Avalanche Jenga Season

Recco Training at Glencoe Mountain
 Nevis Range and Glencoe Professional Ski Patrols

These musings by a now almost, but not quite, burnt out arm chair pundit who has been buried  and also weilded a shovel too many times in avalanche recovery, should not be taken as gospel, just my personal opinion. Always seek out other opinions. 

Forecasting and local avalanche risk assessment is about prediction based on past and future weather forecasts, therefore it will always be uncertain, and a game of probability. Especially when what is an area forecast is  applied more locally. Local topographic effects, and slight weather variations will make a difference. 

As an example. There may be a difference between the Glencoe Mountain ski area weather and snowpack at the East end of Glencoe, and the Ballachulish Horseshoe circuit at the West end. Interpretation and application of forecast information to a trip is a process of increasing or decreasing uncertainty. Its rarely 100% certain. That's why a degree of flexibility in decisions and dynamic risk assessment is essential during a day out in the mountains. Conditions might be quite different to what you thought, and plans will need revised. Mountaineers and skiers who reach pensionable age have become good observer's of small and subtle weather and snow pack detail, and possess a spatial awareness while also being very respectful of the mountains while  journeying among them. Its not required to achieve an objective some days, and quite enough to listen to what the mountains are saying to you. This may be go home, or it might be todays the day, so get the rope/ski's on and enjoy.

In off piste skiing and touring, you couple uncertainty with risk homeostasis from airbags, carrying the three avalanche rescue essentials of transceiver, shovel and probe. Have a ponder that its a recipe for feeding the white room spin cycle if you don't stop and think. The decisions you make with the presence of consequence reduction kit such as these should be no different to that ones you would make if you left them behind. The idea is not to get avalanched and need them. Acknowledging human fallability and uncertainty, they are there of the unforseen "Black Swan Event", a phrase nore commonly used in the world of finance, for an extremely negative event or occurrence that is impossibly difficult to predict.

The top graphic is pretty obvious. Its pretty certain that natural and human triggered avalanches are predicted above 650m on North to South Eeast aspects, and a localised avalanche risk is present below this altitude from the North West through South. Most folk with a brain will avoid the areas above 500m (allowing a bit of leeway!). RED is the colour of danger (obviously) and folk will choose to go to safer aspects, which in the above is green, which as a colour the colour of greater certainty of safety. Things become less certain on yellow, and very uncertain at orange. This uncertainty especially at Orange is where the risks are, as the risks are localised. Yellow the probability of getting caught is less, but still uncertain, stick a localised considerable orange strip in there and you have a mine field of uncertainty lying in wait.

How do you mange or minimise risk if you have to travel on these aspects, or choose to ski them? Well you don't manage the risk with any degree of certainty as you just don't know for sure where weak spots are, and you will for sure not know the true propagation risk from a trigger. You can't minimise a risk you don't know.  For the inexperienced person there is a temptation to look at these localised hot spots in the graphic and think you can avoid them, thinking, surely I will recognise these weak areas and can ski/walk/climb around them. Folk dont though, which is wahy folk still die in Scottish avalanches.

So my take on why it is that most folk get whacked when the risk is considerable or localised, is that being outdoor optimists (as we all are), and perhaps having got knackered climbing up a mountain or skinning into a valley, or maybe having a bluebird pow day, folk get used to that middle risk level, as it's used the most representing the most common and therefore familiar avalanche conditions that occur for the longest periods.  That  risk level has the most uncertainty and therefore is the most dangerous for the winter sports person IMHO

I suppose if you were to roughly put a % chance of probability of being avalanched on the European avalanche scale you could say that:

Black 100% chance of getting whacked while either minding your own business, in Galtur or being suicidal side piste in Tignes

Red   98% chance of getting whacked on an aspect with that high level of risk. The Scottish highest level of risk.  Apart from the Gaick Lodge avalanche, our main roads and villages are not in avalanche run out zones so Black does not apply. If an aspect is RED in the forecast then go to the pub or climbing wall or find a nice safe low level walk or ski run.

Orange   If the rose is all orange then in my view its just the same as red, just a tad less obvious. You have a very high chance of getting whacked. Stick some localised Orange risk in among yellow, then it becomes 50/50 and that's scary uncertainty, as some folk think they can recognise the danger hot spots and avoid them. Maybe they can, but then maybe not. Its certainly dicing with the big white avalanche room. This would be low angled slope day for me, well away from run out areas. The more times you roll the dice in the orange/considerable risk zone then the more chance you won't be needing your old age pension. 50/50 isn't odds, its worse than Russian Roulette!

Yellow maybe a 40% of getting away with it, but victim triggered death is still very likely if you hit a hot spot and it propagates into something bigger. Even if smaller avalnches can be lethal especially if it takes you into a terrain trap. This is true of all terrain features you can end up in if avalanched.

Green Well, either its the best of Scottish neve and you should be climbing with the axe and crampons in blue skies, or be getting the lawn mower out. If its the best of Scottish neve and its a sunless aspect then watch out next time it snows as there's could to be something growing on the top surface like hoar or faceting that will give a higher avalanche risk when it next snows fi its early winter especially.

Piss or get off the pot
Only one thing is for sure, we can only manage uncertainty up to a point. We live in a chaotic universe, bad things happen to good people, and a lot of good things happen to good people as a reward for getting out there making the effort. I think we have to accept that the line between the best day skiing of your life, and getting taken out by a slide is pretty close if you want to ride the powder days on higher angled slopes. If you don't accept that take up another sport.  We can reduce risk by managing uncertainty, and reduce consequences by equipment and terrain choices. Avalanche prediction and avoidance will never be 100% accurate. I am told knitting is pretty safe, if you prefer a more sedate pastime with a surer risk assessment.

Avalanche Types and Uncertainty
Some types of avalanche are more predictable i.e "certain" and some less so and some types of avalanche risk can be more easily seen in tests and observations. The ones that concern us the most are the least predictable with the greatest uncertainty so require extreme caution. Windlsab is the biggest enemy. Have a think about the following:

• Aspects that might be affected from a weather forecast, and very importantly observed wind direction 
• Angle of slope based on contours, precipitation type and deposition 
• Altitude, and what the precipitation is, and its likely rate of deposition 
• Anchored to. Whts under the snow,  based on summer knowledge of your ski patrol/local area.  Or avalanche forecasts that mention  surface or deeper instabilities within the snow pack.

Wet snow release triggering a weakly anchored slope

Powerful wet snow glide avalanche that takes everything in its path. Buachaille Etive above Lagangarbh. You don't want to be in here if its raining during a thaw just after a big snowfall.

Persistent slab, skier triggered slab March 30th 2013 Glencoe Mountain Ski Area - Fatal

Organised rescue teams use RECCO which is harmonic radar that can also be used from a helicopter. RECCO is a standard search tool by mountain rescue in Europe. Three Scottish mountain rescue teams, and threes ski patrol's use it. No search and rescue helicopters have adopted it in the UK for avalanche rescue to date, but the hand held can be used from a helicopter with an adaptor system from a 3rd party manufacturer. I have one here in Glencoe as I am also the UK trainer for Recco.

A skier going off piste or touring in the mountains should carry three essential items. A transceiver to be located, or to locate a buried companion, a collapsible snow probe to confirm the victim’s location, and a strong aluminium shovel to dig them out quickly.

Recovery of buried companions in an avalanche is time critical with a 90% survival if victims are located and dug out within less than 15 minutes. After this time survival is very poor. It follows that practise in locating and digging out a victim is critical. 

Killin Mountain Rescue and a group of Freeride skiers using the  Glencoe Mountain Avalanche training park

Recco is another important part of the organised rescue strategy. Education and avalanche avoidance is primary, being found early by companions if it goes wrong is vital, and prior practice makes this work. Organised rescue requires a triple response: Dogs, Recco and Probe Lines. Survival is time critical. Much has been made of trauma being the main factor in poor survival in Scottish avalanches. Largely based on a few tragic avalanche incidents where trauma has been the dominant factor.

Anecdotal observations and opinions make easy to forget the victims where triple"H"syndrome has been the killer, of which there have been many over the last decades. Anecdote is not enough, and there is no data from coronial studies in Scotland to support the Trauma versus Triple H debate.

Being searchable and located quickly increases survival. Some Scottish MR teams already have Recco as part of their search strategy (Tayside, Glencoe, Cairngorm MRT's) and Glencoe Ski Patrol. There has been a demand for buying two single Recco reflectors to carry by mountaineers. One in a front pocket and one in back (on the person. never the rucksack or ski). Reflectors are light, passive requiring no battery and small. For the burdened winter mountaineer already with a heavy pack it provides a cheaper and lighter option than shovel, probe and beacon.

I can imagine nothing worse than a victim recovery delayed because a search team did not have a Recco detector and the victim when recovered is found to have either a Recco reflector or a harmonic like a mobile phone on them. Recco detectors are of course for "organised rescue". Recco and the many clothing manufacturers who sew in the Recco relflectors, endorse the view that not getting avalanched through education and training is best. However, in the real world shit still happens, and unless someone is "searchable" a rescuer cannot find them quickly. Even if the poor victim has bottomed out of the survival curve a vistim recovered quickly reduces rescuer risk exposure, and provides some closure to waiting family. 

How does a Recco Reflector work?

• Professional rescuers can quickly pinpoint a buried reflector-equipped person’s precise location using harmonic radar. Often quicker than a transceiver.

• This two-part system consists of a RECCO R9 detector used by professional rescue groups, and RECCO reflectors that are attached to clothing, helmets, protection gear, and boots worn by skiers, mountaineers and riders and other outdoor users.

• When used in conjunction with a RECCO Detector, the reflector's diode mixer acts as a harmonic generator to produce multiples of the frequencies received from the detectors.

• The returned signal is translated into an audio tone whose volume is proportional to the returned signal, and by means of volume control, a trained rescue operator can literally go straight to the buried reflector once a signal is detected.

• It is a non-powered device meaning that it never needs to be switched on, will never lose signal strength and needs no batteries to function. It is maintenance free and has a virtually unlimited life.

• In total more than 900+ search & rescue organizations in the world endorse it.

The Recco Rescue System is different from an Avalanche Transceiver because its a small band-aid size sticky transponder which is not powered, the reflector can be applied to your boots or helmet, the Recco detector does not contain any antennas and cannot be picked up by an avalanche beacon, the Recco detector has a range of over 200 metres which professional mountain rescue teams can pick up in the case of an avalanche.

Due to it not being a passive device the reflector will not lose signal strength and no battery to malfunction. 

We should not forget Robert Burnett's remarkable twenty two hour survival in the Southern Cairngorms. All victims surely deserve the benefit of the doubt, with  rescuers throwing all resources at an attempt at a a live recovery.

Robert Burnett - 22 hours Buried.  Pic courtesy of Hamish MacInnes

A really good summary of this pretty miraculous survival on the web site 

RECCO Proffessionals

The hand held R9  Recco detector is the size and weight of a hard back book and easy for rescuers to get to the scene and search with.

The underslung Recco SAR pod picture right. Searches 200x200m in a minute and the above Austrian crew hadsjust recovered a victim located with it.

Recco Helicopter based SAR is based at these sites, with more added including a prospective private North of England site soon:

• Switzerland – Zermatt, Sion
• Italy – Aosta, Bozen, Trento
• Austria  – Hohenems, Innsbruck, Linz, Graz
• Norway – Alesund, Hastad, 
• Sweden – Ostersund 
• Canada – Snohomish Helicopter Rescue Team, Snohomish, WA
• United States – Alpine Helicopters, Canmore AB

Live recovery of a victim located by her Recco reflector
 

Glencoe Ski Patrol doing a precautionary combined 457mhz transceiver search and Recco harmonic search on the "Fly Paper". The R9 detector searches both, and at close range can find many other harmonic devices such as mobile phones.

A Slightly Tongue in Cheek Guide to Snow

Snow science seems to be in vogue and nothing wrong with that. But - most folk are not avalanche forecasters just Joe average trying to make good decisions. I like to simplify it when discussing so here’s a white board session based on a  picture taken on an avy course I ran some time ago when the PowerPoint projector failed and I had to cuff it. A good whiteboard session is good as an instructor as you need to know your subject and cant hide behind pictures:

Mountaineers are seldom "searchable"
Above "The Gate"  below Summit Gully Glencoe
Spot Probe Finds x 2 Fatal 😢

• The avalanche forecast is an area forecast. The local risk may be different + or –

• Read the forecast and its nuances, snow pack history and snow profile – and the blog. They have done 80% of the work for you. You decide the rest

• Terrain choice is a big deal, Angle, Aspect and Altitude, Complexity, Commitment and Consequences

• Water becomes ice or something along a continuum

• Snow flakes have branches which break up if transported by the wind

• More wind more break up, denser snow pack i.e Slab

• Graupel is not hail which is a laminate, but it is a ball of softish ice. Graupel are ball bearings with similar effects with new snow laying on top. They eddy into rock features causing local weakness. Rocks can be Islands of safety or a landmine.

• The deeper you go down the snow pack the less cold it gets until at ground level its zero or just above. Mice shrews and invertebrates live there. 

• Water vapour rises through the snowpack.

• Crystals can grow/regrow in cold conditions either on the surface as hoar or within the snowpack as hoar/crystal regrowth.

• Early season shallow snowpacks can be just as lethal as big deep snowpacks as water vapour causes surface hoar which if snowed on become lethal, graupel can be trapped around prominent rocks causing trigger points, or crystal re growth/faceting can occur and get buried. Shallow is just as lethal as deep.

• Avalanche forecasters measure the snow temperature every 10cm. If the temperature is greater than 1c in 10cm going up the snowpack then the snowpack is getting weaker. Less than 1c in 10cm then overtime the snow pack will eventually get stronger, Strong gradients grow facets, weak gradients make rounds.

• In rain, thaw and warmer weather crystals round off sometimes joining to each other

• Wet snow is Water logged snow and can flow like a concrete river down gullies, corries and obvious slide paths. Beware spring thaws or after heavy rain.

• Wind blown slab snow shears or collapses on a layer underneath and just like rice crispie's there's a snap, crackle and pop

• Whump is the sound of air escape from under the slab, the snap.  If it doesn’t pop go buy a lottery ticket as your lucks in.

• Windslab most often requires a trigger. You are the trigger and in the poop!

• Snow pits should be kept simple. The SAIS and other forecasting services in alpine countries do the heavy lifting. Snow pits and profiles are only relevant for the couple of  square meters where you dig. They are good places to take stock, talk and communicate. The data might confirm what you see but also might not. Its just a hole in the snow. The armpit test is fast and repeatable but not definitive. Dig out a small hole and above cut out as deep a column as you can with a ski end, pole or shovel. Pull on it to see if the surface slab is bonded to the underlying snow pack.

• The progression of survival probability such as % survival at a given time is a statistic. You could survive a couple of hours if in the miracle headline survivor group, but more likely dead from hypoxia unless companions dig you out fast. Bear in mind ski patrollers who can get to fully buried victims in alpine resorts fast, give BLS with fast helicopter access and ALS from dedicated SAR Docs taking the victims to specialist centre's and even then victims do not survive to discharge. Your companions are your saviours.

• A shovel is an airway opening device

• If you are not searchable your fucked 

• That's about it really

The Long Road Home. Quite a Tale!

Angus "Angie" Gunn my Father

My father as well as many local men from North Argyll and Oban fought with the Argylls and the Norfolks of the 51st Highland Division at the rear guard action of St Valery which sacrificed thousands of men, partly so that Dunkirk was a success. They fought on hard against Rommel's troops for many days after Dunkirk was over and done with before surrender 12th June. This sacrifice was not acknowledged until 50 years later. Possibly because it was contentious and an embarrassment to Churchill. The privations of "the long walk" both to the salt mines and logging camps in Silesia, then escaping the Russians back west at the wars end cost many Highlanders lives.

Audio Interview With the Three Escapee's  https://youtu.be/pEk-B5JQhBM

Information on the Sty Valery Surrender and its lead up  https://51hd.co.uk/history/valery_1940

The three men in this story showed remarkable initiative and this story is worthy of any Hollywood movie.  As a wee boy I remember "the blood" telling the tale at a Glencoe Village Hall Celeidh and also my Dad and "Ginger" talking about the war up at the Elliots Cottage where we would go at New Year. From what I gathered in conversation I don't think it was as easy as this understated interview leads you to suspect. And of course things occurred that are best not in print. It was war after all.

The Black Crow and Feeding the Rat

As we pass the summer solstice I get introspective and undoubtedly feel a change as I am sure we all do. West Highland life is essentially a bit bipolar and can make for a dark season of the soul unless we continue to seek light outside, or inwardly lift ourselves.

I can tell when it's changing for me as bad dreams occasionally come back with restless muggy nights.  A few are mountain related. The randomness of climbing near misses such as a piss poor belay ripping out with 16 stone hanging at the other end and someone holding us both on by the hood of my jacket. Working in the wood and  a one ton skyline carriage skiffs past my head as it falls from the sky, or my work mate killed next to me when 150ft of Sitka swings his way and not mine, these all seem random bad luck compared to actual choices in the mountains like the poor belay on offer as no choice, that still gives me the shivers as I visualize flying out over Aonach Dubh. 

Climbing mountains has soul and becomes your church and tribe and risk acceptance part of that compensates for adventures heavy price. We all have a Pandora's box and occasionally the lid lifts a bit and this reflective stuff gets out before we jump back on top of it again. The claustrophobia and fear of burial in winter is a recurring one for me when I have a chesty cough or cold that makes breathing hard at night. Hay fever the recent trigger. Youtube and other places where you see avalanche recoveries cannot convey the pressure on your chest and sheer terror of not being able to shift air. No one is unchanged after being buried. Hayfever is an unusual trigger I guess. 

Bracken ticks and midgies and soft evening light. Very Highland

Seasonal melancholia can be mistaken for mental illness. Which of course it can be. Having downers is pretty normal living here. Its all down to Latitude and dare I say by dropping the "L" how we approach it. We have to hunker down and see it through. 

We have just had an exceptional spell of dry sunny weather to top up morale and body batteries. Mood is high for a but. Surfing that positive wave with good friends and activities is the way through the troughs to come. Or as I am now considering, moving to where there is more sun. But the West when it delivers is so special and delivers big so it might be Appin not Spain! 

If not West maybe East or central like Aberfeldy or Callander. Who knows but the positivity of the sun and good company sure helps with moods. I would certainly miss my friend many of whom are new to the area but have been steadfast during a difficult year. 

Feeding the adventure rat gnawing away inside is also a good way to help. I started soloing about a bit recently and went a bit old school leaving the phone and not telling anyone to spice it up old school style. I have quickly realised that I don't have the mental resources for this anymore with too many people to live for and love and to miss if it all goes wrong. I'm no longer prepared to pay the heavier price for adventure and so I will stick to well protected trad and clipping. And hugging and beer.

Edinburgh midsummer from Gilmerton. Nice!

. 

Road Trip with the Lads

Road trips are a big part of climbing culture. I certainly did plenty with Fiona as I was lucky to have a climbing and life partner all in one. Lads trips fuelled by beer and bravado were also great fun. Most relatively straightforward. Drive, climb, beer, repeat. Some were mini epics even before the drive though. 

We were only about 3 years married. I had an old banger Ford Escort with no MOT or handbrake for taking firewood from the Forest above our house where I was clear felling. I had filled it with logs at the bottom of what we knew as "The Tarry Brae". Unusually it was a steep section of forest road that had tar laid on it. I filled the car up with logs, went over the top and the bugger just stopped and started slowly rolling back. I thought I had time to get the brick under a back wheel but it skewed out and I was left hanging off the open boot full of logs and slipped off the the side as the car went back stopping itself on a big butt at the side of the road. Pretty grazed up and shaken I got back in and after several try's got the car going again and gunned it over the top and back down a gentler but longer way back.  Arriving back I dumped the old car at the house and Fiona told me George Reid had been on the phone. Paul Rodgers and Paul Moores both Joint Services Mountain Training Instructors were going down to North Wales for three days did I want to come so we had two ropes of two. I ok'd it with Fiona, and they agreed to come down and collect me about 7 o'clock that night, but we needed to go down via an up to Fort George. 

Climbers Club Hut Llanberis

We arrived in Inverness about 9pm, found a bar and Paul went off to Fort George for something.  We got picked back up about 11pm and headed South at mach1 in Pauls RS Cosworth arriving late at a  railway bridge near Penrith where we could get under and sleep. I kept rolling off down into a fence where rail tracks were and every half an hour a goods train rumbled past. Not the best of sleeps. Early morning we head South with a visit to the  Great Orme Pen Trwyn and climbs left of Parisellas Cave where sport climbing had recently started. Short brutal hard climbs and a Jerry Moffat playground. Llandudno is a sort of Welsh Blackpool with not much to commend itself to climbers but plenty if your old. 

Wrecked fingers later and off to Llanberis and the Pass. It had been five years since my last visit to the pass, where darts with Mo, Joe and Whillans at the Padarn were the evening entertainment. Again we stayed at Ynys Ettws the climber Club hut where there was a meet on including some Fell & Rock folk we new such as Nick Escort. We manged to blag the last available bunks. I was on the top one of a three tier. Down to the "old Vic" for a beer with Mo and Joe which turned out to be several as folk we knew turned up like John Ellis Roberts whom I had met through mountain rescue a few years earlier. Many pints were had. I vaguely remember folk gathered around me in the middle of the night as I got up for a piss forgetting I was 15ft up and crashed onto the floor waking everyone up. I don't know how, but I didn't piss myself!  Anyway, breakfast at Pete's Eats then out to Gogarth for Quartz Icicles, Dreams of White Horses, abseils, drowning potential, sea and sunshine. "Dreams" was regarded as an exciting HVS 4c back then, which technically is about right. However, waves crash over the first pitch if you go low, and if you fall off the last pitch you better have prussiks or your not coming back up. The other option is down into the Zawn and drowning.

A good days climbing was had and we headed out to sunny Caernarfon for beer, fish and chips, and visit to a local climbers pub with rough men, pretty women and trouble brewing. I made the mistake of thinking I could just chat to a girl that came over to speak not realising green eyed monsters were watching. We escaped back to the Llanberis and the old Vic again. Next day was spent in the pass ticking of Brant Direct, Slape Direct and Ribs with Crackstones and Crackstones with Ribs, Eroded Grooves and me flying off a polished Unicorn Direct not knowing it was a sandbag. Many routes later and dehydration so George produces two cans of Macewans Export from his rucksack. We stash gear and put on our packs. He cracks a tinny and takes a good slurp puts the can down and I bend over to get it and a huge rock hits my back and knocks me over. A guy above the crag must have knocked the rock off. You kind of just shrug that shit off. I was more shaken from flying off the shiny polished second pitch of  Unicorn as my hand jams pulled.

Tremendous Book ***

Back down to the car and mach1 northwards through late Sunday night traffic, arriving back in Duror about 1am. A snuggle up to a warm cosy young wife, get up at 7am, collect the Husky chainsaw, fuel cans and stuff and up the wood to cut as many tons of trees as I could. Road trips were fun. Not sure where time has gone as back then we thought we had forever. Now only memories. 

Post Script. 

• John Ellis Roberts died in a climbing accident on Dinas Cromlech July 2014

• Paul Rodgers lost his life in the Cairngorms January 1984 

"Where the mountains touch the sky,

Where poets DREAM, where eagles fly,

A secret place above the crowd,

Just beneath a silver-lined cloud"