AVALANCHE SAFETY
Making safe decisions in the backcountry Theresa Sippel enjoys a bountiful backcountry powder day. Photo by Kristina Ciari.
By Kristina Ciari, Membership & Communications Director
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he snow rushes past in a swift river of movement. The slough was kicked off by my turns above, and the loose powder is now flowing through a natural gully in the snow, no more than six inches wide. That’s not so bad. I think. It looks like a little creek; totally manageable. Without further hesitation, I turn my skis to cross the stream. I am swept immediately into its raging current. Knocked from my feet, I fall headfirst down the mountain, limbs flailing. One ski is ripped from my boot, but stays attached via its leash, and now I’m dragging a five and a half foot weapon down with me. It takes less than three seconds to realize the gravity of my poor choice. Fighting the wave, I manage to right myself so that my boots are downhill. Using the ski that’s still attached, I lean hard to cut into the slope and traverse out of the river of moving snow. I come to rest a few yards from my friend Cori, who has been watching me and is already pulling out her shovel and probe. She’s the type of friend you want with you on a day like today.
Cori asks if I’m okay, to which I nod in the affirmative, but in truth I’m terrified. I’m not so much afraid of the experience I’ve just had in this very minor avalanche— which happened in-bounds at a local ski resort on a particularly bountiful powder day in December 2018 — but of my own hubris. I saw the moving snow, assessed it against my own skill as a skier, and judged it to be safe to cross. I fell victim to the classic heuristic traps of “familiarity” and “scarcity.” I know better. I can’t even look Cori in the eye.
Increase in users Much like how we’re all navigating daily risk assessment during the COVID pandemic, making safe, conservative decisions in avalanche terrain is a matter of life or death. Backcountry travelers take precautions to mitigate risk to reduce the chance of being caught in an avalanche, but unfortunately with both COVID and avalanches, unless you choose to stay locked up in your house alone, your safety is never guaranteed. Largely because of COVID, experts are predicting a significant increase in backcountry travelers this winter. “Similar to the amount of crowding that we saw this summer, we anticipate a spike in travelers concentrated to even fewer areas,” said Liz Riggs Meder, the Director of Rec Programs at American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education (AIARE) who also serves on the Board of Directors for the Northwest Avalanche Center (NWAC). “All the resorts in Washington are catering to pass holders and requiring reservations at limited capacity,” said Ryan Kitchen, a Mountaineers Super Volunteer and AIARE instructor. “There's going to be fewer opportunities for people to ski at the controlled resorts, which is going to put more pressure on the backcountry.” If early sales are any indication, these predictions will be frighteningly accurate. As of this writing, one retailer in Saskatoon, Canada, has already sold through a season’s worth of cross country skis, and then some. ProSki Seattle is experiencing similar traffic, grossing the highest September
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