"...we want to draw attention to the fact that although experience is necessary to develop certain competences....having been exposed to the relevant risks and “got a way with it" is itself no good evidence to having acquired these competences. More generally, we want to caution against the inference that in most mountain sports, experience is by itself a reliable indicator of competence."
Philip A. Ebert and Theoni Photopoulou, "Bayes’ beacon: avalanche prediction, competence, and evidence for competence"
After my first winter season in the Alps (2012-2013) I was both dazzled by the terrain and amazed by the access to it. There were many lessons I learned and many days spent in massive terrain here with clients and on personal trips. I guided all sorts of off-piste and ski touring days and taught a few AIARE 1 avalanche courses. As a new guide to this area it was hard to resist using the approach to stability forecasting and risk management I am used to from North America and apply it here. But the approach in Europe is much different; both among guides and among recreational skiers. The following are my observations about what I have learned, what I feel is missing here is Europe, and what I think we can all do to stay safe in the winter snowpack while riding.
Terrain and Access: Chamonix has the better lift access to steep and extreme terrain than any other place on the planet. Period. This is why we are all here and why so many visit. This is the focal point of steep skiing and general radness. This is where the bar is set. These facts have both positive and negative effects on the behavior of riders here. On the positive side we are shown what really is possible to do on a pair of skis or a board. We can engage ourselves in engaging terrain on a more regular basis here than most other places. The term extreme skiing gets overused in the media but I think a fair definition is riding in which a mistake will, or probably will, result in death. And by this definition the Aiguille du Midi offers the closest access to this kind of skiing I have seen. Over the bridge, click in to your skis, take a left and BOOM, you are on the famed Face Nord of the Aiguille du Midi, making turns down the Eugster, Mallory, Frendo...pick your poison. These routes are so popular now that they are practically mogul fields when conditions are good. That does not detract from their seriousness. The results of a fall are no different if you are the first of the thirtieth person down.
The scale for rating avalanche terrain (explained here http://vimeo.com/8850652) says that most of our terrain here in Chamonix is challenging or complex. In other words this is a very bad environment to begin one's apprenticeship as a traveler in avalanche terrain. The complexity of the snowpack in terms of its variability over terrain and how that relates to stabilty and eventually, how that all relates to our choices as riders out there, is a very difficult calculus to perform. Even for professional forecasters, guides, ski patrollers, and pro skiers, synthesizing all the available information and formulating an educated choice about how and where to ride is, at best, difficult. For recreationalists trying to make sense of it all can be an overwhelming task.
Snowpack: Snowpack can be divided into 3 basic categories (and yes there are other esoteric categories related to arctic regions but in general these three cover areas that have seasonal winter snow coverage). These are: maritime (coastal in Canada), Intermountain (or transitional), and continental. These are not discrete and neatly sectioned types of snowpack. They blend into each other from region to region, season to season, and within each season. The type of snowpack depends largely on average seasonal snowfall (HS height of snowpack) and average temperature. To make a gross simplification; snowpacks that are thick and warm, like near the coast in the US or Europe typically get lots of snow and have very few persistent weak layers. When they do get persistent weak layers, they tend to gain strength quickly due to warmth and low temperature gradients as their thick snowpack drives the strengthening process. In the Western Alps here in Chamonix we tend to have reasonably thick snowpacks with generally warm temperatures. Therefore the average here is towards stability, and the instabilities that we tend to get are of the short-term variety: windslab, storm slab, loose wet, and loose dry (sluff). These short-term instabilities come and go quickly, are fairly easy to predict and observe with the naked eye, and are generally easy to manage with good terrain choice and travel techniques.
Long-term instabilities, known formally as persistent weak layers, include, "Persistent slab" and "deep persisted slab," and are caused generally by faceted snow grains which formed in the snowpack at some point and were later buried and overlain by a slab of stiffer snow. These persistent weak layers are harder to observe, can vary greatly in their spatial distribution over the terrain, and also can leave very few obvious clues as to their existence in a particular area, though their destructive potential (potential to bury a person) can remain very high over a long period of time.
Right now in the alps we have persistent weak layers lingering and we are all struggling to fully understand their spatial distribution and to then forecast how they will react as the season progresses and more load is placed on them through snowfall and skier traffic.
In the alps it is fair to say that riders, both professionals and recreationalists, have been getting away with riding in complex terrain on a daily basis for most of the season, year after year after year, is because of two main factors. 1) We generally have an EASY snowpack to deal with and 2) Skier/boarder traffic does play a major role in reducing certain instabilities in very popular terrain that is commonly skied. This second factor is known among avalanche researches but is very poorly quantified. In other words the existence of tracks on a slope does not necessarily have any bearing on whether that slope is CURRENTLY safe to ski or not. It depends on a variety of factors that must all be weighed together, synthesized, and then a decision made.
This year in the alps we have a snowpack consisting of many persistent weak layers, a DIFFICULT SNOWPACK, which are highly variable in their spacial distribution and their general stability. This is part of why so many people have died already this year and why more people will probably contintue to die. Which brings me to the next point of discussion...social/human factors.
Social/Human Factors: I am very glad I did not learn to deal with the winter snowpack and forecasting avalanche hazard in the Alps because I really think people gain a false sense of security and knowledge here. In other words I don't think most people have much of a concept of how serious the terrain is they are accessing on a daily basis and its destructive potential under the right (or wrong) circumstances. It is not expected as an alps skier or rider that we will make our decisions about where and how we are riding based on our knowledge of snowpack and to make a personal decision about stability. In fact that is the job professional forecasters, therefore the average recreationalist is expected to read the avalanche bulletin and behave accordingly in the mountains.
Through a combination of social factors many people do not treat the stated avalanche hazard accordingly, and they don't travel in a way that reflects understanding. The problem with not using the advice of the bulletin is you must have specific knowledge of terrain and snowpack that allows you know that safe conditions DO EXIST on the route you are choosing and on the terrain your route is exposed to. You must have a high degree of confidence in what you think you know and have NO UNCERTAINTY. So essentially what is happening here in Chamonix is a combination of people getting lucky and people skiing on skier stabilized slopes that gives peoplea false sense of what slope configurations (aspect, elevation, angle, exposure) are in fact stable and safe.
Statistically we can make a bad decision about slope stabilty, ski it, and get away with it a very high percentage of the time, maybe as high as 99 percent. It all depends on the character of the avalanche problem. But even if you can get away with a mistake 99 percent of the time, that means 1 in 100 times you won't. Those are very bad odds for people who plan to spend their lives in the mountains. Therefore seeing tracks or your friends or other guides going places and skiing slopes is notnecessarily proof that those are good decisions.
So when we see Facebook photos of our friends shredding sweet untracked 40 degree slopes every night we think wow there is stable snow out there! And it might very well be true. But in most cases we don't know where they were, what they knew about the snow, what their plan was, their level of risk acceptance, ect. We are being socially conditioned on a daily level to accept higher and higher levels of risk every year. Skiers are getting better and better. We know for a fact that riding ability has absolutely zero necessary correlation with avalanche forecasting and avoidance skill set. A simple way to restate this last sentence: many more people can get themselves into avalanche terrain now than before and these people might know nothing about the hazards they are subjecting themselves to or they might know enough to get themselves into trouble. And this phenomenon is only increasing.
Spending one season in a place like Chamonix or elsewhere can certainly teach a person a lot. But having experiences without subjecting them to a framework of critical thinking and observation will only take us a little ways towards competency as travelers in avalanche terrain. This is true for anyone: professionals or recreationalists. Place your decisions in a framework of critical thinking and open communication among your partner before you go, while you are out, and just as important, once you are back. We have all made mistakes, I continue to make mistakes, you will continue to make mistakes. Luckily our mistakes are not commonly punished by being buried in an avalanche.
The key is to have a good self-awareness of our own abilities and knowledge, and self-assessment. Otherwise we cannot learn and cannot move forward in a constructive way. And lastly give your mistakes a reasonable MARGIN OF ERROR. This means that the more UNCERTAINTY you have about a particular slope, the more conservative you need to be about the decision to ski it or not ski it. If you are the staring down an untracked Glacier Rond what factors will influence your decision? What if there are five tracks? What if there are 40? Is there even a difference?
One of the main social factors that drives bad decision-making, as far as I've observed here in the alps, is scarcity, which is another way of saying that people always want fresh tracks and therefore push further and further afield to get them, or don't take enough time to gather appropriate information before dropping in because if they don't, someone else will.
The human/social factors and group behavior play huge roles in both staying safe and getting into accidents. Within the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education curriculum that I teach in my level 1 avalanche courses, we put a huge emphasis on making decisions in a proper way and having excellent planning and error correction throughout a day in the mountains. Some of the most dangerous days I've had in the mountains have been in larger groups of mountain guides. The common thread behind the bad decision-making was a lack of a pre-plan, a lack of critical evaluation of hazard BEFORE we left for the day, and a lack of any general plan. Wherever you ski or live how many times have you just met at the trailhead or ski lift, all of the sudden your friend brought another friend, the group is a little bigger than planned, there is no objective discussed, you just go "have a look?" That is usually when accidents happen or the set plan gets thrown aside.
What we can all do
-Educate ourselves. Take a class appropriate to your level (AIARE 1) and apply that education accordingly and appropriately. The learning process never stops for anyone in the world of avalanches. Avalanche accidents are almost always the fault of the victim or someone in the victim's party. Ignorance is not an excuse.
-Be self-aware. This is a good time in the season to give yourself a good assessment of your skill level as a traveler in avalanche terrain. This has nothing to do with your skiing or riding level. Like any activity target your zones of weakness and fill in the gaps. Find learning and training partners, ask people who know more than you and ask what they think. Find people who know less and mentor them.
-PREpare yourself. Have a plan every single day before you go out the door. At a very minimum establish what the main avalanche hazards are based on the bulletin and/or other expert opinion, decide what kind of terrain is appropriate, who the group will be, what the goal of the day is, and have alternatives. This is supposed to happen over coffee in the morning at the latest, and ideally the night before. In the case of some objectives this might happen weeks, months, or years before.
-LIMIT GROUP size to 2 or 3 people. Most of the human factors that lead to avalanche accidents become diminished in small groups. Communication improves dramatically and travel techniques allow for less exposure to avalanche terrain. Be aware that with 4 or more people it is much more difficult for people to voice concerns and to have established leadership.
-Practice rescue techniques regularly and carry the right gear. Everyone in the group should have practiced with their transceiver at least once this season, ideally more, and ideally with multiple-burials. Everyone should know the order of operations in the case of an accident, who to call, how to organize, ect.
-USE AN AVALANCHE AIRBAG. If you die in an avalanche you would have had a 50% chance of surviving if you had pulled the trigger on your properly functioning avalanche airbag backpack. If you don't believe me read this article:
http://utahavalanchecenter.org/blog-avalanche-airbag-effectiveness-something-closer-truth
Many of my peers, whether professional guides or skiers are slow to come around to the reality that they are more likely to survive an avalanche with an airbag than without. There are a number of fallacious (read: bad) arguments against their use. Of course there are so many circumstances when an airbag won't save your life, in a huge avalanche, in a terrain trap, through rocks or trees, over cliffs. You can still die from trauma. Obviously those are all true things. But what is also true is that a large percentage of avalanche deaths are because of suffocation. You can't suffocate if you aren't buried. If you can reduce the chance of being buried you will increase your chance of survival. Its really really simple. Your transceiver is only effective if your partners use it effectively and even if they do you might still suffocate before they get to you. If you are a guide there is a low percentage chance that your clients will react in a way that will result in your life being saved. Unless you have given them specific training or they already have training. Last year I had three friends (IFMGA guides) who'se lives were saved by the successful deployment of their airbags while guiding because they stayed on the surface. A fourth friend did not deploy his airbag and his clients dug him out.
Except in a small number of terrain- and snowpack-specific situations, I think that anytime we take our beacon with us, we should also use an airbag backpack. Exceptions include terrain or conditions in which the likelihood of an an avalanche is so low that even the use of a beacon seems conservative, or in the case of extreme steep skiing where the only likely avalanche problem is loose dry avalanche (sluff). But even in the case of a loose dry that is still an expert decision, and how many times have you gotten into the mountains expective low or no avalanche hazard and been surprised?
I guarantee that in not too many years social norms and the statistics backing their effectiveness will change enough that not using an avalanche airbag will make you look like an idiot under normal winter skiing/climbing conditions. Would you consider skiing in the off-piste or backcountry without a transciever? Its the same question.
I am not trying to preach. I just don't want to go to your funeral if I don't have to. I don't want to explain to your mother that you could have survived an avalanche, even maybe, if you'd invested a few hundred Euros in a basic piece of equipment.
-Practice Humility. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone has gaps in knowledge. I have just as high a statistical chance, if not higher, of dying in an avalanche, than whoever is reading this. We are human. The goal of writing this is to keep the dialogue fresh, keep the knowledge high and shared, and keep a beginners mind.
Here's wishing to a safe season for all of you out there!
Danny