Avalanche Awareness

The snow piling up on my tent reminded me of the first Outdoor Recreation trip I’d ever been on; it was October 2005 and I was in my second year at Malaspina.  We hiked the old ski hill on Mt Cokely and camped near the saddle between Arrowsmith and Cokely.  The weather was forecast to be beautiful and I had worn running shoes, shorts and one long sleeved shirt.  That night it snowed 10cm.  Awesome.  I slept for maybe 2 hours that night and still don’t know if I’ve ever been colder than I was then.  That being said, I had an incredible experience and had lots of fun.  Flash forward to this weekend and I’m once again getting snowed on in a tent on an outdoor rec trip.

I’d been invited to the annual Avalanche Awareness course by Matt and Greg (VIU Outdoor Rec staff) to observe and take photos of the trip.  I’ve done this particular course a few times as a student so it was a great opportunity to hang out with some old friends while practicing snow photography skills.

We arrived at the Raven Lodge saturday morning and after a quick break to gear up we began the short trek to where our basecamp was to be.  The next part of the morning was spent building creative snow shelters (the snall snowpack on Mt Washington at the time limited our shelter options).  A few different types of shelters were built including a basic pit (with a tarp overtop), quinzhee (the stereotypical snow cave) and a few tents were pressed into service (mine included).

Lunch was followed by a snowshoe through Paradise Meadows where the students learned about avalanche terrain and a little snow science as well.   A solid understanding of what creates avalanches is imperative to risk management when travelling in the back country and the instructors did an excellent job finding relevant examples and made a tricky subject understandable.  We travelled back to camp enamoured with the incredible duality of snow; who knew that something so beautiful and simple could be so powerful and destructive?

As the light quickly faded most of the students continued working on their shelters or went exploring.  I quickly took an early dinner and went to take some long exposure shots.  Placing the tripod in the snow was difficult but eventually I got a few of the night shots I was hoping for; my favourite of which is a ten minute exposure of the North sky as the clouds slowly drift above, leaving ghostly trails.  I also got some neat images of a small lantern whose light filtered through the nylon walls on my tent, casting a strange green light on the surrounding snow.

Taking those photos alone in the snow was truly a zen moment; my ipod provided a meditative soundtrack as I waited for the shutter to close.  It took up to 30 minutes sometimes but it only seemed like an instance – there’s something in a clear night sky that appeals to my primitive side and gives a feeling of great peace and awe.  That feeling stayed with me all night as I slowly drifted to sleep in the nice cozy tent.

The snow had only been falling for a few hours when I woke but it had managed to coat everything with several centimeters of heavy wet west coast snow.   My gear was packed and I’d had breakfast and filled a thermos with hot soup for lunch before some of the students were awake.  It was a chilly night in some of shelters and some of the students had barely slept; I felt strangely reminiscent as I listened to their chilled voices.

We ferried the gear back to the bus before learning basic use of standard avalanche safety gear: transceivers, probes and shovels.  The lesson was quick and to the point; it was obvious everone would learn better by doing so we trundled out into the blizzard and snowshoed above the Raven Lodge ready to search!  The simulated burials lack the intensity a real avalanche event would cause but it is still enough to emphasize the importance of being comfortable with safety gear and its use.

The chances of surviving an avalanche are stacked overwhelmingly high against us – the weight and velocity of the snow are enough to crush buildings and shear trees off – time is of the essence when searching for avalanche victims not only to minimize the amount of time they go without oxygen but also to begin to treat other potential life threatening injuries such as internal bleeding and severe fractures.

When everyone felt comfortable with the tools and were able to locate a beacon in a respectable amount of time we moved to a more proactive approach to avalanches – snow stability tests.

There are many different ways to test how stable snow is on any given slope and we witnessed a few of them.  Matt emphasized that these tests cannot be relied on as an accurate predictor of slope stability over a large area and are simply a picture of what is happening at the particular place you perform the test.  The results of many tests from many areas are required for one to make a safe decision about which slopes to ski and which ones to avoid.

The tests marked the end of the curriculum so the only thing left to do was race back down the hill to the lodge where fresh french fries and hot chocolate were waiting!