Entering the 21st Century Backcountry: A New Generation Facing Old Problems

This foreword is dedicated to the victims, including Greg Costa and Remy Lecluse, of the 2012 avalanche disaster on Mt. Manaslu, the 8th highest mountain in the world.  RIP 

The winter of 2011/2012 was the most dangerous and difficult avalanche season in a generation – it in fact was the worst in my lifetime.  This was at a time when many renowned skiers and riders had perished in non-avalanche related incidents, which has led to a great amount of reflection on websites and in magazines by ‘industry insiders’ about the new wave of tragic accidents in winter-sports.  As a young skier of the supposedly ‘new’ generation I think it is good to contribute a more youthful voice to the discussion over how we use the backcountry in OUR future.

For my part, I do not think the statistics actually show new dangerous trends amongst skiers and snowboarders in regards to avalanches.  Backcountry recreation has been rising for decades not five years and stupidity combined with hubris has been around a lot longer.  However, it does make for a good media buzz to say that the new culture will kill us all. It used to be that people were more likely to die after taking an Avalanche 1 course, but this is no longer the case.  So despite the fact that merely taking a Level 1 Course is NOT an acceptable amount of training for backcountry LEADERS, the reality is that awareness & education campaigns have significantly lowered the number of deaths per 1,000 backcountry users, which is awesome.

Last year, the vast majority of backcountry travelers in Colorado were properly scared by the conditions and only a few crazy souls were playing on steep slopes, which had tragic endings for some.  So much of the media buzz is actually a distraction from the real issue. Last year’s difficult avalanche cycle was the result of a changing climate in the Rocky Mountains and is a serious environmental rather than a cultural problem. 

I am not an avalanche expert.  The following is information and analysis from my own research and field experience and is only intended to raise awareness of avalanche hazards and to encourage smart decision making by all backcountry travelers.   There are many terrific books on these subjects which I will eventually provide a list of.  Additionally, I recommend that you follow the link to WildSnow.Com and seek the wisdom of Lou Dawson, who is in my opinion the highest North American authority on all things related to backcountry skiing.

- Colin

Introduction to the Avalanche Threat and the D Scale for Danger:

  Communication is key.  SASS Guide Chris Coulter discusses line options in avalanche terrain with client Nick.  Much discussion beforehand may have helped save Nick from a serious accident during the run when he took a wrong turn and triggered a small storm slab.

Avalanches are one of the most difficult things for the human brain to understand.  The way I see it, the way avalanches work is the exact opposite of the way our minds work.  Avalanches are actually simple and logical; they require only snow and steep enough terrain for it to slide.  Despite the many books written on the science behind this natural phenomenon, it is the last part of the triangle, the ‘human factor’, that is the most complicated.  In the backcountry you eventually learn the all-important lesson that negative thoughts, fears and desires are things that can in fact kill you, or worse, your partner(s).

I have been taught to treat avalanche hazard as you would a dragon that dwells in the hills above town.  It is rare that one will ever meet the dragon face to face and survive.  However, it is even more rare for the dragon to swoop down into the valley and destroy your town.  This dragon is so pwerful that it can kill the unprepared by using only a fraction of its full destructive potential.  If you spend enough time in the backcountry you will feel the shock of its nearby footstep or even dodge the whip of its tail.  This is why we work so hard to stay far away from the dragon, because it will ruin your day.

The rest of this post discusses my personal experiences with small slab (D2) avalanches.  The first part will focus on the threat posed by the smaller slab avalanches most commonly triggered by skiers and snowboarders. This is the threat from the dragon’s tail that catches the over-confident unaware, but that can also be somewhat managed by those who treat it with enough respect.   And at the bottom of the post is a short video from 2011 where a younger me triggered a small but deep slab on a steep slope to the SW of Loveland Pass and filmed it with a GoPro.  

Later, I will post some discussion of the rare and deadly giant hard-slab monsters that killed experts and non-experts in record numbers last year.  The threat from these deep lurking monsters is often overlooked in years where it doesn’t appear, but it was the major focus of my AIARE Level 2 class with Alpine World Ascents last year because it was such a strikingly tangible threat.

Part 1: The threat of Smaller (D2-3) Avalanches

This post is dedicated to Jamie Pierre, a great skier who died from trauma in a early season avalanche that was not deep enough to bury him but carried him over rocks and cliffs. RIP

Nick stands in front of the debris from the wet-storm slab he triggered in the Andes Backcountry outside Cerro Catedral, Argentina.  Nick was traversing on his board at the middle of the crown wall when the slab broke off at his feet and to twenty feet either side of him.  I watched from where he stands in the photo as hundreds of pounds of heavy wet snow threatened to take him off his feet and over the cliff below.  Fortunately, Nick was not caught.

When we think of deadly avalanches, we often think of massive clouds of snow capable of pummeling a whole village.  These avalanches happen but with the likelihood of natural disasters – which is what they really are.  There are two scales by which we grade the sizes of avalanches, but the one I will discuss here is the D(Danger) Scale.A D1 avalanche is too small to injure a person.  A D2 avalanche could injure or kill someone.  A D3 avalanche would flip you jeep. A D4 avalanche would bury or destroy a ski lift or small building.  A D5 avalanche could destroy a town.  D5 Avalanches are barely even possible in North America, and are mostly a concern only for Swiss Mountain Towns and the high Himalayas.  D4 avalanches are possible in North America only on certain years in the ranges with the largest mountains; Alaska, B.C., the Cascades in Washington, or the San Juan Range or Aspen region in Colorado.

A D1 wet avalanche

Generally speaking, the terrain where most backcountry travelers are recreating in North America has the potential for D2 and D3 avalanches.  Encountering a D3 avalanche is much less likely than a D2, but they account for many of the fatalities.  Even if you have a beacon, ava-lung, and good partners it is difficult to survive an avalanche large enough to destroy a truck. So don’t plan on surviving a D3 avalanche (although you might) and hopefully you will never be too close to one.

However, you very likely will encounter D2 slides if you spend enough time in the backcountry.  But by its very definition a D2 avalanche is large enough to kill you, so you cannot be unafraid of them and if one occurs it is probably time to go home ASAP.  Acknowledge that although the slide was not as large as it could have been, somewhere you did not leave enough margin for error and the result was a close call with only luck to save you.  Use the experience to learn and reflect on the things you and your party did right and the things you did wrong.

The closer photo of the same avalanche debris. The slab broke off about 8-10 cm deep and 15 m wide, it ran almost 200 ft over a small cliff, a classic example of a small but still dangerous D2 slide.

Nick made a mistake when he traversed into the middle of the photo above.  Coulter, our guide, had stationed himself as best he could in the middle of the run so that he could direct people towards the correct line.  He had also spent much time discussing the line options with us while we observed the terrain from below and before riding it.  In short, Coulter was doing everything he possibly could to help the group manage the difficult terrain, but a guide cannot prevent every mistake.  Nor was Nick being especially inattentive.  It is not difficult for someone unaccustomed to riding steep exposed lines to be affected by their fears and anxiety which can lead to confusion while riding or climbing.  The lesson is that all it takes is a little bit of confusion and all of a sudden you are off line and not sure when to go, and it is exactly at that most chaotic moment that avalanches and other accidents tend to occur.  So make sure you listen to your guide (or your own instincts), communicate with your group, observe the terrain, discuss options, and always KEEP YOUR COOL!!!

And the biggest fool is...

This next piece is a short bit of film from one day in March 2011, when I was 20 years old and skiing with my friend Sean Kelly at Loveland Pass, CO.  That was my first season back from ACL surgery and I spent much of it seeking backcountry pow for that reason.  While descending a steep slope a D2,R2 dry slab released at my ski tip.  The slab was crown was almost 2 ft deep in places and was about 30 ft wide.  The slide ran for almost 300 ft  down a gully and alongside a cliff.  A 2 ft slab is normally sufficient to bury a person but the slab released in a narrow gully and was not wide enough to catch me or trigger adjacent slopes.  Narrow gullies can result in surprisingly deep burials if debris piles up, but fortunately this path released onto an open slope below.

While I do not think it would have completely buried me, the rocks/gully below meant that it still had the potential to seriously injure me.  This slide on an isolated terrain feature was also a good sign that the slope was more unstable than we realized.  In fact, we were probably fortunate that the slide ran where it did, with us nearing the exit of the slope.  Had a larger slab broken off higher up, one or both of us could easily have been caught, carried over large cliffs, buried and almost certainly killed.

This is footage of one of the most important lessons I learned in college, and one that has stuck with me since.  Sean and I had dug a pit on a similar slope and done compression tests, but our 'lab' technique was still very poor at the time and we did not get accurate results.  Pay attention to the complexities of the slope where the snow releases and see how the crack started right at the top of a convexity in the slope (bulge) and ran into the concave gully.  Slope Convexities and Concavities (bulges and dips) are some of the most common trigger points for slab avalanches because the shear strength of the snowpack is less at those points (basically the forces from the surrounding snow holding the slab in place are weaker at these spots and so are more likely to be overcome by the force of a descending snow rider).

About the author: Colin is a backcountry skier hailing from Spokane, WA and currently residing in Denver, CO.  Colin received his AIARE Avalanche Level 2 Certification in March of 2012.  Also, in June of 2012 Colin received his BA in Philosophy with minor in Physics from the University of Denver.  He began the SurfaceHorde blog to tell his and his peers stories after returning from an August 2012 trip to Bariloche, Argentina with SGT's South America Snow Sessions (SASS).  He hopes to attend CSU or CU for grad school and to one day take people skiing on the other side of the globe.