify the directory snow. This adjusts the colors in Magic. Finally, adjust the middle History in Washington D.C.. where you stored the photos you the rest of the photo as well so it slider to make the snow look the want to compress. Then in the sometimes makes the non-snow right brightness. Click OK to save ❊ Destination box, choose another areas look goofy. Keep clicking on d i rectory where they will be other grey-looking or white parts stored after they are resized and of the photo until you can get compressed. In the Options sec- something that looks good. A tion, click on Large Images in the dirty-gray patch of snow usually d rop-down box and you can works well. choose what size in pixels you want the compressed photos to be In Photoshop 7 you can go to (the resolution is automatically Image > Curves and choose the 72) and also choose the amount of middle (mid tones) eyedro p p e r compression you want. Then let- and it does about the same thing. er-rip-tater-chip. Click OK and your computer chugs away com- Slick Trick Number 2: I n pressing all your photos. When Photoshop Elements, go to it’s done, it will open up a web Enhance > Adjust Color > Color browser to show you how your Variations. Click on Highlights web page will look. When you are button and you can adjust the finished being impressed by your three colors separately with a slick prowess (with a little help from little before and after preview to Photoshop), then close the brows- see how the adjustments would er window. Go to the directory look. where the program stored your web page. You will find all your Advanced Technique: If you have re-sized and compressed images Photoshop 7, go to Image > in a sub-folder called Images. Adjustments > Selective Color. At Now, you can e-mail these photos the top of the box, click on the or put them into your own custom d rop down menu and choose web page. Easy. “white”. This only adjusts the white colors in your photo. Now If you don’t own Photoshop decrease the cyan slider and boost Elements, there are a number of the yellow slider until it looks cheap programs designed to turn about right. You can also add or your photos into your own web subtract black to make it look gallery. You can download them exactly the way you want. from the Internet. Go to Google and search for Create Web Gallery If You Really Want to Get Fancy: Software. This takes the longest time but it works nearly all the time. If you Get Rid of the Dreaded Blue have Photoshop 7, here is a great VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW PAGE 11 CROWN PROFILES
An Avalanche Report on Big Chief Mountain in the Seattle Creek Drainage of the Chugach Mountain Range in Alaska. March 11, 2003 By Joni Earp
his spring in the Chugach Girdwood. Between the five of us, we remember feeling great, and the snow Mountains near Gird w o o d , probably have about 50 years of ski- had a firm pack on the lower skirts of T Alaska was from most years in ing experience- maybe more. As for the mountain due to the snow that the snow pack seemed shallower backcountry experience, three mem- machine tracks. I can recall getting to than usual. The snow pack was affect- bers of the group, Abe, Jake, and I the top of the mountain and being in ed by wet snow, and there was a lot of g rew up in Alaskan mountains. awe of our ski objective. What an rain during January and February. I Individually, we began scaling peaks impressive peak. I had not viewed logged a lot of ski days in February, to ski them starting around the age of the peak before as it is obscured by a including seven consecutive days at fifteen. Skiing had brought us to the smaller mountain near the Seward Summit, Video Land near Johnson’s Chugach Mountains, and I had spent highway and is not seen from the trailhead, the south facing aspect of a lot of my early years touring in road. The northeast facing aspect of Magnum, and Tin Can. All of the ski- Hatcher’s Pass, north of Palmer. I Big Chief is dramatic. The face is ing had been great. There were a cou- have skied many areas in A l a s k a steep, including several rock bands. ple of layers of snow that were sus- including peaks off the Matanuska Due to this, it is rarely skied. The pect, but with time, the areas we were Glacier, a week around the Castner south flank of the mountain, our willing to explore seemed stable. Glacier near Paxon Lake, and a week ascent route, meets the creek. From that I would soon be skiing. He made I left for a weeklong ice climbing long ski trip on the Ruth Glacier in this vantage point, I could not make a medium sized turns, and was soon trip to Valdez at the end of February, the Alaska Range. I have skied the definite plan for descent. It looked so out of our view from the top. We and returned to Girdwood the night backcountry mountains of Colorado fun; I couldn’t wait to get over there. waited for a while, and did not see of the 10th. It was very windy during w h e re I attended Western State Our group took turns skiing 1,500 him ski out into the bowl visible at my trip to Valdez. Driving through College in Colorado for three years. I vertical feet down to Seattle Creek. the base of the mountain. I was freez- Anchorage the way back the day had ski toured in France, when I lived We stopped and ate some food. It was ing at this point and just wanted to before was impressive. There was so in Tignes / Val d’Isere for a year at then that I noticed we were really get off the peak and onto the face and much dust in the air, it looked like the age of 22. I took my first going to have a long day since we enjoy my run. I had asked Abe where pollution. My group informed me avalanche course while attending would have to regain the elevation he was going to ski. I confided that I that there had been similar wind in WSC my freshman year at the age of back out of the valley after having did not know which line I should take the Pass (Turnagain Pass) during that 19. I felt comfortable in the mountains skied Big Chief. I recall saying to as I didn˙t spend enough time looking prior week. They had been skiing in and have always skied with experi- myself, “if something happens out at the face before we reached the the Pass daily the week leading to enced skiers. I have even skied the here, we’re far from the car.” I was summit. Abe and Ryan were nice and March 11th. All snow had seemed sta- backcountry solo on several occa- skinning a lot slower than usual, and let me go as I was complaining of ble, even with the prior wind loading. sions. I remember the face we were skin- cold. My eyes were watering, and the Our group included Abe Gioffre, We got to the parking lot, and ning was quite steep. I had a hard tears were freezing to my face. I had age 23; Ryan Morril, age 27; Jake began moving up the snow machine time edging the snow as there was the cold water bottle against my Young, age 23; Aaron Long, 24; and trails to the base of the first mountain sun and wind crust on the surface, stomach to thaw the water so that I me; Joni Earp, age 27, all of that we would climb that day. I making the top layer firm and almost could have something to drink on the icy. The temperatures at the bottom of way out. the creek bed were freezing, and I I noticed that Aaron had skied was still cold though gaining speed directly onto the face after executing a and altitude quite rapidly. I believe ski cut. At this time; however, he was my ascent of the peak took around an still on the slope. Ryan had told me hour and fifteen minutes. that Aaron was in a good spot, and When I reached the summit, the that I was clear to make my run. As I guys were there already. The adiabat- skied down the powder, I had a huge ic lapse rate coupled with the wind at smile on my face. I was making big the top made for a chilly experience; fast turns, and I recall counting ten t e m p e r a t u re seemed around ten turns. Aerial photos taken after the degrees Fahrenheit. I recall putting slide would prove my math to be cor- my plastic water bottle in my ski rect. I recall thinking that something pants to melt the ice that was formed did not feel right. I dismissed the in my water. There were gusts of thoughts as being tentative about my winds up to about fifteen knots, with line as the face got steeper and steep- an occasional twenty knot blast. It er. I wanted to have a fluid run, and made conversation hard, and we not to have to stop to negotiate my were all anxious to get on the slope line. After my tenth turn, I thought and away from the wind onto that something felt bizarre; I looked over beautiful face. Conversation in our my left shoulder to see where my group had been lacking all day. I was sluff was going, and there was no surprised earlier in the day when sluff being created by my turns. I members of the group had begun the thought that was weird, and as I ski descent down into Seattle Creek began to make a larger turn to the left, without saying anything about where the snow gave out. I heard a large they were going. I was also surprised boom, and I tried skiing to the left as that we did not discuss what lines we fast as I could so that the avalanche wanted to ski on Big Chief while we that I had just created would not take had a view of the face. I was standing me down. As I skied to the left, I on a mountain that was so steep it could see the snowline break away in was impossible to see the line from front of me. There was no way that I the top. I was freezing and wonder- would be able to ski out of this one. ing, “when is it my turn?” My left ski then fell off. I could feel Jake skied down first as he was my right ski was still on as I was filming for his movie, and wanted to being brought down the face by the get his camera set up. He skied down snow surrounding me. I scre a m e d the far looker’s right of the face and loudly; Ryan told me later that he will released a small slide near the bottom never forget my scream. I thought I of his run. We did not have radios; was not going to be able to walk they would have been useful in warn- away from this one. I recall thinking ing us about the smaller slide and to myself that I would have to stay possibly steering us away from the strong and fight with all of the power slope. Aaron then skied down the line that I had. After the initial snow sur- PAGE 12 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003
rounded me, I could not see a thing, near my stomach was still there. I Avalanche Accident Summary just white. I couldn’t breathe. The noticed a hole in my right arm of my Big Chief Avalanche, Seattle Creek, snow began to get heavy on my head down coat, and would later realize and it began to get darker and darker. that my ski pole had gone through Turnagain Pass, Alaska Just then, I could feel myself falling. five layers of clothing to puncture my March 11, 2003 While I was in the air I could breathe right bicep. Someone found one of and get a view of my surroundings my Volkl Explosive’s, which were a By Sean Dewalt for a second. Then it was white again, graduation present from a friend who I knew that I was going very fast at had been in an avalanche two weeks *Contributions, assistance and avalanches in the area were reported this point. I could feel my right ski prior. The first foot and a half of the thanks to Carl Skustad, Snow Ranger, on the U.S.F.S. avalanche advisory torn from my boot at this point. I felt ski was badly bent, and we had to fit U.S.F.S., Sam Albanese, Meteorologist, the next day. something hit my right arm, and then Aaron’s ski to my other boot, as we National Weather Service Alaska For the next two days a storm I was airborne again. I could tell that could not find my second ski. It was Region, N.R.C.S., Jim Kennedy, Snow deposited 8 inches of new snow in I was still moving very fast, and then slow moving back up the other side Safety, Alyeska Resort, Warren Rowe, Turnagain Pass. The avalanche I could feel myself slow down a little. of the valley once we crossed the A.M.G.G., oakleycochran.com, Joni advisory on February 28 reported For some reason, I knew that I was in creek. It was nice to make it into the Earp, Jake Young and Paul Laca. Photos that snow stability tests had the run out at the bottom of the hill, sun since I knew that I would have to by Laca/Snow Dynamics. consistently low scores, and that the and that this is where my struggle buck up and ski out of there as soon buried surface hoar was intact and would have to begin if I were to make as possible in order to avoid skiing inter 2003 in the Western reactive to relatively low stress, and it out alive. I remembered the sum- back in the dark. It took about an Chugach mountains near was waiting for a trigger. mer before when Abe and I would hour and a half to get up the backside W Girdwood, Alaska started From February 29 to March 7, a have silly competitions at the of the hill and then skied down the warm and wet. Rain fell throughout few cloudy days and light to Girdwood pool. We would sit in the snow machine’s side of the hill to the November and December in the moderate winds allowed the snow pool and see for how long we could car and to the hospital. I would later lower elevations with fair snowfalls pack to adjust slightly. No new hold our breath. I think I got my time get surgery on my right pinkie. I still above treeline. Jim Kennedy, Snow natural avalanches were observed, up to about two minutes. I did not have the pin in my finger. Safety at Alyeska Resort in although easy shears were still being know how long I would be able to My life was spared. I am alive, Girdwood reports 47% of average noted in the region by Skustad and stay conscious without air. At that and I feel it important for others to snowfall for November 2002, 100% Dewalt. Clear days followed, and point I could feel the snow below me learn from my accident. I would like in December 2002 and 61% in backcountry users returned in moving faster. I shoved my feet down to emphasize how important it is for January 2003 from recordings at the numbers to Turnagain Pass. midway elevation of 2200’. Certainly M a rch 8 brought another big a warm beginning to an Alaskan wind event to the area, with winter. f o recasted winds to 55 miles per Early February saw periodic hour, which for the next 48 hours snowfalls and two large wind loaded alpine slopes and starting events. Gusts up to 98 miles per hour zones. On March 9 the avalanche and 24 hour precipitation amounts advisory stated that no new natural totaling 9 to 10 inches of liquid water or human triggered avalanches had the first week of February prompted been observed or reported, but an extraordinary winter flood warned that additional loads could warning for small streams in the exceed the strength of the snow a rea. On February 6 avalanche pack, especially in certain terrain mitigation along the Seward features without supported slopes. Highway near Girdwood resulted in March 10 and 11 brought clear skies a slide that closed the highway for and continued alpine winds, and several hours, and there was also an more loading on the same slopes on avalanche fatality in Hatchers Pass, Big Chief where 5 Girdwood skiers Alaska on February 9. w e re venturing the morning of February 15 was the first cold March 11, 2003. day in weeks. Surface hoar and On March 12, A a ron Long Three skier-triggered avalanches in 5 minutes on Big Chief Mountain, approximately 15 n e a r-surface facets formed at contacted Snow Dynamics statute miles from Girdwood, Alaska in the Western Chugach Mountains." Photo by Paul Turnagain Pass during this short Avalanche Safety Programs in Laca / www.snowdynamics.com clearing of two days. Low pressure Girdwood to report the avalanche returned and deposited intermittent accident the previous day. He into the snow as hard as I could, and groups to communicate before, dur- amounts of low-density snow over mentioned the peak, aspect and that tried my hardest to swim or to put ing, and after skiing in the backcoun- the now buried surface hoar for the hangfire above the crown existed. my arms out in an iron cross position. try. Looking back, I find myself won- next eight days. Total amounts Sean Dewalt chartered a helicopter For some reason, my strategy was dering why I did not vocalize my varied with elevation and location to attempt an avalanche working. I could feel the weight of thoughts about discussing our plans due to localized winds, and the investigation and fracture line the snow around me getting lighter, while on top of the mountain. The storm boards at the snow study plot profile. He brought along Warren and I began to see actual light. My signs were there: recent wind load- in Turnagain Pass totaled 17”. Rowe, a local helicopter skiing guide mouth, eyes and nose were out of the ing, the shallow snowpack, a couple On February 23 and February intimately familiar with the Seattle snow when the snow stopped mov- of suspect layers that had until then 24, an occluded front with a strong C reek area, and Paul Laca, a ing. I knew that I would have to get not been moving. I heard later that a low near the Aleutians moved into snowboard freerider from Tahoe to out of there fast before the snow set friend had released quite a large slab Southcentral Alaska dropping one to shoot photos. The goal was to assess up. I then dug myself out as fast as I near the site we were skiing on the two feet of snow in the region. It the hazard, enter the bed surface could. I got out of the snow, and same aspect of the line that I intended also produced locally strong winds from a safe vantage, collect data and yelled so that my group would know to ski. It would have been good for us t h rough Western Turnagain A r m shoot arial photos. When the where I was. I ran about four little cir- to know this information. We needed including the Seattle Creek drainage helicopter entered the upper Seattle cles until I could tell that I needed to to talk to people that had been out in near Turnagain Pass. Peak gusts Creek drainage toward the headwall sit down. My arm was hurt. that area. Though members of my were recorded at 78 miles per hour. of Seattle Creek, it became very Jake skied up to me and is unable group had been skiing every day up On February 25, U.S.F.S. Snow obvious that the hangfire posed a to say anything. I would later learn till the 11th, nothing had been mov- Ranger Carl Skustad, Sean Dewalt risk none in the party was willing to that my elbow was dislocated, and ing. The community of skiers in and Craig Patterson of Snow take for data. After several passes that I had broken my humerus and Girdwood is pretty close knit, and to Dynamics investigated a skier- a round the peak, the helicopter shattered my right pinkie. Abe and keep the communication lines triggered slab avalanche on Tincan returned to Girdwood. Ryan showed up within a minute and between parties open is important. It Mountain in Turnagain Pass. The Although no hard data was a half after I had dug myself out. I would have also been good to check class 2.0 avalanche was triggere d collected, we hypothesize that the was ready to get out of there. I then the Forest Service avalanche web site. after a skier dropped off a ridgeline failure layer was the surface hoar learned that Aaron had been on the Human error played a large role in and into a wind-loaded convexity f rom February 15 and 16 under slope when I released the slide. He the avalanche that I started. One les- with a 38 degree slope. He managed windslab formed from snowfall was swept down the mountain for son that I would want people to learn to ski out, and was uninjured. The transported by the 2 large wind about forty feet, but managed to keep from this: communication, education, c rown varied from 11 to 29 events of February 23- 24 and March his skis on and was able to ski away and assessment skills need to be used centimeters, and was 50 meters wide 8- 11. from it. Looking at topographical at all times in the backcountry. and 100 meters long. Mixed hard maps of the mountain, we discovered and soft debris ran into a deep Sean Dewalt is the owner of Snow that I had been taken anywhere from Joni Earp was born in Nome, Alaska and terrain trap, and densities were 271 Dynamics Avalanche Safety Programs 1,500 to 1,800 vertical feet falling off raised in Eagle River, AK. She loves kg/m3 in the deposition area. The in Girdwood, Alaska. He can be of two 35 to 40 foot rock bands. running in, climbing on, skiing down, avalanche failed on intact buried reached in Alaska at 907.754.7326 or Abe took a coat from his bag, and and exploring ice and snow covered peaks stellars and surface hoar. Overlying online at snowdynamics.com. we used it as a sling for my painful around the world. this weak layer was a slab of 177 right arm. The valley floor near the kg/m3 new snow, made up of creek was very cold, and the water decomposing and rounded grains. bottle that I had put in my ski pants ❊ The multiple observed natural ❊ VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW PAGE 13 PISCO DREAMS-CHILE POWDER By Jerry Roberts
he Colorado winter of ‘03 had We eventually made it over to been difficult. I was fried and Frank’s office in the lower level of the T decided I needed some new hotel to look at weather maps of a big scenery, something far from home, maybe storm brewing off the coast that looked another winter? I contacted Henry days away. I asked, “Is this a Fourth of Purcell, a friend who I’ve known for a July storm?” Frank replied, “Naah, looks long time. He has been the owner and like a few days later.” While staring at the manager of Ski Portillo since 1961 and screen we found the Unisys web page, probably knows more about me than he which had a South American component. would admit. I asked him if I could come The AVN model had the storm looking down on a work/study program for the large and juicy. We shared interpretations season to study snow and learn some new of the vorticity and precip maps. It is a forecasting tricks. He replied, “This could good addition to the NOAA site and be interesting” and that he’d work on it. I Meterologia de Chile but the pronostico told him, “I’ll scrub dishes and floors, it de metero rologias for the southern doesn’t matter.” By May a plan evolved. h e m i s p h e re seemed scarce, pro b a b l y “How about setting up a data program because North American computer for weather/snow/avalanche infor- s c reens are saturated with too much mation?” Henry thought it over and I information. was invited to Portillo. I was stoked! I Lane had warned me of the batting had not spent much time there since 1980, average the meteorologists had acquired when I lived in a snow cave, studying the for the early season. They were in a maritime snowpack for the season. slump. But wrong 60-70 % of the I arrived in Chile mid-June to attend time??… How can that be?…Lane a 60th birthday party for Tim Lane, a qualified his Gato Negro wisdom. “That friend of 30 years and avalanchistia for includes all of the weather forecasts put the Andena Mine. My other mission was out, CNN, The Weather Channel, NOAA, to spend the season in Portillo, Chile M e t e rologica de Chile, Ac c u We a t h e r. ” working with Frank Coff e y, avalanche But Lane was badmouthing NOAA and forecaster for SkiPortillo. was caught not entering the slash in front I have been friends with Frank as of the longitude/latitude coordinates for long as I have with Tim. We guided in the southern hemisphere. He was watching rainstorms in the Bahamas! I P e ru for many seasons and knocked Results of helicopter bombing of a cornice above Portillo. around the Rockies and the southwest appreciate a decent weather forecast or at Photo by Matthew Wylie. deserts together. He spent 18 seasons at least a good satellite photo of the 24-hour the Crested Butte ski area, 5 at Chugach future. This worried me…. I’d heard Another air temp. Seeing melt water causing him to close the Traverse early Powder Guides as lead guide and rumors of a spiritual weather forecaster running on the rock bands above the area because the cold new snow isn’t sticking down valley in a local campo that took in puckers him. He generally closes the to the old icy surface and with the rocks operations manager and this was his 7th laundry and possessed her own traverse with its eastern sun when 8-10 C above holding snow that could hit certain season in Portillo. His mountaineering methodology for forecasting. I had to is reached. With a rapid warm-up he sits runs. Reopened at noon with rising has taken him all over the world with find her… beneath the Roca Jack and worries with air/snow temps causing settlement. Go many expeditions in the Himalayas and his disciples, Mark Rawsthorne and Jorge to the office and check the Campbell for the Andes. This isn’t his first rodeo. Like Maria, pronostico de campo Sepulveda. temps/RH again. Wa t c h i n g many of us, Frank was schooled in by guessing or wisdom geostationery satellite and vorticities. American snow standards, but after forecast July storm Jesus! Most of Paco’s terrain has near Very unstable, wet air. Isobars spaced, taking Canadian Level II years ago his vertical cliff bands is broken by large and little wind. Unusual for Andean classification of I arrived in the campo early, Maria paths that pour onto the piste. Seems to storms. Off to Tio Bob’s for lunch and the snow/avalanches/weather has taken on went out and got the rooster tied with eliminate slab formation because they are afternoon beauty contest. The hardships a more northern worldview. prudent foresight, to the lemon tree in the cleaned out by avalanche debris fro m of Coffey’s World. Coffey’s first season forecasting in yard to sacrifice him to the Orixas. This is above, but Frank worries about the flanks Portillo was spent “figuring things out.” when I realized that because of my ability of his paths that are not swept by this Sat. 5/7/03 Most of his time was in the field to make “being absolutely wrong all the natural avalanche control. He takes care cranky snow guru observing and riding the big learning time” an art form, according to an old of those areas after the storms. But with observes meter crown- curve. He sure isn’t an office-bound desk- girlfriend, I had to put my money on the all this rock his hands are full with loose fear and disgust jockey, but an old-school field hand who p ronsticos of Maria. Her “pre s e n c e ” and loose/wet slides from heating rock spends 90% of his time on skis using his filled the dimly lit room. She had been and major rock avalanches. His face patroller’s legs, his hands and shovel to correct with all of her weather forecasts wrinkles with concern with 20-cm. or get the “feel” of his snowpack. by throwing her seashells and reading m o re of new snow. He continually I made my way up the Aconcagua cocoa leaves, but until I gave her four observes and writes in his yellow book. Valley after a week of acclimatization at kilos of dirty laundry, she wouldn’t give Lane’s place in Rio Blanco with Mark me the forecast. A visiting lady friend Thurs. 3/7/03 Rawsthorne-The Brit, who is Lane’s told me upon picking up her wash, that On the traverse again. Back to neighbor, my friend and part of Coffey’s Maria had mentioned “they” when problems. Large and persistent grains p a t rol/snow safety team at Portillo. questioned about the weather. I had to bother Frank. Graupel, surface hoar and Mark had spent parts of three seasons assume that it was communication with facets (when cold enough) found beneath with me on Red Mountain Pass sweeping her spirit world. Anyway, the woman the slab get his attention. Especially if storm boards, skiing the San Juans and was right more than she was wrong so there has been early May snow followed learning to fear a continental snowpack. with my many pilgrimages to her shack by weeks of clear/cold weather. We dig a His new six-month-old Golden, and subsequent return to Portillo, my pit to the ground above Primera “Reginaldo”, avalanche rescue dog in fellow snow viewers and weather Quebrada. Over two and a half meters. It training, was in the back of his girlfriend’s watchers could hardly wait for the looks pretty much the same to me. Stable Toyota sweeping back and forth catching Forecast and stories of Maria. as a Mormon marriage; however, Frank all the smells. We unloaded in Portillo at points out a minor concern near the the old train station that had been surface with a shovel tilt test. Fails with converted into a rustic home for senior Wed. 2/7/03 several taps, but will probably tighten up employees. Coffey greeted us, we high We begin the day early in Frank’s with the day’s warming air temps. We five’d and hugged like old women. It had office watching a series of storms work look at a cornice looming 1,000 meters been a couple of years since we’d spent their way onshore and dig southeast into above us. Frank started heli-bombing the time together. the central Andes on satellite. Not big cornice that forms from NW winds a few Portillo is set at 2,980 meters in a high storms, but ones that could produce a years back. It’s large and would cause alpine basin, the start of the Valle De meter or two of snow. We go out to the death and destruction if it hit the ski area. Aconcagua. Much of the basin is filled Roca Jack lift, a five-person poma that Frank told me, “I went to the lenceria with Laguna Del Inca and towering above deposits us on a icy 35-degree slope, (laundry) and got some used pillow cases the yellow Mother Ship, Hotel Portillo, wondering who gets off first? With luck it to put the hand charges (6-12 kilos) in for are 5,000 meter peaks with steep rock is only the two of us. We ski out on the friction. Didn’t want them slipping off walls and intimidating avalanche paths Traverse, a fast, icy track that travels the cornice and into the gullies or rock that fall onto the lake and the piste. A above steep, cliff-strewn descents with bands. It worked, so I went back for more skiers dream… and a fore c a s t e r s names like The S Chute, El Estado, and the lady running the show refused to nightmare… At 6,959 meters Aconcagua K i l o m e t ro Lanzado and Primera give them to me. She said, ‘I already sits above Portillo on the border with Quebrada. Oooh, don’t want to fall here. gave you some.’ Henry got it Argentina. Can’t compare ski areas in No stopping until the bottom, 300 meters straightened out pretty quickly.” North America to Portillo. The climate is below.. Listening to what is important to California. Portillo experiences Paco. Upper layer slabs, crusts and grain Fri. 4/7/03 something between maritime and types. There are small (0.5mm) facets on Cold last night and we have a few intermountain climate, depending upon the shady southern aspects today, but th the year and elevation. When you drop cm. of new on July 4 . Unisys has good with the 8-degree C temps they don’t 30 switchbacks and 1,400 meters into the vorticity and RH for the next few days. seem to be a problem.. He takes his valley there are vineyards and orchards, Skied all day with Frank, watching the thermometer out for the tenth time. all in a thirty-minute drive. new snow point release out of the cliffs PAGE 14 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003
25 cm overnight, 6% water! Is this slabs?” Lane suggests, Chile or Colorado?? Roca Jack, Traverse “Throw out the books and and Plateau—Cerrado/Closed. The everything we’ve learned.” pressure is off. Frank, Henry, and the Frank, a little spaced patrol head out to work. White out replies, “People ask me conditions, but can hear cascading snow what I do around here all released from the Condor wall rushing day?-I WORRY!!” onto the Plateau from avalauncher work. One shot into the main gully releases a Wed. 9/7/03 large slab that is heading uncomfortably Dug pits and skied a toward us gathered at the avalauncher few runs. Class III and IV platform. Henry calmly suggests that we avalanches (Canadian). 2 cover up. We all bend over in unison to R e i n f o rcement that these take our punishment from a larg e major paths do run during powder cloud that lasts 20 seconds. You the storms, cleaning 1 gotta believe! I trust Henry’s experience. themselves out, but the Next, hand charge routes on the flanks are still suspect. Gargantitas and ski cuts that get good With all the water and warm results. Shit, a dud in the Gargantita temperatures, the pack stabilizes rapidly. cliffs! This snowpack heals quickly. I’m ruined Frank descends carefully into the by a continental climate. upper Gargantita to retrieve the dud and triggers a meter slab onto the piste below. Thur. 10/7/03 He’s stuck on a 40-degree bed surface of Setting on my mochila high in the no return. Can’t go up and can’t Madrones Valley across the way from descend. I watch from below with Jorge Portillo. Aconcagua and Juncal peaks giving our best options for retreat. A tower above me while I spot Frank as he fixed line is dropped and he jumars back digs the first of many pits in preparation 3 to civilization. Too close for me and for heli-ski clients tomorrow. Looking especially for Frank. What’s the sage down at 1,500 meters of untracked. advise? Experience is just a series of Maybe put our signatures on the slope if nonfatal errors.. But so deep into middle we have stability. Silence surrounds me age?… They get the area back again with only an occasional grunt fro m except for Roca and the Traverse. Coffey C o ffey moving snow. Half dozen and I walk across the Pan A m e r i c a n condors circle above looking for fresh highway to the Posada for counseling. meat. Frank skis across the basin to He’s still on an adrenalin buzz from his another aspect and I drop to the pit and near miss. 6 cm. an hour dendrites fall as inspect. Moderate shears one meter we enter the warmth of the Posada for down on a 3 cm graupel layer. 5 lomo probre and a pisco sour. Hummm…I’m not convinced. “Coffey, whadda think? A 35-degree slope. We 1. Frank Coffey in his officena. 2. A control team late night pisco could mine this graupel..” Frank smiles, waits for the punishment. 3. Frank Coffee and Matt enlightenment “A little paranoid Colorado boy? The Wiley starting the traverse. 4. An avalanche runs La Posada bar two meters that dropped here was a off the rock wall above the plateau. 5. The Roca p retty big shock. There are ro u n d s Jack at Portillo Ski Area. Photos 1,2,3,4 by Jerry 4 Sun. 6/7/03 mixed in with the graupel with good Roberts, photo 5 by Matthew Wylie. Another 56 cm overnight of 14%. bonding and warm snow/air temps.” Inverted storm! I meet Frank in the office He’s had seven seasons down here. Ski From: Frank Coffey question, avalaunchers - not enough at 5 a.m. The area is closed and so is the one at a time from cliff band to dome to To: [email protected] range or accuracy, snow fencing - the Pan American. Very quiet, no tru c k lower angle slopes to the landing zone. Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 4:45 ridge was too narrow, blaster boxes - too traffic. Henry comes in and we look at Some fine powder turns to valley PM expensive. I learned my heli bombing Campbell information and other bottom. Encantado! (Charmed) licks from two masters, Dave Hamre and forecasts as he shares a story. “Monty Roberts, Chris Stethem. Stethem suggested 12 to Atwater was our forecaster in 1966 for Fri. 11/7/03 25 kilo charges wrapped in a pillow the first World Speed Skiing Perched on Madrones valley ridge. Wednesday afternoon, the day after cases to provide more friction. Henry Championships. The President of Chile 500 July turns the first day of my vacation. This did not like the idea of a large charge was visiting and wanted to meet an morning was painful. Spent last night cascading down the slope toward his avalanche expert so I took him over to Almost missed it! I avoid the with Rob Rogan, Jakubik, and Manns signature lift. Monty’s room. Eventually the oficina on heli-ski days. Too much sucking down vino tinto and feasting on The shot placements are tricky. Most conversation got around to control work commotion and I’m in the way. I show carne at Hugo and Matilde’s home in of the cornices tend to be hard packed and the President asked where he kept up around nine and Jorge asks, “Where Santiago. Hugo, the consummate and sloping. I test the snow first with a the explosives. A smile crossed Monty’s have you been? Frank’s looking for Argentine, proved to us once again that one kilo brick. If the snow is soft enough face as he pointed and said, ‘Why, under you.” A radio transmission later, the Argentines are the asado masters. to hold the charge, I toss out the charge my bed.’” A c c o rding to Henry, the “Roberts, this is Coffey, you wanna ride Read the article. I like it. First, after the brick test. This procedure is executive’s retreat was “very rapid.” drag on this cattle drive with me and two spelling corre c t i o n s : Chugach and somewhat complicated by the fact that clients?” I reply, “Huhhh, sure.” I boot oficina. we are lighting the safety fuse with Mon. 7/7/03 up, grab my skis and pack and hustle to Now the brick story. The bottom of matches with the heli door in my side Avalanchista chews toothpick the heli-port. Six lifts and 5,000 meters Roca Jack lift sits at the bottom of a 4,000 open. Pull wire ignitors are illegal in and worries. later I have maybe the best ski day of my foot slide path. The path runs often and Chile... concerns of terrorism. July storm life! This wasn’t a Pisco Dream-it was repeatedly during storms. The path has In 2002 on our third heli bombing pure Chile powder… run to the lake twice, size 4.5, dropping mission of the season I have Henry 20 cm more overnight. Tim Lane 4,700 feet. In 1965 after a 7 meter storm it o n b o a rd. You know Henry; he is a calls from the Andena and reports two THE END ran to the lake. In 2001 after a 1.5 meter “hands on” kind of boss. My usual meters at the mine at 4,500 meters. Says That’s it. I spent the season in storm, a cornice triggered a size 4.5 soft assistant, Chico Mora, who can light a his meteorologist is calling for storm Portillo with my buddies, had big fun, slab which again turned left at the charge with a match in gale force winds, intensity to increase by mid- drank some good wine and learned from bottom of Roca Jack run and fell another had the day off. Per usual, I throw out day…Snowing 8 cm/hr. Another 40 cm The Master, one of the best in the 700 feet to the lake. my brick to test the snow. The pressure since 7 a.m. 13% with wind. Starting to business. He taught me a lot. He shared As you know, I told Henry when I was on, boss onboard. The brick get ugly. Visibility is poor until a break his knowledge and experiences. I owe first came to Portillo that the corniced triggered a 2.5 avalanche, not big by Roca allows us to get control work started him. Chairman Mao said: “Re- ridgeline that sits above the Roca Jack Jack standards. Henry and Mario, the with the avalauncher and control routes. education is necessary.” So I followed was my single biggest concern. The Roca pilot, did not realize what had As Frank says, “Most of the control work the footsteps of Frank Coff e y, has been taken out 6 times in my 7 years happened. I instructed the pilot to fly is done by the storm.” You can hear Avalanchista de Portillo. And the in Portillo. The Va et Vient... comes and away from our location. We w e re avalanches running on both sides of the “Work” of the work/study program? I goes ... lift is perfect for that hovering above the cornice at 13,700 valley. Coffey decimates a small aspen hope it was a good trade for Henry and a location. When the lift is hit, most often feet. He was confused because I still forest with his toothpick habit. High contribution to Portillo’s avalanche the cable is knocked off the free standing have a 12 kilo charge in my lap. As we anxiety! program. Mark Rawsthorne was the skill bull wheels that are connected to the rock flew away from the ridgeline we saw behind the idea. I thank him. Salude! buttresses at the border. The cable is the avalanche racing toward the Roca Tue. 8/7/03 The computer in Paco’s office hasn’t buried by debris and we either pull it out Jack. Henry asked the obvious question. 06:30. High winds and snow all seized up yet and I’ve got 3 seasons of with a snowcat or if that is not possible, “Why are we using explosives for this night. Hazard is high and rising… The data entered! “Hey Henry, how about a long line another cable up with the heli cornice work?” Explosives, inexpensive storm stalls over the Andes with dying avalanche atlas next year?” and reassemble the lift. Process takes in Chile by American standards, are still winds in its low-pressure spin. Snowing about 3 to 7 days. If the lift towers at the pricier than bricks. 4 cm/hr , but density is decreasing with Jerry Roberts is CAIC/CDOT forecaster on bottom of Roca are hit and damaged, the dendrites. We’ve gotten over 200 cm. Red Mtn. Pass, Prescott College adjunct process may take longer. Roberts, I hope this helps. I will check my The books that I’ve read and experience p ro f e s s o r, consultant/forecaster for the The 2001 avalanche took out the email first thing Thursday AM. Please tells me, widespread slab activity, but I Chilean mining industry, AAA certification Roca and also damaged the La Laguna fire off any questions. I hope all is well see almost none! Of course direct action administrator (beaurocat as in Ghetto speak), lift. After that incident Henry and I began with you, amigo. activity ran its course. I talk with Lane spiritual advisor and window washing. to talk in earnest about what options and Coffey. “We have over half a meter were at our disposal for mitigating the Un gran abrazo of dendrites followed by 13% snow with threat of the Roca cornices. Heli bombing Paco wind and ending with Colorado powder was the only logical option. Military and little wind. Why aren’t we seeing big ❊ weapons in Chile were out of the ❊ VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW PAGE 15 SNOW SCIENCE
Avalanche Hazard in Kazakhstan By Viktor Blagovechshenskiy
azakhstan is a new indepen- smaller peak of precipitation happens ning of January with dry loose snow by avalanche decreases to 30 – 50 %. dent republic in Central Asia, November – December. Summer and avalanches, 2) at the end of March – The mountain regions of K located between Russia, winter are very dry. Summer is hot, April with wet slab snow avalanches. Kazakhstan are sparsely populated China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and and winter is cold. Dry avalanches prevail in number, and little developed; therefore, dam- Turkmenistan. Its area is 2,670,806 The mountains are snow covered but wet avalanches are the biggest age from avalanches is low. There are km2 with a population of 15.8 million from November to April, and year and most destructive. Avalanche ver- some mines and miner settlements hit people. Mountain regions with round in the glacier zone Snow depth tical drop height reaches 1000 m and by avalanches in Altai, Dzungar avalanche hazard are concentrated at depends on altitude and slope aspect. travel distance reaches 3500 m. The Alatau, and Karatau. A railroad and eastern part of Kazakhstan. There are On northern slopes in the coniferous maximum re c o rded avalanche vol- some roads in the Altai are threatened the Altai, Saur, Tarbagatai, Dzungar forest and alpine meadow zones in ume is 350,000 m3, and average vol- by avalanches. The main avalanche and Alatau mountain ranges, and the the most mountainous regions annu- umes are 10,000 – 15,000 m3. Wet problems exist in Zailiyskiy Alatau Northern and Western Tien Shan al maximum snow depth is 100 – 120 Mountains. The total area of haz- In the Western Dzungar Alatau snow ardous avalanche terrain is 134,000 depth increases to 200 cm, and in the km2. Most mountain ranges are ori- Western Altai reaches 300 cm. ented in an east-west direction. Plains After the autumn, snowfalls form that surround the mountains have a 50 – 60 cm snow cover on the altitudes of 300 – 600 m above sea ground. The lengthy midwinter dry level. Altitudes of the mountains and cold period starts, forming a from north to south are: Altai – 3000 weak snow layer with large (3 – 5 m, Dzungar Alatau – 4000 m, Tien mm) depth hoar crystals at the lower Shan – 5000 m. The highest summit part of the snowpack. Spring snow- peak is Khan Tengry with an altitude storms create 40 – 50 cm snow slabs of 6997 m. above this weak layer and trigger A common altitudinal landscape avalanches. Increasing density and structure from lowest to highest is decreasing strength in the direction deciduous forest, coniferous fore s t , from snow surface to ground is the alpine meadows, high mountain tun- typical feature of snow cover struc- dra; and stones, snow fields and ture. glaciers. The treeline rises from 2000 T h e re are about 30 days with m in Altai in the south, to 2400 m in snowfall during winter period. Most Dzungar Alatau, and to 2800 m at The snowfalls are small, less then 10 cm of Northern Tien Shan. new snow. Snowfalls of 30 – 40 cm Figure 1. Monthly distribution of precipitation in Zailiyskiy Alatau range. The climate is strongly continen- usually occur one time in winter. tal in Kazakhstan. Moisture travels Heavy snowfalls greater than 70 cm avalanches move with velocity 10 – range. The biggest state city, Almaty, from the North Atlantic Ocean. The new snow occur one time in 50 years. 15 m/sec. Dry avalanches have with 1.5 million people is located on world’s highest mountain barrier: The duration of most snowfalls is velocities 30 – 50 m/s. Flow height of the northern foothill of this range. Hindukhush – Karokoram – usually 6 – 12 hours. Snowfall intensi- wet avalanches is usually 3 – 6 m. Many people visit these mountains Himalayas isolates the Kazakhstan ties are about 1 cm/hr in winter and 2 Flow height of dry avalanches may for skiing, climbing and hiking in mountains from the Indian Ocean. cm/hr in spring. New snow density reach 20 – 30 m. In the snowiest winter. The only Kazakhstan ski area Plains with steppes and deserts is 50 – 80 kg/m3 in winter and 100 – regions of the Western Dzungar “Chymbulak”, is nearby. There is also receive only 100 – 300 mm precipita- 150 kg/m3 in spring. Alatau and the Western A l t a i the famous high mountain skating tion in a year. In the mountains annu- About 30 – 40 days with avalanche volumes can reach one ring “Medeu”, and several recreation al precipitation increases to 600 – 800 avalanches account for 10 - 15 million m3, and avalanche flow areas in the Zailiyskiy Alatau. During mm, and to more than 1000 mm in avalanche cycles during the winter heights reach 150 – 200 m. The biggest the last 25 years avalanches killed 50 glacier zone. Spatial precipitation dis- period. Causes are usually snowfall avalanches run up opposite valley people (tourists, climbers and skiers). tribution depends on the slope orien- events in winter and thaws and slopes to a height of 200 m. The annual death toll has reached as tation of the range. The western snowmelt in spring. Most of the Avalanche activity varies strong- many as 12 people. As the number of edges of the mountain ranges receive avalanche cycles last 2 – 3 days, but in ly year to year (Fig. 2). The number of winter visitors increases; the maximum moisture – up to 2000 mm late spring avalanches may descend days with avalanches, the avalanche avalanche problem is expected to in the Western Altai and Dzungar each day during two weeks. number, and the total avalanche vol- become more significant. Alatau. On eastern sides of the moun- About 80 % of the avalanches umes increase in general with the Avalanche investigations in tain ranges annual pre c i p i t a t i o n occur during or just after snowfall or snow amount (annual maximum Kazakhstan began in the 1950s in the decreases to 200 – 400 mm. Maximum rain on snow. There are two peaks of snow height). Winters with high Institute of Geography of Kazakh p recipitation occurs during spring, avalanche activity during winter: 1) avalanche activity return each 10 Academy of Science. In the 1960s the April – May (Figure 1). A second at the end of December – the begin- years. Sometimes a year with high M e t e o rological Service established avalanche activity corresponds with five avalanche observation stations snow amount less than normal and (one in Altai, two in Dzungar Alatau, vice versa depending on specific and two in Zailiyskiy Alatau). Now snow cover development. During the only two stations in Zailiyskiy Alatau last 30 years slight positive trends are operate. They are “Shymbulak” and estimated for both the snow height “Big Alamty Lake” located respec- and the avalanche volume sum. tively at 2200 and 2500 m. The mis- Avalanche hazard characteristics sion of the station’s staffs includes differ greatly across altitudinal zones weather observation, measurement of (Table). Avalanche volumes and the snow cover properties, re c o rd i n g share of area hit by avalanche have avalanche events, and local maximum values in the upper part of avalanche forecasting. Daily shear the conifer zone and in the alpine and tension frame measurements are meadow zone. A dense fore s t recorded at the study plots near the impedes avalanching in the lower stations. Empirical dependencies of part of the coniferous zone although avalanche formation probability on snow height is sufficient here for snow cover properties and the new avalanching at the open slopes. In snow height or air temperatures are high mountain tundra and glacier used for forecasts. Since 2000, the zones avalanche activity is high but Swiss nearest neighbors computer avalanche hazard is less than in the program NXD has helped forecasters Figure 2. Yearly variations of the annual maximum snow height and the total alpine meadow zone since valley bot- in decision-making procedures. avalanche volumes in Zailiyskiy Alatau range at altitudes 2500 – 3200 m. (data toms are wide; the amount of area hit The Avalanche Information from the Chymbulak Avalanche Observation Station). PAGE 16 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003
Center of the State Meteoro l o g i c a l usually twice during winter: at the Office in Almaty produces regional end of December and at the begin- avalanche forecasts for all the moun- ning of March. There are few engi- tainous regions of Kazakhstan. The neered protective structures in the data from avalanche observation sta- Kazakhstan mountains. Snow sup- tions, mountain weather stations and port fences had been constructed in estimated amount of new snow and the 1970’s to protect the skate ring air temperature from the region are “Medeu” near Almaty and a mine used in creating avalanche forecasts. site in Dzungar Alatau. There are no The Institute of Geography stud- recent defense structures and none ies the spatial distribution of are planned. avalanches, develops methods of Viktor Blagovechshenskiy is head of the avalanche hazard estimation and Laboratory of Mountain Ecology of the mapping, and draws up avalanche Institute of Geography of Kazakhstan. He h a z a rd maps. Specialists of the is a Doctor of Geography Sciences. He Institute have developed methods for has studied avalanches for about 30 years compiling small scale overview, mid- in Tien Shan, Altai, Pamirs, Caucasus, dle scale regional, and large scale and Khibiny. He is the author of more engineering avalanche hazard maps. than 80 scientific papers and 4 mono - The Emergency Committee with graphs concerning problems of avalanche the Defense Department and the hazard mapping and avalanche parame - Rescue Service prevents and miti- ter calculation. He worked at Montana gates damage from avalanches. State University from February to May continued from cover. six decisional cues related to Avalanche warnings, mountain area 2003 and applied his experience to create f a m i l i a r i t y, social factors, and access limitation and closure, and the Avalanche Sites Atlas for the Bridger Another story about poor skills gender roles. For each of these avalanche artificial release are used. Range, MT. came from expert skiers. And one cues, we’ll look at which About ten avalanche paths that hit ski story, where Steve and his friends re c reationists were most runs, roads, and tourist trails are con- Contact information: Institute of were in the wrong place at the susceptible based on their level trolled. Only hand placed explosive Geography, Pushkin St., 99, 480100 wrong time, came from people of training and the size of their charges are used for avalanche con- Almaty, Kazakhstan, [email protected]. who knew very little or very p a r t y, and examine why these trol. Artificial releases are produced ❊ much about avalanches. In other susceptibilities exist. Finally, words, each person perceived the we’ll look at what all this means accident in terms that tended to for avalanche education. confirm their preexisting beliefs. Let’s begin by taking a close The details of the accident look at how our perceptions form weren’t quite as important as the the basis of our decisions. very human need for people to tell stories that implied “It Human perception and decision wouldn’t have happened to me.” making Years have passed, and the Most of us like to think of details of the accident have ourselves as basically unbiased. mostly faded. What remains are We believe we perceive the world the stories that people tell, stories pretty much as it really is, and with the implied moral that if only occasionally fall prey to you learn about avalanches and illusions that trick us into making think rationally you’ll stay alive mistakes. But the truth is that our in avalanche terrain. There isn’t p e rceptions are gre a t l y much room in these stories for influenced by subjective factors. trained, rational people who are Whether what lies before us is a certain they are safe but get killed book, a table, or an avalanche anyway. There isn’t much room slope, what we end up for looking at something, perceiving is a combination of whether it is an avalanche slope what our eyes tell us, what our or the death of a friend, and past experience has been, and seeing not some objective reality what we expect to see. In other but a reflection of your own w o rds, perception is not a biases and expectations. A n d passive process where the world there isn’t much room in these reveals itself to us, but an active stories for the possibility that the process where we construct an line between our own decisions i in avalanche terrain and those interpretation of the world. that lead to accidents may, all too You can experience this process often, be very fine indeed. for yourself in Figure 1. In the In this two-part article, we’ll upper half of the drawing, your explore some of the reasons why brain creates the expectation of a accidents like the one that took table with four legs. In the lower Steve’s life happen. To do this, half of the drawing, you expect a we’ll have to go beyond simply table with six legs (try covering labeling victims’ decisions as up each half to get the full effect). foolish, ignorant or egotistical. Because both interpre t a t i o n s And we’ll have to go beyond the cannot simultaneously be true, temptation to see avalanche your brain experiences a kind of accidents as a failure of logic, tug-of-war between what you see reason or education. To and what you expect to see. The understand why avalanche result is a revealing (if accidents happen, we’ll need to disturbing) demonstration of just look at human decision making how insistent our brains are in itself and how, despite its power p rojecting expectations onto and flexibility, it can pose very what we see. subtle and very compelling traps. P e rception in avalanche By reviewing aspects of cognitive terrain is much the same. Far science and statistics fro m f rom being “objective,” recreational avalanche accidents, avalanche experts are probably we’ll see that many avalanche highly influenced by their victims may have fallen prey to expectations of terrain and snow VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW PAGE 17
the decision to enter the avalanche scores for recreational accidents path when evidence of the were probably higher than shown avalanche hazard was more (median exposure score > 3), apparent. So for each accident, I further raising the certainty that computed an exposure score that most victims had ample evidence roughly quantified the amount of of the hazard at the time of their hazard present at the time of the decision. There were no cases in decision (Table 1). To minimize the data set where all of the reporting biases, I chose hazard indicators were known to indicators that would have been be absent. Thus, accidents where a p p a rent to any observant there was little or no evidence of individual at the time of the the hazard prior to the avalanche accidentvi. In many cases, hazard appeared to be quite rare. indicators were reported by Averaged across gro u p s , rescue parties or investigators exposure scores roughly quantify rather than the victims the risks taken by avalanche themselves, further re d u c i n g victims at the time of each (though not entirely eliminating) accident. So, if victims were reporting biases. I assumed that influenced by heuristic traps, we any remaining reporting biases would expect accident parties to conditions. Because they have a our decision (to act in the same were uniformly distributed across have higher exposure scores when l a rge mental warehouse of way as others). Most of the time all accident groups. heuristic trap cues were present experiences, they can this heuristic is correct, and we Because the frequency of than when such cues were absent. unconsciously “fill in the blanks” behave appropriately. But at other hazard indicators was unknown But sensitivity to these traps and construct a mental image of times, such when the people for cases where accidents did not might vary according to other avalanche conditions even when around us are engaged in illegal happen (the non-event base rates), factors, such as training and their initial information is or self-destructive behavior, this it wasn’t possible to determine the group size. incomplete. Just as we recognize same heuristic can lead to disaster. relative significance of the factors some basic features of a table in This kind of situation, where we in Table 1. Thus, I gave each Decision making and training in F i g u re 1 and mentally try to rely on the wrong cue to guide our indicator the same weight and avalanche accidents c o n s t ruct an image consistent decisions and our behavior, is computed the exposure score as a Conventional wisdom with our expectations, the known as a heuristic trap. simple linear sum of all of the suggests that recreationists with avalanche expert recognizes the Six heuristic traps are notable h a z a rd indicators that were high levels of avalanche training basic features of a familiar pattern for their ubiquity in human known to be present at the time of are pretty skilled at their sport. So in avalanche conditions and decision making: familiarity, the accident. A m o re these individuals would be more c o n s t ructs a mental picture acceptance, commitment, the comprehensive description of the likely to seek out steeper and consistent with those familiar expert halo, scarcity and social rationale behind computed m o re avalanche prone terrain patterns. The more experience the consensus.v To determine if these exposure scores can be found in than re c reationists with less expert has, the more accurate their traps played a role in the decision McCammon (2000). training. But in obviously mental picture, and the more making of avalanche victims, I The overall distribution of dangerous conditions, we would successful their decisions will be.ii reviewed 715 U.S. accidents (1972 exposure scores shows that most expect the more highly trained That’s why exhorting students in – 2003) and compared decisions victims proceeded onto the slope folks to recognize the hazard and your avalanche courses to “be that victims made either in the in the face of ample evidence of avoid such places. In other words, objective” about the avalanche p resence or in the absence of danger (Figure 2). Over 73% of all we’d expect average exposure conditions will often get you heuristic trap cues. To minimize accidents occurred when there score to go down as avalanche blank stares – they lack the documentation biases and to w e re three or more obvious training goes up. Does it? experience to flesh out a mental remove any org a n i z a t i o n a l indicators of the hazard (median To answer this question, I picture that may be crystal clear to influences, I considered only e x p o s u re score = 3 indicators). defined the training level of each you. re c reational accidents and This finding is consistent with the accident party to be the training Alas, most people have vastly excluded from the study accidents f requent observation that many level of the most skilled person in g reater experience with things that occurred on commerc i a l l y avalanche victims appear to have the party (Table 2). To avoid like tables than they do with guided trips, club outings, in i g n o red obvious signs of deliberately linking training avalanche conditions. So how do work settings or on highways. instability (Fesler, 1980; Smutek, categories to hazard scores, I most people make decisions in Data for the study came fro m 1980; Jamieson, 1996; Atkins, 2000; didn’t consider terrain avoidance avalanche terrain? One school of re c o rds maintained by the Tremper, 2001). p recautions to be a training thought proposes a systematic Colorado Avalanche Information Because Figure 2 includes data d i s c r i m i n a t o r. Remarkably, process of evaluating all relevant Center, published accounts in the from accidents where very few e x p o s u re scores of the four information and selecting the best Snowy To r re n t s ( Williams and details were known, and because training categories showed no course of action. Though this A r m s t rong, 1984; Logan and accident reports didn’t always significant diff e re n c e sv i i approach sounds good in theory, Atkins, 1996), the We s t w i d e p rovide complete information (pANOVA = 0.62). This result was in practice it requires considerable Avalanche Network, the about all the hazard indicators robust with re g a rd to age expertise to correctly identify the Cyberspace Snow and Avalanche that may have been present, the differences since exposure scores relevant decision factors and Center, avalanche forecast center distribution is almost certainly for victims aged < 20 years, 21–25 accurately interpret avalanche annual reports, and various skewed to lower values by under years, 26–30 years, 31–25 years, reporting. Thus, actual exposure c o n d i t i o n s .i i i A far more likely Internet and newspaper candidate is the decision strategy resources. espoused by modern researchers who study decision making under Evaluating decisions by uncertainty: in the absence of avalanche victims simple probabilistic tools, people In cases where the trigger was tend to rely on ad-hoc rules, or known, 93% of the accidents in heuristics, that are based on this study were started by the accident victims or by someone in familiar situational cues.iv Of course, heuristics are only their party. Thus most accidents resulted from a specific decision: as good as the cues that trigger the decision to enter the path that them. For example, in unfamiliar social situations, most of us have eventually avalanched. Rather than try to re c o n s t ruct and learned to look at what other examine each decision, I looked people are doing as a fairly reliable guide to what behavior is instead at the circ u m s t a n c e s under which each decision was a p p ropriate for us in that made. My underlying assumption situation. Here, the situational cue (what others are doing) guides was that, on average, victims who took more risk would have made PAGE 18 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003
indicators at the 95% confidence victims with little or no training level. The effect was most when they were in familiar pronounced in parties with the terrain. Familiar terrain, it seems, highest level of training (Figure 5), had the effect of negating the who exposed themselves to 1.9 ± safety advantages of avalanche 0.76 more hazard indicators in education in the more highly familiar terrain. There was a trained victims. marginally significant increase in exposure scores for groups of two Trap #2: Commitment people (pt = 0.090). Once we have made a The tendency of highly decision, subsequent decisions are trained accident victims to make much easier for us if we simply riskier decisions in familiar maintain consistency with that terrain is disturbing. While this first decision. This strategy, g roup seemed capable of known as the commitment recognizing and avoiding obvious heuristic, saves us time because avalanche hazards, it appeared to we don’t need to sift through all do so only when traveling in the relevant information with >36 years showed no statistically larger groups to take more risks, unfamiliar terrain. In familiar each new development. Instead, we just stick to our original significant difference (pANOVA = appears to exist for accident party terrain, this group seemed to assumptions about the situation 0.42). The result was also robust sizes between four and ten suspend its ability to heed x with regard to activity type, since people. Solo accident victims also obvious warnings and and decide accord i n g l y. L i k e activities that showed very high seemed to exhibit a higher level of subsequently exposed party most heuristics, the commitment or very low exposure score s risk. As we saw in the previous members to significantly more heuristic is pretty reliable, but it accounted for less than 10% of all section, these results are robust risk. Also disturbing is the becomes a trap when consistency accidents (Figure 3). The central with respect to age, activity type f requency of this phenomenon: overrules critical new information 90% of all activities showed no and level of training. more than four times as many about an impending hazard. significant differences in exposure So far, we’ve seen that accidents happened to this group To determine if there was e x p o s u re scores are useful for in familiar terrain than in evidence of the consistency trap in scores (pANOVA = 0.24). roughly approximating the risks unfamiliar terrain. Thus the avalanche accidents, I compared The bottom line is that taken by parties in avalanche familiarity heuristic appeared to e x p o s u re scores of accident avalanche training did not terrain immediately prior to an be more a rule than an exception parties that had either high or low correlate with a reduction in the accident. But what can exposure among avalanche victims with commitment to entering the path overall risk taken by avalanche s c o res tell us about heuristic high levels of avalanche training. that eventually avalanched. viii victims. While it is important traps? In the next two sections, P e rhaps highly trained Highly committed groups had a to note that this result applies we’ll look at how exposure scores avalanche victims perc e i v e d stated goal that they were actively only to a very select group of vary with cues for two heuristic familiar terrain as somehow safer pursuing or a goal they were people (those caught in traps, and we’ll look at why these than unfamiliar terrain. But was motivated to achieve because of avalanches), it has important traps may have been difficult for it? Comparing victims with approaching darkness, timing or implications for avalanche some avalanche victims to avoid. advanced training to those with other constraints (253 cases). education, as we’ll see in part 2 of basic training, we find that the G roups with low commitment this article. For now, however, all Trap #1: Familiarity advanced group had a 21.9% were not motivated to achieve a we need to recognize is that any The familiarity heuristic is an lower proportion of accidents in specific goal; the accident variations in exposure score s unconscious rule of thumb that familiar terrain than in unfamiliar typically occurred during the among training categories must we use to simplify our decisions terrain. Assuming that both course of routine re c re a t i o n a l be due to variables other than the in familiar situations. Rather than groups visited the two types of activities (138 cases). age of the victims and the type of go through the trouble of figuring terrain with approximately the Exposure scores of all groups activity they were engaged in. out what behavior is appropriate same frequency, this supports the showed a significant diff e re n c e every time, we tend to rely on our idea that familiar terrain may in when commitment was high (p = Decision making and party size in t past actions in that setting as a fact have been slightly safer for 0.00021), with an increase of 0.49 ± avalanche accidents those with advanced knowledge g u i d e .i x Most of the time, the 0.26 hazard indicators at the 95% In a survey covering ten years than for those with basic familiarity heuristic is re l i a b l e . confidence level. Among different of avalanche accidents, A t k i n s knowledge. Certainly, an intimate But when the hazard incre a s e s training levels, the effect was (2000) showed that parties of two knowledge of terrain feature s , and the setting remains the same, marginally significant for parties and three people were more local avalanche history, and this rule of thumb can become a with basic training (p = 0.070) and commonly involved in accidents snowpack structure, or the effects t trap. than parties of five or six people. of skier stabilization might have advanced training (pt = 0.10). To determine if there was But how much of their contributed to this. But given the Among different party sizes, the evidence of the familiarity trap in involvement was due to greater high percentage of accidents that effect was marginally significant avalanche accidents, I compared risk taking by the smaller groups, happened in familiar terrain, it for parties of three people (p = e x p o s u re scores of accident t and how much was due to the fact appears that these groups greatly parties in familiar and unfamiliar 0.062) and significant for parties that smaller groups are more o v e restimated the degree to terrain. To facilitate the g reater than four people (pt = common in the backcountry? A which familiar slopes were safer. comparison, I rated each group’s 0.0026). In all these cases, the look at the exposure scores of In the end, avalanche victims with familiarity with the accident site presence of high commitment by different party sizes gives a rough advanced training exposed their where it was reported or could be the accident party corresponded estimate of the re l a t i o n s h i p parties to about the same risks as credibly inferred (367 cases). Most between risk taking and party accidents (71%) occurred on size. slopes that were very familiar to In this study, party size and the victims. Fewer accidents exposure score were known in 631 o c c u r red on slopes that were accidents. Figure 4 shows the somewhat familiar (12%) and mean exposure score for each unfamiliar (17%) to the victim. In party size, along with the 95% the subsequent analysis, I made confidence intervals for the means comparisons only between the (all score distributions were “very familiar” and “unfamiliar” normal). It appears that people categories – the “somewhat traveling alone and people familiar” category showed traveling in parties of six to ten intermediate values that are exposed themselves to omitted here for clarity. significantly more hazard Exposure scores of all groups (p = 0.030) than people A N O VA showed a significant difference in traveling in parties of four and familiar terrain (pt = 0.027), with more than ten people. Thus the an increase of 0.39 ± 0.35 hazard risky shift, or the tendency of VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW PAGE 19
Since completing his Ph.D. in mechanical i In his thought-provoking book Theory and engineering, Ian McCammon’s life has Reality, Peter Godfrey-Smith gives a described a strange arc involving robotics, fascinating account of how modern micromachines, technical management, and scientific knowledge has been constructed the life of a NOLS instructor. He now inhabits despite the limitations of human the remarkable landscape that lies at the perception. Objectivity, he maintains, is a intersection of avalanche science, engineering, misleading construct that creates an artificial distinction between our and psychology. observations and our point of view. ii The ability to recognize familiar patterns References for Part 1 and exceptions to those patterns is a A ronson, E. 1999. The Social Animal, cornerstone of modern research into Worth Publishers, New York. human expertise. See Flin et al. (1997), Atkins, D. 2000. Human factors in Klein (1998) or Shanteau et al (2003) for avalanche accidents, P roc. Int’l Snow reviews. Science Workshop, Big Sky, MT, Oct. 2000, iii In an earlier paper, I demonstrated why pp. 46 – 51. this strategy (referred to in the literature as Beach, L. and Lipshitz, R. 1993. Why systematic thinking, stage processing, or classical decision theory is an analytic decision making) is impractical inappropriate standard for evaluating for making decisions in unstructured and aiding most human decision environments such as avalanche terrain making, in Decision Making in Action: (McCammon, 2001). A substantial Models and Methods, G. Klein et al., eds. literature has shown that even with the Ablex, Norwood, New Jersey, pp. 21–35. best training in these methods, people very Chaiken, S. and Trope, Y. 1999. D u a l rarely find them practical for real-world P rocess Theories in Social Psychology, tasks. See Beach and Lipshitz (1993) and Chiaken and Trope (1999) for reviews. Guilford Press, New York. Cialdini, R. 2001. Influence: Science and iv Heuristic reasoning was first explored Practice, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA. by cognitive scientists in the 1970s. Since their experiments were designed to reveal to higher exposure scores. One decision making in avalanche F e s l e r, D. 1980. Decision-making as a function of avalanche accident systematic errors in the process, heuristics might argue that these differences terrain, and we’ve seen that the p revention, P roc. Avalanche Wo r k s h o p, (and natural human reasoning as a whole) came to be viewed by many as w e re due to some connection risks taken by accident parties can Assoc. Comm. on Geotechnical Research, fundamentally flawed. Recent findings on between avalanche conditions be roughly quantified using the Nat’l Res. Council of Canada, Te c h . real-world decisions, however, show that and the level of commitment exposure score. We’ve also seen Memorandum no. 133, Ottawa, Canada. heuristic reasoning is in fact a powerful adopted by accident parties. that these risks were independent Flin, R. at al. 1997. Decision Making Under and flexible strategy in complex situations Stress: Emerging Themes and Applications, where we lack time or expertise. H o w e v e r, a comparison of of their age and, to a large extent, Ashgate Publishers, Brookfield, MA. Gigerenzer et al (1999) and Chaiken and avalanche hazard ratings posted the activity they were engaged in Fredston, J. and Fesler, D. 1994. Snow Trope (1999) give excellent reviews of at the time of the accidents shows at the time of the accident. Across Sense: A Guide to Evaluating Snow modern research in heuristics. no such connection (p = 0.69 by all accidents, we’ve seen that Avalanche Hazard, Alaska Mountain Safety v The six heuristics traps reviewed in this Center, Anchorage, AK. the Kru s k a l - Wallis or H- t e s t ) . party size was a significant factor, study were adapted from well-known G i g e re n z e r, et al. (eds).1999. S i m p l e principles of advertising and social Thus, it appears that accident with small groups (1–2 people) Heuristics That Make Us Smart, Oxford psychology. Aronson (1999), Pratkanis and parties who felt highly committed and medium sized groups (6–10 University Press, NY. Aronson (2000) and Cialdini (2001) to enter the path that avalanched people) exposing themselves to Godfrey-Smith, P. 2003. Theory and Reality: provide in-depth overviews of these principles and describe how they have did in fact take more risks than the most avalanche hazard. We An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. been exploited in advertising, public parties who were less committed. looked at two heuristic traps: 1) Hastie, R. and Dawes, R. 2001. Rational policy, religion and other settings. In their book Snow Sense, Jill F a m i l i a r i t y, which seemed to Choice in an Uncertain World: The vi Thanks to Bruce Tremper, who Fredston and Doug Fesler (1994) affect avalanche victims with the Psychology of Choice and Decision Making, suggested using a considerable rating discuss the dangers of the Cow highest levels of training, and 2) Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA. (rather than a high rating, as in my Jamieson, B. and Geldsetzer, T. 1996. previous studies) as the threshold value for Syndrome, or the rush to get back Commitment, which had its Avalanche Accidents in Canada, Volume 4: the forecast indicator. This change had the to the barn, and the Lion strongest effects in large groups 1984–1996, Canadian Avalanche Assoc., happy result of normalizing most of the hazard score distributions, facilitating Revelstoke, BC. Syndrome, or the rush to be the and at higher levels of training. more robust statistical comparisons first to get to a summit or a In part 2, we’ll look at four Klein, G. 1998. S o u rces of Power: How between groups. People Make Decisions, MIT Pre s s , particular slope. Here we see the heuristic traps that operate on a vii Cambridge, MA. In this paper, evidence of correlation very real results of these two social level; those based in gender, Logan, N. and Atkins, D. 1996. The Snowy between two variables is expressed as a behaviors – and the incre a s e d social setting, and leadership. Torrents: Avalanche Accidents in the United probability (p). In keeping with statistical convention, a significant correlation is States, 1980–86 . Colorado Geological exposure to avalanche danger that We’ll also look at the cumulative considered to have a probability of 95% or came hand in hand with increased effects of all these traps, and see Survey, Spec. Pub. 39, Denver, CO. greater (p £ 0.05). In other words, there is McCammon, I. 2000. The role of training commitment to such goals. The which recreation groups are the less than a 5% chance that a correlation in recreational avalanche accidents in the deemed to be significant is due to random commitment heuristic, although it most susceptible to them. Finally, United States, P roc. Int’l Snow Science variation in the data. Results are may simplify some decisions in we’ll wrap up part 2 by looking at Wo r k s h o p, Big Sky, MT, pp. 37 – 45. considered to be marginally significant avalanche terrain, off e red no some of the implications of these Available online at www.snowpit.com. when 0.05 < p £ 0.10. Parametric tests were judged to be valid when distributions additional margin of safety to results for avalanche education. McCammon, I. 2001. Decision making for wilderness leaders: Strategies, traps and fell within 95% of normal symmetry and these victims and in most cases, it teaching methods. Proc. Wilderness Risk kurtosis; otherwise, nonparametric tests were used. The type of test used to assess actually appears to have lead to Manager’s Conf. Oct. 26–28, Lake Geneva, significance is shown as a subscript of the greater risk taking. WI, pp. 16–29. probability or is noted in the text. Plous, S. 1993. The Psychology of Judgment In part 1 of this article, we viii and Decision Making, McGraw-Hill, NY. This finding mirrors the results of an reviewed the basics of human Pratkanis, A. and Aronson, E. 2000. The earlier study (McCammon, 2000). The p e rception as they relate to ❊ Age of Propaganda: The Use and Abuse of behavior-based definitions of training used Persuasion, W.H. Freeman and Co, New in this study had the effect of smoothing out slight differences between training York. categories found in earlier results. Shanteau, J. et al. 2003. How can you tell if someone is an expert?: Empirical ix This heuristic is closely related to the assessment of expertise. E m e rg i n g well-known “availability heuristic” Perspectives on Decision Researc h, S. originally identified by Amos Tversky and Schneider and J. Shanteau (eds.), Daniel Kahneman (1974). This heuristic creates a tendency to base our decisions on Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK. information that is most easily recalled. Smutek, R. 1980. Experience and the p e rception of avalanche hazard, P ro c . x The commitment heuristic seems to be a Avalanche Wo r k s h o p, Assoc. Comm. on product of at least two psychological Geotechnical Research, Nat’l Res. Council principles. The first is cognitive of Canada, Tech. Memorandum no. 133, dissonance, which embodies our desire to be and appear consistent with our words, Ottawa, Canada. beliefs, attitudes and deeds. The second is Tre m p e r, B. 2001. Staying Alive in cognitive conservatism, which is our Avalanche Terrain, Mountaineers, Seattle, tendency to preserve our preexisting WA. knowledge, beliefs and hypotheses. See T v e r s k y, A. and Kahneman, D. 1974. Plous (1993), Aronson (1999) or Hastie Judgement under uncertainty: Heuristics and Dawes (2001) for detailed discussions and biases. Science, 211: 453–458. of these principles. Williams, K. and Armstrong, B. 1984. The Snowy Torrents: Avalanche Accidents in the United States 1972–79. Teton Bookshop Publications, Jackson, WY. PAGE 20 THE AVALANCHE REVIEW VOL. 22, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2003
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