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As more skiers head into the backcountry, safety education emerges from multiple areas around the ski industry
By Matt Hansen As more and more skiers head into the backcountry and out-of-bounds areas at America’s ski resorts, the number of organizations providing avalanche awareness continues to grow. Many from non-tradition sources—like equipment manufacturers and entertainment companies—are getting into the act. Educating the public on snow safety has traditionally been undertaken by Forest Service avalanche centers and a bunch of organizations that very similar names: the American Avalanche Institute, the American Avalanche Association, and the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education. Ski resorts have long provided safety education, but only recently—due to a general increase overall in backcountry awareness and access—have their programs been getting exposed to large numbers of skiers. For 12 years Squaw Valley, California, has been holding fundraisers to support local avalanche education. One of the results has been the ability to hold free backcountry workshops every Friday evening of the season. Each two-hour workshop is led by a Squaw ski patroller, who gives brief lectures on basic safety elements and demos on different avalanche rescue beacons, even taking time to conduct on-snow sessions. Squaw patrollers have also “sponsored” local skiers who want to enroll in Level One avalanche courses. In the last six years, they’ve sponsored 60 people. “That’s what Squaw Valley does for the public to give back to the community and provide avalanche awareness and safety,” says Lel Tone, assistant avalanche forecaster at Squaw. Squaw’s Tahoe neighbor Kirkwood started providing avalanche safety training last year, also using its own patrollers to lead six-hour courses for $125 ($100 for pass-holders). Mount Baker offers three avie classes, including a 20-hour course that costs $150. The list of resorts focusing on backcountry awareness goes on.
The most adequate backcountry information, daily advisories, and resources are provided by Forest Service avalanche centers, located in nearly every popular backcountry haunt in America. These avalanche centers hold the mission of providing up-to-date information on the weather and snow conditions outside of resort boundaries, as well as links to continuing snow-safety education. This is a significant task, with some sources putting the number of backcountry skiers in the United States at 400,000. What’s certain is that these forecast centers are hurting for dough. Last year the Forest Service divvied up a total of $400,000 among all 19 forecast centers. The Utah Avalanche Center, the Salt Lake City-based office charged with bringing awareness to thousands of skiers living within a half hour’s drive of serious avalanche terrain, has an annual budget of $250,000, an amount distributed among seven fulltime staff, office space, and computer programming. According to Bruce Tremper, the center’s director, the feds provided just $50,000 last year. The rest came from fundraising efforts and “friends” organizations, nonprofits made up of volunteers. “We’re literally run by bake sales to stay in business,” Tremper says. The rest of the country’s centers are funded similarly. (Help could be on the way, though doubtful to come to fruition due to recent natural disasters. Last year the House of Representatives considered a bill that called for an annual allocation of $15 million to avalanche centers and highway departments [Powder, February 2005]. The bill failed, but it signaled an effort to boost avalanche funding.) Recognizing the need for contributions, Backcountry Access and Black Diamond Equipment have taken steps to spread the safety word. In September, Black Diamond held its 12th annual fundraiser in support of the Utah Avalanche Center. The event, attended by 800 people, raised $35,000. “Any company using the backcountry as a marketing vehicle, whether they make clothing or equipment, has a moral and ethical obligation to be involved in some form of support for these forecast centers, which can then do the education and awareness,” says BD owner Peter Metcalf. “Because nobody else is going to do it.” In 2002, as it was spinning from the success of its groundbreaking digital beacon, the Tracker—the first digital avalanche transceiver on the market—Backcountry Access (BCA) had an epiphany: Safety and education would trump development of new gear. “Our whole ticket now is helping with education,” says Steve Christie, sales manager for BCA. While Christie doesn’t believe companies should be required to provide education, he says offering safety information is simply the right thing to do. “You can’t just sell an avalanche beacon to someone and expect him or her to know how to use it,” he adds. Backcountry Access has also charged forward in establishing beacon rescue training sites—called Beacon Basins—at trailheads and backcountry access gates. So far, the Boulder, Colorado-based company has installed 14 sites in North America, including several in Canada. Each Beacon Basin includes up to four transmitters buried in the snow. The transmitters give off the signal of a buried beacon, allowing a person to simulate an avalanche rescue. Each site costs a few thousand bucks to BCA. “That’s probably been one of our greatest contributions the last two years is getting these things up and running,” Christie says. “It actually doesn’t do much for us at all, but it allows the general public to practice using their beacons more easily. They’re installed by our tech reps and ski patrols, so anyone can go out and use them, and any beacon will work.” Two similar systems were installed last year by Wasatch Backcountry Rescue (WBR), a nonprofit consisting of snow safety professionals from various Utah resorts. But whereas the Beacon Basins transmitters are permanent throughout the winter, WBR’s sites—located at Snowbird/Alta and The Canyons—include up to eight transmitters that may be moved within a specific area each week. In use, a fully-automated control panel activates up to four locators out of the eight (the skier chooses how many he’d like to search for, categorized by beginner, intermediate, and expert) that are buried randomly in the snow within a 100-square-foot area. When the participant finds a locator, he or she deactivates it by striking it with a probe pole. The action is timed, so you know if you’re to be trusted. WBR president Dean Cardinale, who is also Snowbird’s assistant director for snow safety, began searching for the system five years ago after he noticed how students in his avalanche classes were poorly skilled in beacon rescue. To bring the system to Utah, WBR shelled out $10,000 for each. Cardinale says it has been worth every penny. “When this thing came around, I figured it would be a cool community service, which is big part of WBR,” he says. “A lot of people are leaving the access gates, and this encourages people to take active role in not only their own rescue, but in public awareness and education.” It’s just another example of the so many resources available to backcountry skiers, giving you no choice but to get educated. Backcountry Access Beacon Basins
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