Know Before You Go at Glencoe

Winter is a great time to be in Lochaber. We are blessed with two ski areas both of which offer vastly different views and an experience both on and away from marked trails. Mountaineers also flock to the area as Scottish winter mountaineering is legendary requiring a toughness and resilience in often adverse weather, but amply rewarded by unique rime and ice formation or snow ice if you persevere.

If you’re a skier, then its “freshies” which are the holy grail. These first few tracks down a pristine slope with six inches or more of new snow are what it’s all about. Scottish powder snow is less Champagne and a bit more Sauternes but equally nice to float the wide skis down in big carving arcs of sweetness.

Whether mountaineer or skier, when the fresh snow comes its usually got wind behind it and somewhere on a lee slope the build-up of snow will be deep.  Avalanches tend to occur on slopes of an angle of about 30 to 50 degrees where this snow lays, and are most often triggered by the additional load of the victims. Sadly, many Scottish Corries have streams and gulches/gullies at the bottom and these trap the victim and so bury them deeply.

Folk need to “Know Before You Go”  

Get the gear and carry an avalanche beacon so you can be located, and which will also search for your friends. Three essentials including the Beacon also includes: Carrying a snow probe so a victim can be precisely located, and having a good alu shovel so you can dig someone out. Also, consider adding two Recco reflectors so your more searchable. Mountaineers shun the three essentials but Recco reflectors might at least give them a chance

Get some training on how to understand how avalanches occur, common cognitive mistakes and thinking traps that make us ignore obvious danger signs, and conditions. This will include how to interpret the weather and avalanche forecast and some basic understanding of snow crystals and how strong and weak layers’ form within a snow pack, also on how to search and dig out a victim and look after them. Glencoe Mountain has a state of the art training park for folks to practice with their avalanche beacons and digging and the ski patrol are always happy to give advice. I run some avalanche training up at Glencoe so please contact me via my web site www.crankitupgear.com for more information.

Get the forecast. Never go out without reviewing the weather for the day ahead and always look at the Scottish avalanche service forecast (SAIS) and take heed of the risk level and the forecasters observations. The bulk of avalanche incidents do not happen when the risk level is high but when its lower as folk assume it’s safe. Always bear in mind there is never no risk, just a lower risk.

Get the big picture and become a good observer of the precipitation, wind loading and conditions around you and underfoot, and add that to the information from the avalanche forecast and be prepared to change your objectives. The avalanche forecast is an area forecast and a Corrie or mountain may well have very different avalanche risk from local wind and weather effects. Look for “Red Flag" signs of recent avalanches, cracking or collapsing snow, new snow and drifting snow, also rapid thaw conditions. If these are observed, then change your route to a safer one or cancel your day and retreat.

Stay out of harm’s way. With the big picture, you will be looking around you and adjusting your risk assessment constantly. If a mountaineer look above you as someone may trigger a cornice collapse which takes you out. You may commit yourself into enclosed terrain where, if an avalanche spontaneously triggers you have nowhere to run. A ski tourer might skin up into similar terrain and be trapped. Or, if dropping into a Corrie you could be taken into a terrain trap as mentioned before. If its misty or a whiteout you have no way of knowing who or what is below you and if it does avalanche your friends cannot see you from above and may be unaware.

Terrain Trap - No where to go and buried deeply!

Important Considerations Before the Point of No Return, or Dropping In

Angle. Most avalanches are triggered on slopes roughly between 30 and 50 degrees. Below 30 degrees’ victim triggered slab avalanches are less common and above this angle slopes purge more frequently. The "Sweet Spot" where most avalanches are triggered is about 40 ish degrees with over 90% of victim triggered slides occurring in a 7-degree range bracketing that sweet spot. You can conclude from this that angle is an important part of slope assessment and subtle changes of angle on a given slope can have major consequences, therefore route choice and awareness of slope angle is important. Modern phone apps make judging the angle much easier. Rule of thumb for me personally is that as the avalanche forecast risk for a given altitude and aspect goes up - then the angle and altitude of what you ski comes down.

Anchors. What is the snowpack connected to? Have you been following the weather and avalanche forecast? Are there weak layers within the snowpack? Tree's and rocks can hold a slope as your friend or can be weak spots as your enemy where sun, heat, graupel or hoar frost has gathered. Subtle angle changes create trigger points at these places. Tree's are also natures cheese grater if you get taken into them. Ask yourself what the slope you are on is linked into from the underlying snowpack. Unstable snowpacks can often propagate a collapse into nearby slopes and draw an avalanche into lower angled terrain.

Aspect. Which compass direction does the slope you want to ski or travel face. Like angle, subtle changes in aspect can take you from a safe slope onto a loaded one. Carry a compass and learn about "slope aspect" i.e. which way it faces, as both a navigation and safe travel tool.  The SAIS forecast gives you the necessary hazard warning for compass direction but you need to apply it on the ground accurately. Some phone apps can help with this and even give you the area forecast 

Altitude. You can see by looking at the SAIS forecast that the hazard risk is most often greater with altitude, even in Scotland. The rate of snow deposition is higher with height, and the wind is also stronger increasing side loading of slopes. On dodgy days stay lower as well as skiing lower angled slopes

Complexity. As mentioned above. Be aware of subtle changes in angle and aspect and that localised instabilities are hidden and like a landmine can link one triggered mine to a chain reaction and a small slide gathering surrounding instabilities into a major avalanche event. Learn to read mapping for subtleties of terrain features and how snow may be affected, and think safety by pre-imagining what could go wrong. If it's a complex route, then it’s often unsafe as there are too many unknowns. Learn to know what you don't know!

Commitment. Always have a plan "B" so that if conditions change or are not what you expected you have another safer option. Commitment to a slope can mean no bail out options, i.e. having nowhere to go.  If you look at the pros on YouTube they choose their line so they can bale out onto a spine and have good runouts, and that's where the next "C" comes into play - consequences.

Consequences. If it’s an amber light's on in your head so you’re in a go/no go process, then add consequence into the thought mix. Are there crags, hollows, stream beds, tree's or any other terrain features that could shred you or trap you if there is an avalanche.

Micro terrain can have macro consequences 

So, as a final thought. Get the gear, get the training, get the forecast, get the big picture, and stay out of harm’s way. 

Davy Gunn

Avalanche Educator and Instructor

Avalanched. Getting Located Quickly

Time to get Recco aboard the new SAR Helo's

In Scotland there is a growing trend towards ski touring or free ride off piste and adventure skiing. Its pleasing to note that avalanche education is often talked about and is having an impact. This ultimately is what saves lives.  Good decisions are worth more than a shed load of gear. That's not to say that gear is not important and airbags are now more common and with a clean run out give you a better chance of staying on the surface and therefore surviving.  If you get to pulling the trigger in anger then somewhere along the line the decision process was flawed though. Part of being human and hopefully you live to not make the same mistake again. For those of you who are not on a big salary as airbags are not cheap then apart from the cheapest form of staying alive in avalanche terrain which is education and good decisions, then the triad of probe, shovel and beacon is your best hope. The prices have dropped quite a bit on this kit and its possible to get all three items (with three antenna beacon) for under £220. That's a pretty good investment on saving your life or that of a friend. 

At "the gate" below summit gully Glencoe.  RAF searcher finds a victim with  two 3m probes joined together.  Probing is slow!
Copyright Davy Gunn - crankitupgear Glencoe

Where are the mountaineers in this? Winter mountaineering in Scotland has never had the same ethos as winter alpine off piste skiing where carrying shovel, probe and beacon is essential.  One Scottish ski patrol and some mountain rescue teams now have a Recco detector. A lot has been said about Recco being a body recovery tool.  Mostly by people who have never used the system and who are quite ignorant of its effectiveness. Sure its part of organised rescue, and we all know that in the continuum from no rescue needed to organised rescue then organised rescue has poorer survival probability. This is because "triple H syndrome" (hypoxia, hypercapnia and hypothermia) are time critical. Modern clothing prevents or reduces any protective effect of hypothermia as its often just too good an insulator.  That's not to say long term survival isn't possible or Burnett would never have survived his 22 hours. With SPOT technology, mobile phones and ski patrol being nearby, or MRT's  maybe already deployed and re routed to a critical incident, then Recco mow has its place. It does work and has saved many lives. Reflectors are cheap and its good to have a few about your person. They don't have to be sewn into your clothing.  There are adhesive ones for boots or ones that will slip into a jacket pocket the size of a wee sweetie. While no substitute for an avalanche beacon they will get you found (only if the searchers have a Recco receiver). Recco searching is even more effective from the air by helicopter (the helo needs a £200 adapter kit) and with the new guuchi SAR helicopters being satellite broadband enabled then surely for mountain SAR they should have a Recco facility?

Recco is a World wide SAR network

The two-part system consists of a RECCO® detector used by organized rescue groups and RECCO® reflectors that are integrated into outerwear, helmets, protection gear and boots from hundreds of top outdoor brands. The reflector is permanently attached, requires no training and no batteries to function. It is always “on” and ready.

RECCO® reflectors do not prevent avalanches nor do they guarantee location or survival in the event of a burial, but they enable organized rescue teams to pinpoint the person’s precise location. The RECCO® history started on December 30, 1973 with a tragic avalanche accident in Åre, Sweden. Magnus Granhed, founder of RECCO® was riding the ski lift to the Mörvikshummeln when he heard a tremendous roar. An avalanche had ripped down the very steep slopes of Svartberget.

The result was chaos. Nobody knew how many people, or who, had been swept away in its path. “We started to search with our ski poles,” recalls Magnus. Later, probes and avalanche rescue dogs arrived, but in those days that was the only help available. Magnus remembers feeling “utterly helpless poking a ski pole into the snow” in an area the size of two soccer fields. By the time they found the two buried skiers the search had gone on for hours and both skiers had died. Right then he decided there had to be a better way to find people.

The accident in Åre set him thinking about the possibility of an electronic locating device to locate buried people. Granhed had just graduated with a Master of Science degree, and turned to Professor Bengt Enander, Department of Electromagnetic Theory at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. After some testing they saw that thermal imaging did not work, and transceivers were too limited so they tried to equip the skiers with a passive reflector. It took Enander’s team another two years, but the team’s work resulted in a PhD and the basis for the RECCO® System.

The problem was solved with harmonic radar. Just as is the case today, the reflector consisted of a diode that generates a harmonic when it is hit by the radar signal from the search equipment. The return signal, however, is much weaker than the search signal, and that was the great challenge for the project.  The challenge became how to filter out the strong search signal so that the weak signal from the reflector would be noticeable. At first, the range in air was only 5 meters, but today the RECCO® System manages more than 200 meters. The research team constructed and tested the first prototype in the winter of 1980-81 and RECCO® introduced its first commercial detector in 1983. It weighed all of 16 kg while today’s model weighs less than one kilogram. The first live rescue of an avalanche victim using the RECCO® System took place in 1987 in Lenzerheide, Switzerland.

Despite the early success of RECCO®, it was not until the 1990s when RECCO® gained acceptance by rescuers, and the mobile telephone industry helped. By the mid to late 1990s the huge demand for cell phones resulted in smaller and cheaper components. These improvements also resulted in much smaller and lighter RECCO® detectors that were easier for rescuers to handle. 

Following the lead of the increasing number of ski areas that have acquired RECCO® detectors – at present more than 700 ski areas and rescue teams worldwide – more than 200 manufacturers of outerwear, ski and snowboard boots, protection gear and helmets incorporate reflectors in their products. And it is not only the search equipment that has been continuously developed and improved, having progressed through nine generations since the start; the reflectors have also gone through major developmental stages. Thirty years of work lie behind today’s small reflectors.

Scottish RECCO trainer Davy Gunn

Curse of the Collar

Ski Patrol EMT's lead the way

For many years fitting a neck collar as part of the complete package of trauma management has been the gold standard. This came about mainly because US dept of transport (DOT) figures from the 1980's showed a very high incidence of post MVA patient extraction spinal injury morbidity. Mainly but not exclusively cervical spine. To reduce this morbidity much emphasis was put on vehicle extrication care, often initially removing the patient from the vehicle (now they remove the vehicle from the patient) with what became known as a "KED" and applying the rigid cervical collar which was a pre hospital single use collar based on the "Philladelphia" collar. If it was a rearward extraction out the back window or from the side, or a whole spine immobilisation the "back board" was used to slide the patient out onto, and then rigidly immobilize them. Laerdal USA sniffing a commercial interest produced the "Stifneck Extrication" collar (keyword extrication as that was what it was initially for), followed later by Ambu and others which were mostly inferior. This whole body immobilisation was based on the collar being a flag to alert responders down the line that the spine in its entirety was at risk, as well as providing support. Laerdal produced a training course and slide and video set to show best practice that could be used by instructors on the US DOT "EMT" courses. I had a set which is somewhere in BASP

The old collars were crap. Pete with me inside the Lost Valley gorge for a woman with a flail chest, tpnx and hypothermia

As the US DOT EMT programme was developing for out of hospital care, the Advanced Trauma Life Support programme was coming in for emergency room providers. Before ATLS most trauma victims were most often not assessed in any semblance of life threat priority. The first ATLS courses brought ER junior and senior staff onto the same song sheet, and the same basic priorities of AcBCD. Airway with C spine control and part of that was fitting the collar as soon as possible, often while the patient was on a spine board (if not already) and with sandbags and with tape over the forehead. The scoop stretcher could also be used to get the patient onto the board. The first UK ATLS course was at the Royal London in 1990 and the second in Glasgow in 1991 which I was invited to be a candidate on as one of the UK's only Paramedics.

  

Sticking chest drains into pigs flanks in the Vicky's old Victorian mortuary was thought provoking

The best of their day as faculty including Tom Patey's daughter Rona

At that time there were only about 60 Paramedics in the UK and Ireland and none in the NHS. To become a Paramedic you had to either go to Dublin who ran the US DOT EMT programme, or go through a modular system often taking 3/4 years taking the US DOT approved courses and getting clinical skills signed off by mentors. Lucky for me I was also studying human physiology and later pharmacology which was to prove invaluable or I would have sunk. On that first Scottish ATLS course the first two folk to become Scottish Ambulance Service Paramedics as part of a trial scheme also attended. I later did some shifts on the early first response Land Rover Discoveries, long before a Paramedic on every ambulance as is the norm these days, and also some training in military medical stuff with folk from sneaky beaky land.

My main interest was trauma in the mountains and perhaps the doyen of that at the time was Jack Velloton in Chamonix. It was interesting to take back some of different experience and training and apply it to Scottish MR/Ski Patrol which was and maybe still is a dinosaur in a wee Glen. At the time this was going on, Ski Patrol at Cairngorm already had a vac matt. In 1989 along with many of the founders of BASP I attended several "ski patrol" training weekends which BASP was founded on. I think it’s only Stephen Myers, Tony Cardwell, Gerry and I that are still involved from that initial founder group. Through RGIT Aberdeen and "doctor bob" we all became first aid instructors and went through the RGIT first aid training scheme which went from basic to advanced. Cairngorm had a vac matt first in the UK.

Ski patrol at Glenshee were next to get a vac matt then Nevis Range, Glencoe and Glencoe MRT which was the first MR team. These were either Hartwell matts imported from the USA or red/grey ones which were heavier duty from a euro company. Ferno also started to make vac matts but they were crap.  The point is that ski patrol were early adopters of the ATLS guidelines including collars and way ahead with vac matts. 

It was always immediately apparent that fitting a collar pre hospital in a cold mountain environment was a far cry from a nice warm ambo or well-lit ER. Mountain rescue victims most often also had head injuries and had enough airway compromise already that fitting a venous tourniquet for long periods was observably detrimental to patient care.  As ATLS took hold a trauma nurse version was also on the go. Most of the flak about collars came from the ER nurses who would phone up and ask why a collar wasn't fitted or had been slackened off.  We felt that as long as the vac matt was doing its job then keeping the ICP down was also a priority.  Some staff nurses were a pain in the arse, but a couple came on the EMT course and one joined the faculty and they were much more aware of pre hospital problems and took that back to the advanced Trauma nurse team.

A well fitted collar tolerated well by a seriously injured trauma victim who could speak and who at least you new had an airway. Spinal #  so no fucking about putting her on her side as the airway was patent.

The first ski patrol EMT courses ran from 1992 at Glencoe Outdoor Centre and sometimes two a year with up to 16 on each. We had a great faculty (Tony and I) and HEMS docs, ATLS instructors, Ambo trainers and some folk from the sneaky beakies on course or helping out.

A few years later we ran them at Glenmore Lodge. We always tried to keep to ATLS guidelines we had adapted, we also kept common sense and looking at the patients’ needs including when to release the collar justifiably.  We must have got something right as both Tony and I managed to get the EMT course ratified by the RCs Edinburgh faculty of pre hospital care as an accepted pre hospital care course.  Both Tony and I were founders of the faculty, and accorded full membership which felt like quite an honour. I later did some courses through them such as BASICS and PHECS

One of the first Lodge courses.  Some rope tricks to make folk think about isolating a rope system as well as dealing with a casualty. Rescue and medicine working hand in hand.

So BASP and ski patrol was ahead of many ambulance services in equipment, application and common sense.  It's nice that ILCOR are catching up!

Tables are turned. Venous tourniquet applied (yes my neck was fucked) and out for the count. Waking up strapped to that fucking board was he most painful thing. Getting morphine for pressure sores. Bring on the vac matt's. Waking up strapped to one of these with rotors turning and loosing feeling in your arms is a head fuck. Thankfully just pressure from a very small bleed, but a bullet dodged. The skull bit probably knocked some sense into me. Glad they took really good good care of my neck.  Just because you cant or don't fit a collar does not mean you don't take care of the spine.

Snow Structure - A Few Tips

I remember (some 35 years back!) being very confused by Colin Fraser's book "The Avalanche Enigma" which is a great book but not really an idiots guide - which it needed to be for me.  The stumbling block was always getting my head around "constructive metamorphism", "destructive metamorphism" etc.  It took me years to realise you only need to group crystals into 3 distinct types: ROUNDING, FACETING and MELT/FREEZE

Rounding is where the branched stellar snow crystals change shape into smaller more rounded shapes and the pores between the crystals get smaller.  This is often observed as the settling of the snowpack making it more stable over time.  The closer the temp is to 0c the faster this process is BUT, if it get colder the process slows proportional to the decrease in temp.  Increased pressure from subsequent snowfall can accelerate the process.

Faceting comes from large temperature gradients within the snowpack. A temperature gradient is simply how fast temperature changes over a certain distance within the snowpack. Why? Because it's a fact that warm air holds more water vapor than cold air. This means that temperature gradients also create "vapor pressure gradients"  -  more water vapor in one place than another. And what happens when you concentrate something  -  especially a gas? It wants to diffuse  -  move from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration.

When water vapor rapidly diffuses it changes rounded crystals into faceted ones  -  changes strong snow into weak snow. In other words: temperature gradients create potential weak layers that can kill us. That's why we pay so much attention to them. The point is that this is a completely reversible process.

Strong gradient turns rounds to facets. Weak gradient turns facets back to rounds, the process in reverse. However, it occurs much more slowly because it takes so much more energy to create a faceted crystal and when we take the energy source away (the strong temperature gradient) it takes some time for the crystal to return to its equilibrium state (rounds). In other words, it might take a week or two of a strong temperature gradient to form large faceted crystals but after you take the temperature gradient away, it can take weeks or months for them to stabilize, depending on the ambient temperature of the snow and how much compressive load is on top. In cold climates without much load on top of the faceted snow, it may never gain much strength  -  even without a temperature gradient. The point here is: small temperature gradients make the snow stronger -  large temperature gradients make the snow weaker. Got that?

So, large temperature gradient  -  how large is large? For snow of an average snowpack temperature, say around -5 degrees C, the critical temperature gradient is about one degree centigrade per 10 centimeters (1 deg C / 10 cm). In cold snow, say colder than -10 deg. C you need a higher temperature gradient to cause faceting, and in warm snow you need slightly less.

For example, let's stick two thermometers into a snowpit wall, one 10 centimeters above the other. Say we measure a difference of only 1/2 deg. C in 10 cm,  it means that equilibrium snow is growing (snow is getting stronger). If we measure a temperature difference of 2 deg. C. in 10 cm, it means that faceted snow is growing (snow is getting weaker). All you have to do is to find a faceted layer in the snowpack, measure the gradient and you know whether the layer is gaining strength of loosing strength.

This is a powerful forecasting tool. Ever wonder why the SAIS pit profile shows a red line giving the temperature profile of the crystal types and layers within the pit? Now you know!

 

Size 3 Avalanche Glencoe

22nd Feb 2016 Large Avalanche "Fly Paper" Piste Glencoe Mountain

One of the rights of passage for many of those venturing into steeper ground this is an excellent run when open, but it's often closed because of ice and avalanche danger. The same applies to the two other steep lines off the ridge to the side of it . Heed the warnings, don't duck the ropes to ski it, and if you want to ski the mellower "East Ridge" talk to the ski patrol first when this side of the mountain is closed. Take advice from them. The concern is always that less well equipped riders and skiers will follow your tracks and not make the safe drop in decisions and choices of an experienced Freerider. Have a care for others less equipped and experienced. 

Piste Closed!

Spontaneous Release

Crown Wall 2.5m+

Crown Width 50m

Vertical Travel 250m

Distance Travel 900m+

Size 3

click images for bigger size

Classic avalanche terrain at 43 deg on Scotland steepest piste. Upper section can be steeper!

Lower debris pile and runout with bench terrain trap visible above

A small part of  the upper debris pile and greatest depth on a natural bench and terrain trap.  Both Beacon and Recco Sweeps done.

SAIS Glencoe Snow pit profile from previous day while wind was moving snow

Day after with the morning sun showing the now partially filled in crown wall. This crown is much lower than previous slides on this slope which tend to occur  slightly higher, propagating from the rocks top left and up and right. This web cam is 3km away.