Paul Baugher, Northwest Avalanche Institute
A ski patroller lights the fuse on explosives taped to a bamboo stake as part of avalanche control efforts at Crystal Mountain.

N.S. Nokkentved/The Olympian
Ski Patrol Director Paul Baugher, with Sherman, a two-year-old yellow lab, one of six avalanche rescue dogs that work at Crystal Mountain, oversees avalanche control efforts at Crystal Mountain.

Be one step ahead of avalanches

Education, equipment are needed to stay safe in the backcountry

N.S. NOKKENTVED, THE OLYMPIAN

OLYMPIA -- Fate put him in the middle of the exposed chute when the avalanche hit.

The group he was hiking with crossed the open slope carefully, one person at a time. Bert Daniels just happened to be the one crossing when a mass of snow came down the chute. He doesn't remember that day, or the avalanche that nearly killed him.

"I remember zero," said Daniels, 62, of Puyallup. The accident left him comatose for 15 days, with a broken neck, seven broken ribs, a punctured lung, broken collar bones, frostbite and hypothermia.

Daniels is experienced in backcountry travel and teaches a course in winter travel and avalanche safety for the Tacoma Mountaineers.

On an outing in May 1996 with a group of Mountaineers to Red Mountain north of Issaquah, he suggested a different route to avoid what looked like hazardous avalanche conditions.

The hike leader and others in the group discussed the risks but continued.

Though they disagreed on the avalanche hazard, Daniels credits his survival to the other group members who went for help and carried him carefully to a safer location, where he was picked up by a helicopter and flown to the intensive care unit at Harborview Medical Center.

He went home more than a month later in a body brace to keep his broken neck immobilized. Two years passed before he was able to return to his work as a physicist.

Still, he was luckier than many avalanche victims. Even experienced, properly equipped backcountry recreationists, such as Daniels, can get into trouble.

Last winter 33 people died in avalanches in the United States, most of them in the West -- three in Washington. Over the past 50 years, 90 percent of the people who die in avalanches triggered it or their companions did. Only 10 percent were picked off -- as Daniels was.

But there is much you can do to reduce the risks and improve your chances of survival if caught in an avalanche. The best way is to avoid being caught, said Roland Emetaz, of the Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center.

Get the gear

People who spend a lot of time in the backcountry should educate themselves -- learn to recognize hazardous conditions, learn how to use safety gear, and take a class, Emetaz said.

Only about 20 percent to 25 percent of the people who buy backcountry gear also buy the safety gear, he said. They should carry a shovel, a probe pole and an avalanche beacon.

Beacons run from $259 to more than $300 and are available locally.

Only one out of three people buried in an avalanche survives. Most of those who die, suffocate when their breath melts the snow around their face, forming an ice mask that oxygen can't get through.

A beacon helps your friends find you and get you out quickly.

"It's better to avoid situations where you need the gear," Emetaz said. Get informed before heading out, check weather and avalanche forecasts. Even when moderate or low avalanche danger is forecast, "I'm still looking and watching," he said.

Danger on the slopes

Another who is constantly looking and watching is Paul Baugher, director of the ski patrol at Crystal Mountain Ski Resort. He is in charge of avalanche control on the ski slopes.

Good ski terrain is avalanche terrain, said Baugher, who also is head of the Northwest Avalanche Institute. Good avalanche control makes ski areas safe -- if skiers observe the posted warnings, he said.

"We beat the snowpack into submission, one snowflake at a time," he said.

When avalanche conditions become dangerous, Baugher and his ski patrol go into action.

They set small avalanches at the time and place of their choosing instead of large, uncontrolled ones, Baugher said.

One way they do that is by setting off explosives. In the heavy snow year of 1998-99 they used nearly 20,000 pounds of dynamite in avalanche control. The average is about half that, he said.

Blasts are more effective in the air above the snow -- about 3 feet is best. So patrollers tape dynamite to a bamboo pole, light it and get away; simply light it and throw it; suspend it from a rope; or, in rare cases, drop it from a helicopter when conditions are too dangerous to send in ski patrollers.

Just skiing on the snow helps compact it and cut the risk of avalanche. Patrollers also keep loose snow from building up by pushing small amounts down by skiing on it -- very carefully, Baugher said.

For those few times when skiers get buried in the snow, the ski patrol has six search and rescue dogs to help locate them. If anyone is buried, patrollers know about it in less than 15 minutes, said ski patroller Doug Blanchard, who also is the avalanche forecaster at Crystal.

But perhaps the most important factor in avalanche safety is the human factor -- egos, attitudes, Emetaz said.

If conditions are bad, it is better to turn back and live to return on another day.

N.S. Nokkentved covers the outdoors for The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-754-5445.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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