Learning about avalanches 1/8

Owen and I have been talking about getting into the backcountry over the past year and of course, a key part of the backcountry is avalanche safety. So, in addition to acquiring the basic gear (transciever, probe, shovel), we also took an introductory course at Kirkwood this past Saturday.

Kirkwood offers a series of avalanche courses; this one was the most basic, with a couple hours in the classroom, about an hour using equipment in the snow, and another hour+ on the slopes. The more advanced courses (AAIRE level 1 and AAIRE level 2) are 3 days and 4 days each, and really get into the details of evaluating avalanche danger and trip planning. This course was meant to be an introduction to a lot of the information in the more advanced courses, focusing on being aware of the dangers and warning signs and how to use the equipment to perform a rescue. However, they managed to provide a base of terminology knowlege that will be really useful when reading more in depth info. The Sierra Avalanche Center provides a lot of useful information based on in-the-field observations of snowpack. Having some basic terminology helps in reading the reports and getting a better feel for what snow conditions present what dangers.

Headline report from the SAC. Conditions are quite safe right now, due to lack of recent snowfall.

 We did a real-life scenario where the instructors had pre-buried avalanche beacons. Without telling us ahead of time, we suddenly had to locate and dig up the beacon. It was a great experience to have something a little closer to what a real-life scenario might be like. Owen and I are looking to take the level 1 course for a more complete understanding.

Snow-wise, it was a good day to be spending time in the classroom since it hadn't snowed in the past week. We got a run in before the clinic and then five more after. Even though there wasn't any powder, the snow was actually quite good in places, mainly because it has been so cold and the January sun hits the snow for only a short period of time during the day.

The bumps under the liftline and on Olympic were good, at least by Kirkwood standards. That means there would be maybe 5 turns in a row before you had to change lines.

Looking forward, Northern California looks to stay in a storm drought for at least the next week. After the crazy November and December we had, we're having a really dry January. Right now, the Jet stream is focused to our North, pushing storms into the Pacific Northwest. However, there's hope that things will turn around for at least the last week of the month and the storm door will open again for us.