Staying alive in

Avalanche Terrain

(the following contains notes by Bruce Tremper)

 

Why know about them – because between 1985 and 2000 266 people have died in avalanches in the United States. That is only those that don’t survive, many more can get caught or trigger them but survive. Over the last 5 years over 26 people die each year in the USA with an average of 15 per season in Canada and is growing. Considering that that is more likely deaths each winter. In the US more people die each year of avalanches on the average than from either hurricanes or earthquakes.

 

The latest research from Europe now indicates that 92 percent of completely buried victims ca be revived if they are recovered in the first 15 minutes, but the number drops catastrophically after that, leaving only 27 percent alive after 35 minutes. It is thought that victims who survive after 35 minute must have some sort of air pocket, which allows the final 27 percent of victims to 100 to 120 minutes, after which the numbers sink to near zero. Most contemporary data suggest that half the victims are dead within the first 25 minutes. This is a sobering number, especially considering that brain damage starts well before death – perhaps at 10 minutes for the average victim.

 

The high mountains used to be the exclusive playground of climbers and skiers but these users have since become the minority compared with rapidly increasing numbers of snowmobilers, snowboarder, snowshoers, hunters, hikers, and boy scout troops.

 

Almost all avalanche fatalities involve recreationists, most notably snowmobilers, climbers, backcountry skiers, and snowboarders, in that order. Almost all are very skilled in their sport, male, fit, educated, intelligent, middle class and between the ages of 18 and 40.

 

There is hope. In 90 percent of avalanche accidents, the avalanche is triggered by the victim or someone in the victim’s party. Which is good, because that means :”We have found the enemy and he is us”.

 

The good news is that we have two important things going for us, first, we have a choice, and second we already know the enemy. The bad news is that the enemy is us, and that is the hardest enemy of all to conquer.

 

Popular myths about avalanches (and what really causes avalanche fatalities)

 

Myth – Noise triggers avalanches.

 

Truth is – Only in the movies. In 20 years as an avalanche professional I have never once seen an avalanche triggered by, say a shout or even a sonic boom or a low-flying helicopter. I have heard of a very rare incidents where low-flying helicopters triggered avalanches in extremely unstable conditions. However, most noise just does not exert enough force. It must be a tremendously loud noise like an explosive going off at close range. In almost all avalanche fatalities, the avalanche is triggered by the weight of the victim, or someone in the victims party.

 

Myth – An avalanche is a bunch of loose snow sliding down the mountain

 

Truth is – Technically, yes, but avalanche professionals call these “sluffs”, or loose snow avalanches, which account for only a small percentage of deaths and property damage. When we talk about avalanches, we generally mean “slab” avalanches, cohesive plates of snow sliding as a unit. Picture a magazine sliding off the table, with the victim standing on the middle of the magazine.

 

Myth – If you see an avalanche coming, get out of the way.

 

Truth is – Well, at least you can try. An average-size dry avalanche travels 60 to 120 km/hr that’s (60 to 80 miles per hour), so you’ll need to be might cagey and mighty quick to get out of the way.

 

Myth – When buried in an avalanche, spit to tell which way is up and dig in that direction.

 

Truth is – It doesn’t matter which way is up. You can’t dig yourself out. If you could dig yourself out, few people would die in avalanches. Avalanche debris instantly entombs you in place. As if you were frozen in concrete, and most of the time you can’t even move your fingers. Some times if its’ fairly soft debris and they have a hand near the surface, people have been able to dig themselves out, but the vast majority of the time there’s only two ways to get out of the snow – to be dug out or melt out.

 

Myth – All the avalanche experts are dead

 

Truth is – Skilled avalanche professionals enjoy a very low avalanche fatality compared to other groups, especially when you consider the amount of time an avalanche professional spends in dangerous avalanche terrain. Less than 1.5 percent of all avalanche fatalities involve avalanche professionals.

 

 

Learning about avalanches the hard way

 

People invariably overestimate their skills, usually vastly overestimate them when it comes to avalanches. This doesn’t happen with physics or gardening so what is it about avalanches? Maybe we can chalk it up to being a man-thing. Maybe it’s like grizzly bears or hunting or starting a fire in the woods. We puff up our chests, tell our lies and should literally rather die than admit our ineptitude. This would explain why the vast majority of avalanche victims are men.

 

One of the major contributing factors is known as positive reinforcement. This means that you go out into avalanche terrain, nothing happens. You go out again, nothing happens. You go out again and again: still nothing happens. Yes there is nothing like success! BUT here’s the critical fact: snow is stable about 95 percent of the time. So if you know absolutely nothing about avalanches you automatically get a 19 out of 20 times success rate. Pretty good odds. But the flip side of the coin is that one out of twenty times you’re going to get scared spit-less, beat up, injured or killed.

 

The frightening truth is that in most close calls, the average person has no idea they even had a close call- kind of like playing soccer on a minefield and you didn’t weigh quite enough to set the thing off.

 

Building avalanches skills to the point where you can safely travel though avalanche terrain 99.9 percent of the time – the minimum safety margin for a reasonably long carrier – usually takes many years.

 

Doing the numbers

 

To give you an example, let’s make the following assumptions:

  • You travel in avalanche terrain 100 days per year.
  • You cross 10 avalanche slopes per day.
  • The snow is stable enough to cross on 95 percent of the slopes.
  • For every avalanche you accidentally trigger, you get caught every third time and killed every tenth time.

 

Good news / Bad news

 

The good news is that it’s possible to avoid nearly all avalanches, the bad news is it requires work. Please if you are going to be doing any kind of snow/backcountry travel find out a little more than you do about avalanche conditions and listen to all the warning signs. It can mean your life or the life of someone traveling with you.

 

 

Contacts for weather and avalanche conditions

 

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