With winter just around the corner, outdoor recreationalists and professionals are getting ready for another season of snow.
In order to prepare for the worst in the backcountry, a group of volunteer avalanche experts and backcountry patrollers are hosting the fourth annual Northern Rockies Avalanche Safety Workshop in Whitefish at the Grouse Mountain Lodge on Oct. 25. The event will feature five different experts who will talk about how to prepare for winter in the woods. There will also be booths with all of the latest gear.
“This type of workshop is done to educate and refresh people’s memories about avalanche and winter safety,” said workshop committee chair Amy Moore. “The more we can educate people, the better prepared they will be when heading into the backcountry.”
According to workshop committee member Ted Steiner, an avalanche forecaster who works for BNSF Railway out of Essex, four years ago he and a group of fellow forecasters and patrollers saw a need for a safety workshop in Northwest Montana. None of them knew how successful the event would be, but then the first gathering sold out. Since then, an average of 250 to 275 people have attended every year.
Organizers say this year’s lineup of speakers and presenters will be one of the best ever assembled, including Simon Trautman, an avalanche specialist for the U.S. Forest Service’s National Avalanche Center; Tom Murphy, the director of operations for the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education; researcher and scientist Greg Pederson; Steve Karkanen, director of the West Central Montana Avalanche Center in Missoula; and Erich Peitzsch, director of the Flathead Avalanche Center.
Karkanen will review the 2013-2014 avalanche season, specifically three fatal slides his team investigated, including one on Mount Jumbo in Missoula. That avalanche took out a house and buried three people, including a woman who later died at the hospital.
“People can learn a lot from incidents like that and our ultimate goal when investigating slides like that is to make sure people are not killed in the future in similar incidents,” Karkanen said.
Murphy, who worked as a forecaster in Alaska and was the general manager of the Hatcher Pass Lodge there for 10 years, will discuss the history of avalanche education. Murphy said that while some education efforts were started during the early 20th century, avalanche awareness didn’t really take off until the 1960s.
Today, avalanche safety courses are held all across North America, but Murphy said there are ways to make those classes even better. The best teaching technique, he said, is getting students into the field; however, a fair amount of classroom time is required before that can happen. He said educators like him are looking at ways to turn classroom time into online time so that students can complete part of the course at home.
“We want to distill this important information into a digestible format for today’s audiences,” he said.
The Oct. 25 workshop will conclude with a panel discussing how to manage avalanche risks in high traffic areas in the backcountry. Tickets to the daylong event cost $20 in advance or $25 at the door. It’s recommended that attendees pre-register because the event has sold out in the past. For more information visit www.avalanchesafetyworkshop.com.