 Poster: A snowHead
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https://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/index.html
I only recently discovered this piece, and even though it's fairly dated now, it is still a great text and visual experience and you really get to know the people involved, and the decisions that were made that led up to the slide itself. It really shows you how your boundaries of risk can shift without you even realise when there is a social element added to the mix. I assume some here have read it already but if you haven't it's definitely worth the time to get through it.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Agreed @1nf, this a superb article. Amazing that it is from 2012. There are so many take home points of learning within it. For me it's the fact that this tragedy involved so many pro - skiers and quite simply we must never grow complacent.
I would recommend all the more adventurous Sh skiers to read through it.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Definitely worth a read, remember reading it when it first came out. Sobering stuff of how things can dramatically change.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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As an unadventurous skier I read the article - certainly a good one, though I can't understand why anyone would find it "amazing" that it dates from a few years ago. People have been writing good articles for a lot longer than that!
The extreme "risk taking" issue is an interesting one, and it happens a lot in sailing, too, with technology, adrenaline, high levels of skill and modern communications combining to get people out there and produce extraordinary material which the rest of us can sit and read, with a cup of coffee and our feet up.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@Origen, this article was one of the first to use greater interaction and embedded video. I believe it was a flagship project by the NYT to showcase how they could enhance articles with multimedia. It doesn't look quite so amazing now, but we've had many more years of development since then, but at the time it was very impressive.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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I'd never read it before. It's a good article.
From an avalanche point of view it's not really a particularly interesting story. Huge amount of fresh snow, huge terrain trap, not skiing one at a time. It's another not uncommon very avoidable accident. The quote about avalanches usually being the fault of "Human nature, not mother nature" summed it up. They were probably lucky it didn't end up even worse.
The interesting aspect is perhaps the group dynamics/psychology. As the article says it would certainly be easy to think "well these guys are all experts they can't all be wrong". Fair play to the woman that refused to follow for not going with the group and going down further right.
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“In avalanche forecasting terms, ‘considerable’ is a really weird forecast,” Saugstad said. “Because it’s this gray area. It’s a hard one to predict. It can mean, well, you’re not going to see any activity. Or, if something goes, you’re going to be screwed. It’s hard to work with that one.”
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It's an old article so maybe things have simply moved on a lot and it's unfair to be so critical. However, that is an extremely lazy viewpoint. If you think that you simply shouldn't be skiing avalanche terrain on "considerable" days. Fwiw there is nothing wrong with that approach, it's better to know what you don't know and be cautious - I say this as someone that probably does 95%+ of my touring/off-piste avoiding avalanche terrain.
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The interesting aspect is perhaps the group dynamics/psychology
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Absolutely.
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Fair play to the woman that refused to follow for not going with the group
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And absolutely again. I was that woman once, though not skiing - on the coach transfer back to Nis airport after skiing in Kopaonik. The driver was too fast, there was lots of ice on the road and a B I G drop on the nearside. I went and asked the courier to tell him to slow down and said my daughter would throw up all over his bus if he didn't. He slowed for perhaps a mile, then speeded up. Not long afterwards the coach went into a long skid, did a slow 90 degree turn and ended up stationary, facing across the road, with the back few rows of seats (full of the older kids who'd been enjoying the ride) over the drop. The courier stood up and turned round and ordered us to remain calmly in our seats. I stood up and declined, suggested we must all get out of the bus, starting with the kids in the back and send somebody up (and down) the road to stop any other coaches from ploughing into us. Everybody got out in an orderly fashion, quiet and shocked at the huge 2 inch slap of ice under the wheels, and we ushered them all quickly off the side of the road - into the snow. Two of the blokes first off ran up and down the road to flag down any approaching vehicles as we watched the driver start up, gingerly inch forward, then slide several feet back. Gasps. Then eventually he got the thing back on the road and we climbed back in again. I was shaking.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Thanks for sharing this, I’d not come across it before but was well worth the read. Extremely sad - reading the how the family members heard the news was hard. Scary how being in a group with others more experienced and with reputations can cloud your own judgement.
I’m amazed how the conditions from weeks ago can affect the snowpack and cause dangerous conditions that only become a risk much later. Maybe this is common knowledge but I had no idea. How do people take this into account when going into the backcountry?
I thought this quote near the beginning was interesting: “But powder and people are key ingredients for avalanches. And the worry among avalanche forecasters, snow-science experts and search-and-rescue leaders is that the number of fatalities — roughly 200 around the world each year — will keep rising as the rush to the backcountry continues among skiers, snowboarders, climbers and snowmobilers.”
Anyone have any idea/figures if deaths have anctually risen over the last decade?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Anyone have any idea/figures if deaths have anctually risen over the last decade?
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For sure you can look at the number of total fatalities and try to find a trend, but there are some confounding variables;
- number of people accessing the backcountry
- weather/avalanche conditions for that season
- sport/activity
For example in a really bad snow year there are probably less high risk days and there are probably more people accessing the backcountry due to resort being tracked out.
In europe snowmobiling is not really a thing compared to n America. But snowmobiles are arguably one of the more dangerous activities;
- massive weight more likely to trigger deep weak layers
- due to noise, speed, and lack of contact with snow likely to miss warning signs such as snow collapsing, "whumpfing", shooting cracks etc.
- cover much more ground so increased risk of finding trigger points
- they do incredibly stupid things like high pointing which is just asking for trouble.
- Definitely becoming more educated about snow safety now, but for a long time they were so far behind skiers. Now some even wearing airbags.
Fwiw I don't know a single climber that carries a transceiver. I also think on the whole they are less educated about snow science than skiers.
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I’m amazed how the conditions from weeks ago can affect the snowpack and cause dangerous conditions that only become a risk much later. Maybe this is common knowledge but I had no idea. How do people take this into account when going into the backcountry?
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For an avalanche to occur you need a strong layer of snow on a weak layer. Typically the weak layer is caused by something that happened in the past (i.e. surface hoar that is then buried with fresh snow).
Most avalanche reports will detail any weak layers, including depth, on which aspects they can be found, how likely they are to be triggered etc. The quality of reports and the amount of areas covered is really quite exceptional. If you are somewhere there's no report for you can dig a pit and make a snow profile. Obviously there are levels to this - a pro will be looking at crystal sizes and shapes and temperature gradients. But even as a complete amateur you can poke at the layers and feel some are harder/softer. You can also run your hand down kind of like a saw and feel the different layers and maybe find a hard layer where there's been rain or something. The next step would be to do some stability tests, you can Google column test for an example, this gives an idea about how likely the weak layer is to fail.
I spent a fair bit of time in the Canadian Rockies. There they typically get a continental snowpack with a deep persistent weak layer lower down. At some point there is so much snow on this layer the odds of a human triggering it are low (although you have to think about things such as rocky areas where the layer may not be buried so deep). However, the consequences of triggering it would be a huge slide. So dealing with this is always a little complicated (low risk but high consequence).
It's also possible for the crystals from the weak layer (typically facets - think "sugar" snow - to bind into a more cohesive layer. I won't try to explain the science of this as don't know it in detail enough, but it is linked to temperature gradient.
Thaw - freeze cycles as seen in spring are one of the best things for creating stable snow. However, you then get into possibility of wet slides in the days.
Overall, the amount of science and forecasting is now incredible. In this regard avalanches are very predictable. You don't necessarily need to understand all the science to make good decisions - especially if you have access to good forecasting which spells out all the potential issues and you can then plan out how to avoid them. Failing all that you can simply avoid avalanche terrain by sticking to slopes less than <30° (or perhaps 25° when risk is very high). These are not steep enough to slide. Or just go to somewhere like Chamonix where lots of people are happy to be human crash test dummies and test the slopes for you 
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