Avalanches - Human Factors

From Back Country Access - Bruce Edgerly

ISSW 2012: HUMAN FACTORS, COMMUNICATION AND THE FUTURE OF SNOW SAFETY

Here’s Part 5 in our series on ISSW 2012, the International Snow Science Workshop, held last month in Anchorage, AK.

What lies ahead in the world of snow safety and avalanche education? Sounds like a heavy question, doesn’t it? We tried to address this question at the 2012 ISSW (International Snow Science Workshop) last month in Anchorage, AK. BCA vice president Bruce Edgerly presented, “Talking the talk: Human factors, group communication and the future of snow safety.”

As you can guess from the title, we think the future of snow safety lies in “human factors.” And we’re not the only ones. This area is where all the energy is right now at the leading edge of the avalanche industry. The idea is that having all the right equipment, training, and experience still isn’t enough to keep you out of an avalanche. There are a myriad of human factors that influence even the most experienced pros in the field, including peer pressure, competition, status, scarcity, goal-setting, and communication. These factors are often cited when seasoned experts end up in avalanches.

Edgerly summarized what he called the “evolution of avalanche rescue.” Up until about 30 years ago, rescue was focused on organized rescue: search and rescue by members outside that of the victim, using search dogs and organized probe lines. This was followed by the adoption of companion rescue and the use of beacons, probes and shovels to perform rescues within your own group. This has evolved into the era of self rescue, with the rapidly increasing use of avalanche airbags to keep yourself from getting buried. Edgerly said that, ideally, the next phase in this evolution would be “non-rescue,” where education and prevention drive down the number of fatalities. He said he thought the biggest opportunities for achieving this was through attacking the human factors and communication issues that so often result in modern avalanche fatalities.

Edge presented the paper with support from co-author Paul Baugher, the patrol director at Crystal Mountain, with case studies provided by Colorado Avalanche Information Center forecaster/statistician Spencer Logan. As examples, they illustrated five avalanche fatalities in Colorado and two snow immersion fatalities in Washington and California that were directly related to lost verbal communication between individuals in the group. For details, read their ISSW paper on our research page.

In each of these cases, the skiers, snowboarders, or snowmobilers involved lost sight of each other and weren’t able to establish verbal contact. This resulted in one person being unaware the other was buried, injured, or stuck in a tree well. Establishing verbal contact in each of these cases most likely would have prevented the fatality.

What was Edgerly’s conclusion? That backcountry riding has changed a lot over the past ten years and “good partnering” has become more difficult. Skiers and snowboarders are riding bigger lines, more technical terrain, and not stopping as often to regroup and maintain contact. Combine this with an over-reliance on cell phones–and the resulting false sense of security–and you’ve got an epidemic of poor “real-time communication.” He lauded AIARE (American Institute of Avalanche  Research and Education) and the CAA (Canadian Avalanche Association) for including progressive modules on group communication in their training curriculums. But he said there is still a technical gap that is not being filled “to address the issue of lost verbal contact when good partnering fails.” He called cell phones impractical in the backcountry winter environment and he called Talkabout-style two-way radios a great first step, but marginal with respect to their user interface and reliability in winter conditions.

 “So what does that mean? How are you going to improve this?” somebody asked from the audience.

 “You’ll see that human factors and communication will become a big part of our education program over the next few years,” Edgerly responded. “We think this is the next great opportunity for saving lives.”

I have just posted this file from Bruce Edgerly VP of Back Country Access which he presented at ISSW 2012 Alaska.  I may be biased but I tend to like the simple approach BCA take to education and they bring a lot to the table, this paper being no exception in my opinion. As mentioned in the paper we have moved forward from good organised rescue (often too late) to the immediate companion rescue which has a bigger impact on reducing morbidity and mortality. The use of airbags will also surely have in impact but I think we might be a long way from these becoming commonplace for all but the serious freerider and alpine touring party. European guides are more often now equipping clients (multiple burials on the uphill part of a tour being unfortunately frequent)with ABS rucksacks.

Phone apps are appearing and could be a step backwards in education as some misguided folks sadly believe these are as effective as a Beacon. While the innovators may mean well, at the end of the day they want to make some money and may be quite ignorant of the reality of avalanche recovery where pinpoint

accuracy is everything to survival and the ultimate airway opening device is a shovel.

Two avlx app examples below

http://charcoalfrost.com/

http://www.nextinov.com/isis/scan-de-recherche-internet-et-bluetooth/

The latter app is undergoing some testing by the Chamonix PHGM/CRS but rightly the rescuers are keen to point out its in early stages and no substitute for beacon, shovel and probe. Given the terrain around Europes highest mountain, narrowing down the search area to even +/- 100m could help narrow down a search area for body recovery saving time. But that's a location app not an avlx app.

I have briefly tested the SnowWhere app (charcoalfrost.com) and its basically just a glorified GPS location device. Accurate to +/- 10 meteres at best, which realistically in a circle is about 300 sq/meters which is a lot of probing, maybe 300+ holes.

Stay Safe

Davy Gunn

A Dozen More Turns

I seem to be getting lots of enquiry's for back country gear and to provide training at the moment.  Scottish MR has developed a very good course programme and is keen for me to stay involved. I have given lectures and helped a bit with this but they have such a good faculty and course setup now the last thing they need is war stories from an ex MR. With my wife just post treatment for breast cancer its been a hard 12 months and its become clear that I have given a lot of folk (including the MR avlx faculty) the runaround by being non committal when asked to teach or lecture over the last couple of years. Two lots of major surgery for my wife in 3 years have fairly taken it out of her and us and its made it hard to look beyond the next week never mind months in advance.  Sorry to you folks if I haven't been able to commit.

The bike has been a great solace and racing has mainly been at a local level with some great road racing this season.  Fiona has been doing the timing for a lot of local events which has kept her involved.  She has even been back on her bike clocking up a 46 mile road ride 5 weeks after chemo.  She was pretty exhausted after but it was needed to show she can get back to some of her old sports. Without lymph glands in one arm though she is restricted when mountain biking. She's amazing.

I hope now that the dust has settled a little to be able to take back on a bit more work.  A new beacon park setup for Glencoe Mountain and maybe some training for patrollers this winter and some off piste and avalanche training for BASP associates.  Alpine and touring I hope to be able to put folk over to Infinty Mountain Guides so they will be in good hands.  I have become one of BASP's three reps to FIPS on avalanche for ski patrollers.  Not sure where that will go but quite a lot of big names in the avalanche world in Canada might be involved so we need to have our shit together. I don't think this will take up much if any of my time other than a trip to Canada in two years.

I will be contacting MR teams and other groups in the next while to give them offers on beacons and back country rescue kit and off course Dynafit.  In the mean time here are three links worth a look to remind ourselves of the consequences of complacency and cognitive or thinking traps and how when shit happens its life changing  for survivors. As an ex MR and pro patroller I must have dug out a couple of dozen fatalities and not given it a huge amount of thought at the time although a couple of incidents are imprinted. One because it was tragic and one because the rescue was a cock up and mistakes were almost literally buried.

I guess many of the survivors of avalanches I have been at will have and will still be going through this survivor guilt as I think the folks in the film will be.  It's very poignant that there is a woman locally who moved to the area after her husband, son and his best friend were all buried in an avalanche and killed and she moved here to be near where their happiest times were. I guess I think about this stuff more now, knowing that surviving something doesn't mean its all over. I guess some of the mental boxes of stuff locked away from these tragic avalanche events can be opened now and looked at by me and some of the shit needs a good airing to see whats to learn.

Indian Summer & Winter Around The Corner

Bridge of Coe

Glorious weather and time for an "off season".  36 races this past 7 months including some 96 + milers so I am feeling my age and tired. We had a great week in London and it's been nice to come back to such nice balmy weather.  Long walks watching the last of the salmon running and enjoying the autumn colors along with the odd easy run to keep my legs working.

Real Time MRT at Work in Tromso x 4 Buried

Now is time to for me to think ahead to the coming ski season and avalanche & off piste training.  I have a new wireless beacon park on the way from the states for Glencoe Mountain who have hosted the first UK on snow one for 3 years.  BCA avlx kit continues to be developing and in my opinion is the best kit available.  This years "Float" air bag systems are light and reliable and very good value.  

I was invited to join the faculty for avalanche for Scottish MR but sadly find that I simply don't have the time to give them at the moment due to work and family commitments. I might manage the odd lecture for them but can't help on their courses. I wish them well though as they have come a long way with training.  My lecture commitments are less as time is less, but I am doing one local one on avalanche at the Clachaig in Feb 2013 sponsored by Mammut. I also represent ski patrol (along with Keith and Bill) on the new avalanche faculty for FIPS but this won't mean much work until the next congress in Canada.

Ripping the powder - with an airbag!

Myself and a few other pro level avalancher's and skiers continue to benefit from our ambassador roles for Anatom and Dynafit promoting this top brand, skiing the excellent kit and hopefully giving something back to Anatom who have done a lot for mountain safety by providing the beacon parks at Glenmore, Glencoe and Nevis Range.  For you folks out there wanting Freeride kit its time to let me know as orders are going in.  Dynafit is the very best and lightest and for off piste safety you just can't beat BCA kit.  Rescuers maybe need to upgrade to the BCA SAR range of probes and shovels for prolonged searching. If your into the real steep and deep then you need "Preachers" from Whitedot.  A couple of us locally are in "dots dozen" and can vouch for these fat boys.

Stay Safe

Give me a call if you need anything

Lord of the Lochs

Some good results from the local riders with the lads doing a great time on the long course and Ben and I deciding to rip it up and go for a fast time on the 96 mile course.  Both courses have lots of climbing with Ben and I clocking 4,500 ft.  A nice way to end a great season on a well run local event put on by No Fuss Events and Chain Reaction Cycles.

Buchaille Etive Mor 1896

Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal Volume 4 Number 3

Buchaille Etive Mor - The Crowberry Ridge

by W. W. Naismith

ALTHOUGH Buchaille Etive Mòr has figured considerably in the Journal, climbers who know it will agree with me that it well deserves all the attention yet bestowed on it, and a great deal more. An English climber lately offered to negotiate for a transfer of this mountain to Wastdale-head in exchange for Great Gable. Perhaps we might have "a waur offer, waur offer," for the Gable is no mean mountain; "but where's the Scot" who would entertain any such proposal? I have therefore no compunction in asking permission, encore une fois, to say something about a section of this glorious cone that has not been described. I refer to that part of the east face between Dr Collie's and Mr Tough's routes (see Sketch, Vol. IV., p. 100). The accompanying view, which is reproduced from a photograph taken at Easter 1893, by Mr Rennie, from the Glencoe road, two miles west of Kingshouse, shows this aspect of the mountain in greater detail. On the extreme right is the big gully, often ascended in snow. Next comes the huge rounded ridge climbed by Messrs Brown and Tough. Then a long gully, narrower than the other. It has probably not yet been done; but judging from the glimpses we had of it, and the fairly continuous snow in the photograph, it may be expected to offer no serious difficulties. Bounding this gully on the left is a prominent ridge, shown in the view as almost directly under the top of the mountain. This was our climb. Then comes a shallow gully, evidently quite simple, and, I fancy, the quickest route to Buchaille Etive from Kingshouse, though no ascent is yet recorded. Further to the left is a curved ridge, ascended by Mr G. B. Gibbs in July 1896, and described by him as not difficult. Then a straight little couloir, with snow in it, and a short ridge beside it, guarded by tremendous cliffs on the left. Neither of these possible routes is believed to have been tried. Dr Collie's route - the earliest ascent of the east face - is still more to the left.

North-east face of Buchaille Etive Mor -The arrow indicates route described

On the 3rd August 1896, Mr Douglas and I met at the Bridge of Orchy, the Editor having bicycled all the way from Edinburgh in two stages of about sixty miles each. We rode to Kingshouse in an hour and a half, leading our machines for less than a mile out of the thirteen. At Kingshouse we were welcomed noisily by a Skye terrier and two young collies, who in doubt whether we were friends or foes, and divided between the conflicting claims of duty and natural affability, compromised matters by barking vigorously and at the same time wagging their tails. On explaining the object of our visit the barking subsided, and we invited them all to dinner at nine P.M., though only two doggies were able to accept. After making some change in our garb, we proceeded on foot to the junction of the roads, waylaid Her Majesty's mail coach, seized the mails, and abstracted a rope and a pair of climbing boots. That highway robbery accomplished, we made a bee-line for "the Shepherd," the river Coupal being low and allowing us to cross dry-shod.

The ridge we were aiming for looks appallingly steep from the road, but we had been deceived once before by the inaccessible appearance of those Buchaille Etive crags, and were not to be "done" again. This particular portion of the mountain is certainly steep. The contour lines on the 1-inch map indicate that the upper 2,000 feet are inclined at an average angle of 45º, and the last 1,100 feet rise at an average rate of 11 in 9 - that is about 50º. We reached the foot of our ridge in rather more than an hour from the road, including the ascent of some easy broken rocks. The writer's chief difficulty so far had been to get his companion past the clumps of ripe crowberries growing everywhere, and this circumstance has suggested a name for our climb. The forbidding aspect of the ridge was now somewhat mollified, though its ascent still promised to be stiff enough without looking for difficulties. Both sides of the ridge, as far as we could make out, were sheer walls, so that there would be no escape into either of the gullies in the event of our being "pounded." At its lower end also, the rocks which formed the crest of the ridge are hopelessly steep, and nearly unbroken for some 300 feet.

The photograph shows that no snow lies on them. I will not prophesy that that cliff will never be scaled in a direct line, but before then I think mountaineering science will have to advance to a higher stage of development. It is conceivable that a line might be chosen up those rocks, any part of which could be climbed if it were, say on a "boulder," or even if there were a reasonable number of platforms or anchorages. But in the absence of these, a continuous steep climb of 300 feet is at present generally regarded as "impossible," because it would make too great demands on nerve and muscular endurance. In this connection I cannot help thinking that what may be termed the psychological influence of platforms receives inadequate acknowledgment in most descriptions of rock-climbs. A brick wall ten feet high, with all the joints between the bricks open, is an easy climb. If twenty feet high, it becomes a difficult climb; if twice that height, a desperate feat; while a chimney stalk, 100 feet high, in similar condition, would be "impossible" without a steeple-Jack's apparatus.

But I am wandering from the "Crowberry Ridge," at the bottom of which Douglas and I are putting on the rope, while we scan with eager anticipation the mighty rocks above us, hitherto untrodden by either man or beast. To the right of the high cliff the rocks sloped upwards more gently, abutting against the loftier portion of the ridge like a lean-to shed against a higher building. The two sections of the ridge appeared to unite above, and a shallow gully or groove, that ran up the middle of the lower rocks, evidently offered the best prospect of success. After proceeding gaily for a short distance we came to an overhanging part, where we were forced to leave the friendly groove, and go up ten or fifteen feet of a vertical rock ladder, with a horrible drop below into the chasm on our right. The highest step of the ladder was several feet short of the top of the pitch, and the only obvious handhold within reach was a big block, which swayed ominously at the first touch. Seeing that we were both directly underneath this gentleman at the time, we begged him earnestly not to disturb himself on our account - until we got past - when Douglas, in the interests of future climbers, tipped him over into the gully, with a clatter that woke all the echoes of the surrounding crags.

Above that difficulty we passed two minor obstacles, and got to a tolerably level place, where we thought we could, by turning to the left, reach the crest of the ridge. In any case there seemed to be no alternative route, for the moderate slope we had been following ended abruptly, a short distance ahead, at the foot of an impossible precipice, with a huge spike of porphyry projecting from it. Starting with a climb up a wall ten feet high, where we both found it difficult to keep our balance owing to a slight overhang, we had to mount a rather troublesome slope of slabby rock. There were few good grips, and no anchorage for the leader till he reached the crest. The whole of our sixty feet rope was needed at this place, and it would not be particularly delightful to go down. From this point onwards we followed the crest of the ridge, which is fairly narrow, and allows one to look down into the abyss on either side - always a pleasurable sensation. It is quite an easy scramble, and we rose rapidly, although we encountered one or two steep bits, and some more crowberries. On approaching the top we saw that our ridge terminated in a pinnacle, detached from the mountain, the gully on our right (N.) side running up to the gap behind the pinnacle. As our side of the gully appeared to be still very precipitous, we were in happy uncertainty whether, when we got to the top of the pinnacle, we should not find ourselves, as an Irishman might say, in a hole. However, on getting to where we could look into the gully, we saw that we could readily reach a little grass ridge connecting the pinnacle with the rest of the mountain. The pinnacle rises about forty feet above the saddle, and on the top of it we found the first sign of visitors we had observed - namely, the cairn built by Dr Collie's party, who had ascended it from the saddle in snow.

The ridge was vanquished! It had given us a thousand feet of interesting climbing, and had occupied just two hours. On the way up we had left one or two stone marks along our track. The porphyry of Buchaille Etive is an honest, downright sort of material, nice to climb. If a fragment is loose, it tells you so at once; and if in situ, you can usually trust your whole weight to the tiniest flake - not like some rocks, which seem to be firm to the hand until a strain is put on them, when they suddenly fail you.

Ten minutes more took us to the summit of the mountain. There we sat down and feasted our eyes on the wide panorama on one of the loveliest evenings it has ever been our fortune to spend on a hill top. All the giants round about were clear, except Ben Nevis, which alone had a cap of cloud. To the west Loch Linnhe was crossed by a broad belt of gold; while down below, on the other side, we saw the conical shadow of our mountain mapped out on the level moor.

We left the cairn at six o'clock, to descend the big gully beyond Tough's ridge. In such weather one would suppose it to be an easy matter to find this gully, but in some inexplicable way we followed the wrong ridge, and only pulled up on the brow of the Tulachan Corrie, a quarter of a mile away! Several other climbers have, strangely enough, been baffled in their efforts to hit the big gully, and one is almost forced to explain the phenomenon by concluding that this place is the "sanctuary" of the mountain elves and fairies, who, to prevent the impious invasion of its solitudes, are wont to employ all their harmless arts to lure the unwary stranger into other gullies, which are, so to speak, open to the public. Their usual dodge is to conceal their ravine under a veil of mist, but on this summer night they tried a different plan, and made the atmosphere so unnaturally transparent, that objects a mile off looked close at hand. We at last discovered the gully despite its witchery. It follows the line of a dyke of reddish igneous rock, less durable than the porphyry. Its descent is by no means a simple walk, as it contains several steep pitches. One place, about half-way between the top and the waterfall, took up a good deal of time. We had there to descend a hundred feet of wet rock, garnished with water cresses and other aquatic plants, among which it was not easy to find and test the footholds. There would be no such difficulty when ascending.

It was quite a revelation to us to compare the August condition of the gorge with its appearance at the snowy Easter of 1893. Then it presented a broad, smooth, and, except at one point, an unbroken slope of snow, rising at an almost uniform angle. Now that the snow was gone, we noticed that it had hidden a perfect chaos of rocks, caves, trenches, cascades, and what not. The depth of the snow at one or two points must have been as much as forty or fifty feet.

As we were enjoying ourselves we did not hurry down, and by the time we reached the road the stars were twinkling in the southern sky.