AIARE 1 Avalanche Course 3/23/13 – 3/25/13

Yesterday wrapped up our 2nd to last AIARE 1 Avalanche Course. 10 participants enjoyed mid-winter snow conditions after a late March snowstorm dumped over a foot of fresh on the mountain. Field conditions were perfect to learn about decision making in the back-country.

EMS School Guide Keith Moon addresses the group before we head out on an observational outing on Day 2

Heading out to the southeast side of Mt. Willard for some field work

EMS School Guide Keith Moon demonstrates how to measure slope angle in the field, an important component in Terrain Selection

Heading out on our Ski Tour on Day 3

174cms of snow at the Hermit Lake snow stake

Conducting a quick hand-shear test below Connection Cache

Entering Tuckerman Ravine with the very large crown visible in the bowl…

Spreading out and ascending up towards Right Gully

Checking out the layering on a 34 degree SSE slope at 4,400ft

Wildcat in the background

Our pit location

A shot of the crown before descending the Little Headwall

Day’s tour notes

Keith facilitates a course debrief

Well our last avalanche course of the season is next weekend, and temps look to be staying below freezing up high and snow showers are expected up there tonight and tomorrow so our snow-pack should stay dynamic for the last course, which has 1 spot left in it. So… last chance… if you wanted to get this course in this season call the school office now! 800-310-4504!

AIARE 1 Avalanche Course 3/16/13 – 3/18/13

Today wrapped up another AIARE 1 Avalanche Course with interesting snow-pack conditions and great weather, Mother Nature is really keeping the avy course season going strong this year! Our first day focused on recognizing avalanche terrain and learning about the different types of avalanches along with what to do if someone in your party is caught in an avalanche. On Day 2 while we learned about how dynamic the winter snow-pack can be we stepped outside early morning to look at some beautiful 3mm Stellar snow crystals, and talked about how they could act as a buried weak layer in some situations:

Intact Stellars

Later that day we went on a short tour along the south east side of Mt. Willard and saw some great wind effected snow, deep “whales” from earlier intense blowing snow, shooting cracks on some small slabs, and evidence of last weeks rain event.

Today we met at Pinkham Notch Visitor Center, and after a trip planning session we skinned up to the snow study plot below Hermit Lake.

143 cms of snow at the stake…

After we got our first look at the Ravine we re-fueled with some food & H20 then headed up into the floor of Tuckerman Ravine.

Bluebird

Skinned up the Tuckerman Ravine Trail

Along the way we had some interesting Hand Shear results along with positive ski cuts that produced impressive shooting cracks. We were happy that we were on low angle terrain given those results!

Once we reached the floor we soon noticed a size-able crown below The Chute. USFS Snow Ranger Jeff Lane was investigating it by conducting tests in the crown and exploring higher above it while fellow snow ranger Frank Carus spotted him from over by Right Gully.

Can you find the crown, or Jeff?

A zoomed in shot of the crown… it’s lower far edges reach almost both sides of the frame…

Sticking to our original tour plan we started heading up a skin track to Right Gully.

Kick-turns & some exposure…

We stopped to the right of the mouth of Right Gully for a closer look at the snow-pack.

Great position in the bowl

Results were quite impressive, as we got repeated CTE, Q2 40-60cm down (depending on which pit), on an almost indistinguishable layer interface (wasn’t the crust from the previous weeks rain). This matched up with what USFS Snow Ranger Frank Carus had shared with us on our ascent, and was enough evidence for us that even though the bulletin only put Right Gully at “Moderate” it was above our level of risk acceptance to enter the gully proper. We decided to ski one at a time from this high point back to the floor of the ravine. 3 turns into the slope I buried a ski in the heavy snow and face planted pretty hard… first fall of the season! Given the pit results I did look up quickly to make sure my tumble didn’t tip the scale, but all was well and worth a chuckle.

Spotting the last couple people in our group from outside the run out…

After we regrouped at the floor of the ravine we made for the Little Headwall, which had a few dicey spots as last weeks rain had blown it out and there were some gaping holes that required some careful navigation. The rest of the Sherbie was pretty enjoyable, though the bottom half will be very happy with the new snow coming tonight into tomorrow!

My tour notes from the day:

Well, only 2 courses left this season. Next weekend’s course has 1 or 2 spots left in it. If you want it you can book it online here. This incoming storm is sure to produce great conditions for the next course, which can be hit or miss this late in the season!

See you all on the mountain!

Private Ice Climbing, Frankenstein Cliffs, 3-11-23

This past Monday I got to swing the tools with Martin, a former EMS store employee from New Jersey and a regular guest of the North Conway EMS School location. Martin has climbed with just about every long-term guide we have, except me, until now! We enjoyed very comfortable temps and soft climbing conditions to climb Walk in The Forest and Standard Route. Standard was a hoot as we cruised it in 1 hour flat. I’m sure the rain has done some serious damage which I’ll assess Friday when I head back out for another ice climbing course before the weekend’s avalanche course starts on Saturday!

AIARE 1 Avalanche Course 3/8/13 – 3/10/13

“Spring is in the air” would be a common theme as we hit near record highs during our 8th AIARE 1 Avalanche Course of the season which concluded today. Despite the warm temperatures our snow-pack is certainly still dynamic as we got to experience a wide variety of conditions in the three days we spent together. Day 1 saw some productive morning discussions about different types of avalanches and avalanche terrain in general before heading outside for some great companion rescue practice.

Day 2 was VERY interesting as despite the warm temps it was very cold, clear, and calm the night before… so driving up to the Highland Center I was a bit excited to see obvious Near Surface Faceting all over the place from Bartlett to the Highland Center. I was even more stoked to see aggressive Surface Hoar all over the field right next to our classroom. I realized the warm temps and strong solar radiation expected would destroy it early so I grabbed some pics with my iPhone before class started.

Surface Hoar

Surface Hoar

Surface Hoar

While I have found small pockets before this stuff is a bit rare here in our windy “Arctic Maritime” snow climate and this was the largest area I have ever seen covered in it. Some of them measured 5mm in height, which is pretty impressive. An hour and a half later when we left the classroom to check it our the daytime warming and sun had destroyed it. I was glad to have the photos!

That afternoon we headed south along the east side of Mt. Willard and quickly noticed some huge “pinwheeling” from the strong solar radiation we where getting. I would call it “prolific” as it was everywhere. In some areas it looked like debris, but was just massive amounts of “pinwheels” and “rollerballs”. Some where quite big!

BIG pin-wheel!

Other than just indicating strong solar radiation these little features can often preclude wet loose snow avalanches, and possible wet slabs if unstable conditions exist. On a slope covered in pinwheels Keith demonstrated measuring slope angle with his ski poles.

SE Side of Mt. Willard, 1880ft

Minutes later we wrapped around to the more southern exposure of Mt. Willard and found fresh debris from a small slab avalanche that came down just to the right of Cinema Gully and almost reached the train tracks…

Small debris pile near Cinema Gully

We finished the day looking at some layers on a small NW slope and found some buried Melt-Freeze crusts with free water sitting on top. Compression Tests were rather inconclusive.

Keith demonstrates a Compression Test

Day 3 started at the Pinkham Notch Visitor Center. After accessing the bulletin we made a trip plan for Tuckerman Ravine.

Setting out from Pinkham Notch Visitor Center

Making some observations at the Hermit Lake snow study plot

Our first view of the bowl

At HoJo’s we chatted with Lead USFS Snow Ranger Christopher Joosen about the conditions and his and his fellow rangers job on the mountain, then we continued up the Tuck’s trail towards are original objective of Lobster Claw Gully.

Ranger chat

Right side of the bowl

We bumped into Frank Carus, another USFS Snow Ranger who pointed out an almost indistinguishable old debris pile that had come out of Lobster Claw the week before.

USFS Snow Ranger Frank Carus

After some group discussion the majority voted to change our plan due to the strong solar radiation and warm temps possibly making things a bit iffy on the right side, and fell back on our more conservative plan to head over towards  Left Gully and The Chute. The decision was made to spread out when crossing the main run-out.

10 meters apart looks differently to some

We got a good vantage to see the debris and the crown at the top of Right Gully from the skier triggered avalanche the day before.

Crown is hard to see, it is top left of gully and we could see the ski tracks from the skier who triggered it…

We chose the slope between Left Gully and The Chute to poke around. We got some super positive hand shear results on a 25cm pencil hard slab sitting on graupel that was mentioned in Friday’s bulletin. That got us excited to dig further and we got tons of positive CT results along with a RB4, MB. A student sent me this video of the Rutchsblock.

youtu.be/8WTVJqTuEPE

I’ll upload the hand shears and Compression Tests later.

After we descended via Little Headwall and Sherburne we had a good course close back at PNVC. I stuck around for the annual NH Search & Rescue dinner and a great presentation by the Director of Summit Operations, Cyrena-Marie Briede, on her work in Alaska.

Full house

More to come on this event, along with the videos from the Handshears, CT’s, and Rutschblock tests so please check back!

AIARE 1 Avalanche Course 3/1/13 – 3/3/13

Last Friday, March 1st, we started another 3-Day AIARE 1 course. March 1st seems to be a dangerous day, as just 2 years ago a very experienced skiier took a huge ride in Gulf of Slides. This year a very experienced local climbing guides party triggered an avalanche while he was ski guiding in Tuckerman Ravine and a solo ice climber triggered an avalanche in Huntington Ravine that was fatal. Until I see official reports from the USFS I am with-holding talking more about these incidents but I will update links here as more info becomes available. In the meantime let’s reflect on the tragedy that has occurred; a 24 year old climber has lost his life pursuing his passion. Without a doubt lessons will be learned for this, but let none of us think we couldn’t have made the same mistakes of either party.

As usual we met at the AMC Highland Center in Crawford Notch. After introductions we took a look at the Gulf of Slides case study before breaking into small groups to learn what we could from the incident and consider a structured decision making process like AIARE’s “DMF”.

Deep in thought

That afternoon we spent a few hours outside practicing Companion Rescue, i.e. how to efficiently rescue your partner if they are buried in an avalanche.  After some classroom the morning of Day 2 we drove over to Marshfield Station at the base of the Cog Railway to begin our Observation Outing. After a weather observation and beacon function check at the trail-head we started our ascent.

EMS Guide Keith Moon and the AMC’s Jerome lead the pack…

We soon noticed some interesting Surface Hoar growing on some twigs, and along the rails of the Cog and to a small extent the closest snow surfaces to the railway.

While I tried to wrap my head around why this was so prolific during considerably overcast conditions we climbed up to 3,800 feet and took another weather observation at Waumbek Tank. About 45 minutes later we arrived at our high point objective, Jacob’s Ladder, and poked around in the snow a bit looking at the layering and learning about Hand Hardness scales and Compression Tests.

285cms of snow just left of Jacob’s Ladder

Getting ready to descend

It was a pretty sweet ski back down to the trail-head where we reviewed our choices and expectations and made plans for the following day on the other side of Mount Washington.

The next day we met at Pinkham Notch Visitor Center and broke into small groups again to work on a trip plan for the day. The avalanche bulletin for the day was complex, and even included the line “The avalanche conditions are paydirt for avalanche practitioners, guides, and educators.” Perfect for our goals of moving through complex avalanche terrain, making observations about snowpack, weather, and avalanches!

Heading up the Tuckerman Ravine trail

Checking out the snow study plot below Hermit Lake

Chatting with USFS Snow Ranger Frank Carus

After reviewing our trip options created that morning and updating our weather expectations we decided we could stick to Plan “A” and set a skin track up the Little Headwall to get into the ravine.

Keith sets a track up the Little Headwall

Bill Jr. realizes kick-turns take more than just great fitness

Alex takes a breather

Bill Jr. with the 2008 Hillman’s Highway D4 destruction and the Hurricane Irene landslide path behind him…

With the majority of the ravine rated “Considerable” we stayed low and traversed the main run-out by spreading out with eyes on the start zones of anything that looked sketchy…

Seems my water-proof iPhone case had some moisture in it as this came out quite blurry…

We dug into a small north east slope below and to the left of Left Gully

Bill Jr. decides between 4F or 1F

EMS Guide Keith Moon coaches snowpack observations while a large group enters the ravine below

We got some interesting Compression Test results and a eye-opening Rutshblock (RB3 MB 18cm down followed by RB4 MB 38cm down). Unfortunately we didn’t film it. After wrapping up our observations we dropped the Little Headwall and enjoyed the packed powder run down the Sherbie… back at PNVC we debriefed the day and the course in general. My esoteric field notes from the day;

Well, only 4 weekends left to the avalanche course season, two are sold out. Winter is not leaving as fast as it did last year. Safe “Spring Skiing” conditions were already here this time last year, but are weeks away looking at the long range forecast. Read the bulletin. If you are unsure, scale back your ambition, and come back when conditions match your confidence and understanding!

See you on the mountain!

AIARE 1 Avalanche Course, 2/22/13 – 2/24/13

Conditions over the last few days were perfect for another AIARE 1 Avalanche Course. Over a foot of new snow had fallen over the week and on Friday we gathered at the AMC Highland Center in Crawford Notch to begin the 3-Day course. After a morning indoor session we headed outside and practiced companion rescue with burials at a realistic depth of 1.2 meters.

On Saturday we headed over to the west side of Mount Washington to ascend the ridge between Burt and Ammonoosuc Ravine alongside the Cog Railway.

From Marshfield Station The Cog ascends the ridge between Burt and Ammonoosuc Ravine

Starting our ascent with Marshfield Base Station behind us

Continuing up after a quick break and weather observation at Waumbek Tank

Nick, one of the students, starts to “ski cut” the slope just off the tracks. We did get some small shooting cracks and positive results in a few spots in the new storm snow.

Jacob’s Ladder, 4,725 feet in elevation

Digging in the snow on the northwest aspects here revealed fairly uniform pencil hard slab with a lack of buried weak layers. Just on the southwest side of the ridge I was able to get very positive ski cuts along with observing some small cornices.

Looking into Ammonoosuc Ravine

We thought we saw a small recent avalanche down in Ammonoosuc but it was hard to confirm from our position up on the ridge. I definitely need to add a small pair of binoculars to my kit! The weather turned pretty quickly and by 3:15 we were de-skinning and getting ready to drop a fairly sweet powder run back to the trail-head.

On Sunday we met at the very busy Pinkham Notch Visitor Center. With a forecast of “Considerable” avalanche danger and a complicated bulletin the group worked together on a trip plan for the day.

Morning Trip Planning Session

Enroute to Hermit Lake we made a quick stop to check out the snow study plot. 1.3 meters of snow on the ground, with more accumulating through-out the day on the 24 hour and storm snow boards. 5-6% density snow = fluffy greatness!

Hermit Lake Snow Study Plot

When we reached Hermit Lake USFS Snow Ranger Jeff Lane chatted with the class regarding their mission up there and the local variability that effects their forecasting operation.

Chatting with USFS Snow Ranger, Jeff Lane

After updating our weather observations and reviewing our route options from the morning the group selected Hillman’s Highway as an area we could tour through in order to complete our course goals.

Before entering into the area effected by the large D4 avalanche a few years ago we discussed how best to use the terrain to stay protected.

Where should we go? Photo by Mike Lackman

After traversing some ground and learning the value of a solid uphill kick turn we dropped back down below the dog-leg of Hillman’s and made some snowpack observations on a small slope, concluding our observations with an entertaining Rutschblock Test.

Esoteric info: 33 degree slope on East aspect @ 3,950ft, RB 4, MB, 35cm down on older storm snow

I actually got to use “esoteric rhetoric” in a sentence when describing how we might try to interpret our results and that word combination still gives me a chuckle for some reason.

My tour notes from the day:

5 more courses and that will be it for the 2012/2013 avalanche course season. We only have 1 spot left in this upcoming weekend’s course so if you are interested call and book it today! 800-310-4504.

You can see the other dates we have scheduled here. All 5 courses are close to full so don’t delay if you were hoping to get this course in this winter!

See you on the mountain!

AIARE 2 Avalanche Course, 2/15/13 thru 2/18/13

Yesterday concluded this season’s AIARE 2 Course. I was super stoked to facilitate this advanced avalanche course, “Analyzing Snow Stability And Avalanche Hazard”. We had 2 EMS School Guides from Lake Placid, Matt Weich and Jack Lane, new EMS Schools North Conway guide Jeremy Devine, and 4 other snow savvy back-country travelers in attendance.

We started the course at the AMC Highland Center on Friday, and after reviewing AIARE 1 curriculum we headed out to a nearby field location to refresh and build upon our Companion Rescue skills. Emphasis was on leadership and and triage in multiple and deep burial scenarios. Recent AIARE 1 Course Instructor and fellow EMS School Guide Mike Lackman joined us to help with the afternoon session.

On Day 2 we dove into some of the complexities of mountain weather and snow-pack metamorphism. Despite chatting about temperature gradients, vapor pressure effects, and the differences between short-wave and long-rave radiation everyone stayed quite engaged… wait… what’s the difference between a layer & an interface again?

That afternoon we headed out to the Marshfield Station at the base of the cog to learn about full profiles. While quite esoteric, this was the revealed snowpack on the west side of Mount Washington at 2,540 feet:

Marshfield Snow Profile

Day three started with a bit more classroom as we introduced some standardized weather and snowpack recording techniques and some new small and large column tests. We hit the trail around 11:45 and skinned up to 4,700 feet along the Cog Railway making observations along the way.

Starting our ascent

Reaching treeline

Jack, Matt, and Jeremy, all EMS School Guides

Along the way we experienced some small shooting cracks and some positive ski cutting results right alongside the Cog Railway. A few meters from “Jacob’s Ladder” at 4,750ft we dug some quick test pits to take a look at the layering up high. I didn’t get any footage/pics of the boot top powder we enjoyed on our 2,200 foot descent, but it was pretty sweet.

We returned to the classroom late afternoon to go over the PM Stability and Hazard Checklist along with how to make our observations relevant.

On our final day we met at Pinkham Notch Visitor Center where the group went through a trip planning session on their own.

Morning Meeting

Mother Nature brought the insane cold temps for our full field day, as has been the norm this season, but we managed to check out conditions on both the southern aspects of the Lion’s Head Ridge (Summer of 69 Gully, with a great layer of Graupel!) and over on the eastern aspects below Hillman’s Highway, all along gathering weather and snowpack obs as we traveled through as much avalanche terrain as we could.

Approaching Hillman’s Highway and seeing the damage of a R5, D4 years ago…

During our tour we carried out many non-standardized test, hand shears, pole probing, etc., along with CT’s, ECT’s, PST’s, and a Rutshblock. Again, esoteric in nature here was my tour plan and field day:

A bit blurry, but a nice record of our day none-the-less. It was great working with these 7 folks at increasing their understanding of the avalanche phenomenon. As with every course I teach I learned more about the material, and how to try to deliver it to others, mainly through the willingness of the students to engage and challenge my delivery. I’ll be attending a AIARE 2 IRC (Instructor Refresher Course) next season, and would love to see EMS Schools provide 2 AIARE 2 courses a season, as collectively we all work at raising awareness on how to manage avalanche hazard while still getting “shred the gnar”.

Counting this weekend we only have 6 more AIARE 1 courses left this season. 2 are sold out, and the other 4 are close to sold out. If you’ve been wanting to get some formal avy training under your belt this winter this week could be your last chance to book. Please check the dates here and don’t delay!

See you on the mountain!