Snowsports
Avalanche Course Is First Step
to Playing Safely in the Backcountry
Before heading up into Smugglers' Notch in Northern Vermont, we make sure we're all beeping.
By the time we’d skinned up into the notch, we were covered in a light layer of snow. We’d removed our skins, dug a snowpit and evaluated the snowpack to determine it was safe to ski. As the six of us stood there, snacking and pondering which lines to ski, a man ran up to us, waving his arms and frantically yelling, “An avalanche! There’s been an avalanche! We need help!”
We quickly peppered him with questions to figure out what had happened, how many people were involved, and how many might be hurt. It didn’t take long to realize he was not part of the group caught in the avalanche, rather he and a friend had witnessed it from below, so he didn’t know how many were caught. He thought he’d seen two people, but perhaps there was only one, although maybe that person skied away and no one was buried.
We gathered our backpacks, probes and shovels, clicked into our skis, and rushed to the scene of the slide. We had been through training, we’d practiced beacon searches and we were level-headed enough to designate a leader from our group to organize us into duties. But it still felt chaotic. It was up to us to find anyone who had been buried, and it was a heavy feeling. We all turned our beacons to receive, hoping that anyone caught was wearing a transceiver.
First we looked for obvious clues that someone might have been buried: a glove, a hat or helmet, a ski or pole, even a hand moving. Nothing.
How on earth will we know if we’ve hit a body? Everyone always says, “you’ll just know,” but it was no comfort to have doubts that maybe I wouldn’t know.
We spread out and used our beacons to search for a signal, covering the entire slide area in a systematic way. Nothing.
My stomach dropped. They must not have been wearing beacons! We’ll have to probe the debris. Time seemed to stand still, yet it seemed like we were taking forever too. Several of us formed a probe line and we methodically moved through the avalanche debris, jabbing into the snow to see if we could find a buried body. How on earth will we know if we’ve hit a body? Everyone always says, “you’ll just know,” but it was no comfort to have doubts that maybe I wouldn’t know.
One of my friends suddenly yelled out that he’d hit something hard. The rest of us continued to probe while another started digging, but it was a false alarm. It was just a boulder. We were all sweating as we worked across the debris.
Suddenly I felt something under my probe. It was harder than snow, softer than rock. I called out a possible hit and another member of our group grabbed a shovel and started digging. It seemed like an eternity, the snow was practically rock solid. Another of my friends helped with the digging.
Just short of 15 minutes later, we had freed the man from under several feet of snow. He wasn’t breathing, so two rescuers started performing CPR.
“Well, not bad, less than 15 minutes for your first avalanche rescue, so there’s a chance he would have survived,” said Bart Howe, mountain travel and rescue advisor for the Northern Vermont National Ski Patrol. “Now, let’s talk about what we did right and what we did wrong.”
Many people think we don’t need to worry about avalanches on the East Coast, but avalanches can and do happen in the steeper terrain here, whether it’s inbounds or in sidecountry and backcountry areas.
The things we did right: we picked a leader; we remembered to turn our beacons to receive; we performed an organized beacon search; we probed in an organized manner; we managed to stay calm and focused.
The things we did wrong: too many people were standing in the area once we started digging, in fact some were standing on top of the body; we forgot to dig from the downhill side, which would have made it easier to get to the victim; at one point, we’d forgotten to continue probing while the digging was taking place, instead we’d milled around to see how the rescue was going (we wasted valuable time here—what if it wasn’t a person, or what if there was still someone else buried?).
This avalanche rescue training scenario reminded me why I was there. I hope I am never caught in an avalanche. And I hope I never have to try and find my husband Scott or a friend who’s been buried. But sometimes, despite precautions, avalanches happen. And if it does happen, I need to be prepared, and so does Scott. Since we almost always ski together, chances are high that we will be trying to save each other. Many people think we don’t need to worry about avalanches on the East Coast, but avalanches can and do happen in the steeper terrain here, whether it’s inbounds or in sidecountry and backcountry areas. In addition, we ski out West, where avalanche danger is a given.
And that’s how we found ourselves taking a Level I Avalanche Course with the National Ski Patrol.
Just the Facts, Ma’am
Our two-day course began in the classroom at Smuggler’s Notch Resort, Vt. Theory reared its head here, but it was engrossing stuff: studying weather patterns and snow formations; understanding wind loading, slope shape and slope angles; recognizing the human factors that affect decision making in the backcountry.
How do you know when you are in avalanche terrain? If it’s steeper than 30 degrees, then it can slide. You read that right—the slopes that skilled skiers and snowboarders prefer are prone to avalanches. You can be at the top, in the middle or at the base, and set it off. In fact, you can remotely trigger a slide on terrain that you are not even traveling on. So, it’s important to be able to recognize how steep the terrain is in order to eliminate or minimize your exposure to avalanche terrain.
We were left with a sobering statistic: In 90 percent of avalanches, the slide is triggered by the victim or a member of the victim’s party. We are our own worst enemy.
Of course, just because it’s steep enough to slide, it doesn’t mean it will. The snowpack has to be unstable to slide. What causes snow to be unstable? Weather such as recent heavy snowfall, wet snow or rain falling on cold dry snow, heavy winds hammering at the snow and moving snow around, and sudden changes in temperature can all do the trick.
Since the only reason you care about avalanches is because you don’t want to put yourself in danger of injury or death, it’s important to realize that the final factor is you. Your presence in terrain that can avalanche may be the final straw. You could very well be the trigger.
And so it follows that your rule of thumb for good decision-making should be “beware of the human factor.” Think about how you make decisions, how others in your group make decisions, and whether you trust your own judgment. Sometimes, others are willing to take more risks than you are. You need to be ready to back off if you don’t feel comfortable skiing a particular slope. You need to be ready to turn around and return the way you came, even if it means you do it alone while the rest of your group continue on. Last but not least, always practice safe group travel—expose one person at a time; ski from one safe spot to another safe spot; and once you’re in a safe location, watch your partner.
We were left with a sobering statistic: In 90 percent of avalanches, the slide is triggered by the victim or a member of the victim’s party. We are our own worst enemy.
After spending much of the day in the classroom, we went outside to learn how a beacon works and how to form a probe line and perform a systematic probe grid. Learning to probe systematically is fairly simple, but becoming adept at using a beacon is definitely not. The beacon sends out a “flux line”—or elliptical electromagnetic field—with the strongest signal ccurring when your antennae lines up with the buried beacon’s antennae and the weakest signal occurring when they are at right angles to each other. You have to move your beacon in an arc to pick up the strongest signal. The signal gets louder as you get closer to the beacon. The most advanced digital transceivers usually give an indication of distance and direction, while basic models alert you with more frequent and louder beeps as you “get warm, warmer, hot, hotter” in your search. As a beginner, beacon signals are very frustrating to read and follow, to say the least.
Digging the snowpit was an astounding revelation—you actually can see and feel the various layers, the different snow textures, whether a snow layer is soft or hard, bonded or faceted.
The emphasis in the course is on making good decisions to avoid being in avalanche terrain when the danger of a slide exists. But sometimes you still end up in avalanche territory, so the second day was spent outside in the notch to learn to read the snowpack and practice rescue techniques.
We practiced finding buried beacons, learned how to dig out a victim quickly and efficiently, and learned how to evaluate the layers of snow by poking our ski poles into the snow, punching holes in the snow, digging snowpits, doing shear tests with our shovels and skis, and even doing a shear block test (Rutschblock test), which requires isolating a huge block of snow and stepping onto it, and possibly jumping up and down on it several times, to see if it holds your weight. Digging the snowpit was an astounding revelation—you actually can see and feel the various layers, the different snow textures, whether a snow layer is soft or hard, bonded or faceted. The grand test of everything we’d learned was the mock rescue described in the beginning of this story.
Practice, Practice, Practice…
We spent two intensive days in a Level 1 Avalanche Course only to discover that we still don’t know as much as we need to know to travel safely in the backcountry. Only practice, time and experience will teach us what we really need to know. So our perpetual homework includes the following things:
Learn to recognize slope angles—you must practice looking at slopes, guessing the angle and then measuring them for an accurate angle before you can become skilled at recognizing a slope angle somewhat accurately. We often looked at slopes and guessed they were 30–35 degrees when they were actually steeper than 40, or conversely thought they were much mellower and of no concern.
Statistics show that 93 percent of avalanche victims will be alive if they’re dug out within that first 15 minutes, but then the numbers drop catastrophically.
Learn to understand the snowpack—poke snow, dig pits, pay attention to how weather affects snow. We need to do this in our backyard, inside resort boundaries, every time we are outside. Whenever we are outside, we need to look for obvious clues of snowpack instability, such as recent avalanches (natural or triggered by others), whumphing sounds, shooting cracks, recent wind loading and hollow sounds that might remind us of beating drums. But we also need to be aware that the absence of any of these things does not mean the snow is necessarily stable.
Learn to use a beacon quickly and efficiently—we’ve got about 15 minutes to unbury a person before they most likely will die. Statistics show that 93 percent of avalanche victims will be alive if they’re dug out within that first 15 minutes, but then the numbers drop catastrophically. After 45 minutes, only 20–30 percent are still alive, and after two hours, almost no one is alive. Pretty grim odds.
Learn to use a probe—as our mock rescue showed, and statistics carry out, not everyone who gets caught in an avalanche is wearing a beacon. Sometimes, the only way you can find them is if you perform a systematic probe grid. And the more you practice, the more you know what it feels like to hit a body instead of a rock, tree or other terrain feature.
Learn efficient shoveling techniques—believe it or not, this is important. Avalanche debris sets up like concrete. It’s like shoveling the end of your driveway hours after the snowplow has gone by. You get exhausted very quickly and you’re sweating bullets too. There are shoveling techniques that are less stressful on your body, as well as more efficient at getting to a buried person.
Learn to perform a focused and efficient rescue—the best method is to set up a full-scale mock rescue with friends that includes a mock avalanche and dummy burial, complete with a hysterical survivor, then organize ourselves and search.
For more photos of the Level I Avalanche Course we took through the National Ski Patrol, please visit the "Avalanche Training" Album in our Photo Galleries.
BACKCOUNTRY SAFETY RESOURCES
Find an avalanche safety course in your area. Start with the following:
• Go to the “Education” section of www.avalanche.org and you can find out who offers avalanche safety courses in your area. The website’s online tutorial is helpful for a basic introduction or refresher, but does not replace taking a course.
• You don’t have to be a patroller to take an avalanche safety course with the National Ski Patrol. Go to the “Education Programs” section of www.nsp.org for more information. The best way to find out when the avalanche courses are offered in your area is to stop by the ski patrol headquarters at your local mountain.
• If you live in Canada, you can take courses through the Canadian Avalanche Centre. Go to the “Training” section of www.avalanche.ca for more information on what is offered in your area. The CAC also includes a free online course which isn’t intended to replace an in-person course but rather should be used as a basic introduction or refresher.
Read some good books (this is in conjunction with taking a class, not instead of):
• "Snow Sense," by Jill Fredston and Doug Fesler
• "Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain," by Bruce Tremper
• "Backcountry Skiing: Skills for Ski Touring and Ski Mountaineering," by Martin Volken, Scott Schell and Margaret Wheeler
• "Avalanche Safety for Climbers and Skiers," by Tony Daffern
• "The ABCs of Avalanche Safety," by Ed LaChappelle and Sue Ferguson
• "The Avalanche Handbook," by David McClung and Peter Schaerer