Avalanche: Learning from a Near-Miss
The lift was closed so Andy and I walked up during a heavy snowstorm. We were intent on riding every day of the season no matter what. This was our first of many mistakes.
We’d had an awesome morning totally alone, riding loops of the woods in deepest, dreamiest powder. Every time we got back up to the top, our tracks has been snowed over. It was epic.
We were confident, on form and fit as butcher’s dogs. We climbed up further, having spotted a powder field far above spilling its promise out of the stormy whiteness.
At the top of the powder field was a short gulley, or couloir, running maybe 15m before opening up onto the face proper. We’d not seen anybody put tracks into this whiteness all season. It was ours, if we could get to it. We determined to get into it from above rather than boot-packing up it - which meant down-climbing the top of the gully to the snow at its head.
We hung crimping and balancing down-climbing a rockface above the cliff, with our boards hanging off our ankles on leashes until we could jump directly into the top of the couloir. It was impossible to reverse our decision. And we didn’t want to, even though this was a no fall zone.
The gully was packed full of fresh powder, still snowing thick flakes all around us. Visibility was limited as cloud came and went around us. I was ten or so feet lower than Andy. The gully itself felt 40 degrees approximately. Maybe 10 feet wide where I was, less where Andy sat. We’d been riding these all season.
I punched a step, strapped my board on and took a deep breath, excited to get going. I called to Andy. After one big jump turn onto my toe edge, I was looking directly at the snow surface now half an arm from my face. Palm outstretched, fingers balancing against the fragile crystals.
In this instant, a crack I could put my fist into split from one side of the gully to the other. It looked deep. I felt like the squirrel with the nut in the Ice Age movies.
I will never forget the noise. A deep-splitting-whoompf. I had a sudden awareness of my lack of knowledge, lack of equipment (none), lack of comms, lack of options.
‘Err. This is all gonna go mate,’ I called to Andy. The only option I’d left myself was whether I wait for the avalanche to trigger with my board horizontal and my heelside facing the slope? No thanks. So, I put in the jump turn directly down the fall line.
Sure enough… I was the trigger. Wall to wall, from the horizontal crack line downwards for probably 30 feet – the entire thing with me on it was now fast sliding directly downwards. This. Is. It.
It was only a miracle that the avalanche didn’t pull me under, it allowed me to straight line, and soon I was over its front tumbling edge and then riding faster than the falling snow. It never caught me up again luckily, and after a huge wide left hander under the cliff, I was safe. Silence, except my heart thumping in my rib cage.
Andy shouted, ‘Y’okay mate? I’m coming now.’ Of course, Andy released the remainder of the gully as he rode out also. He estimates the slab was 60cm deep. We didn’t speak details, I felt too scared to.
We didn’t enjoy the powder slope, when we hit the trees far below there was a Swedish film crew shooting a snowboarding video on 16mm. They said they were considering the same gully we’d been down, but laughingly confirmed it was a stupid idea. Somewhere our foolish escape might be on film. But to be honest I’d rather forget.
Except, I didn’t forget. Neither did Andy. I could see it in his eyes. Andy and I decided to get extremely drunk as soon as possible. We took an oath to start learning more about safety. When I say more, I mean anything at all. We’d been getting away with it all season. No bleepers, no knowledge, no shovel or probe, no sense.
As a 46 year old now, if I could have had a conversation with my 21 year old snowboarding self, I’d slap a good avalanche book in his hands, and beg him to do an avi course every season. I’d ask him to invest in safety kit before buying a shiny new deck, this season’s coat or rad boots.
Come to think of it, I’d give the same advice to myself today too, to keep learning and never assume we know enough. It was a few years before I could really face up to the seriousness of the near-miss I’d gotten myself and a best pal into.
If we never admit our mistakes, near misses, and poor decisions, if we never talk about them, how can we learn to backseat our ego and improve mountain skills to keep ourselves and our friends safer.
Avalanches terrify me, but human decisions even more so. We have to ask ourselves a hard question - who is making the decisions that go through our own minds? Do we have free will? Or are we all making decisions based on personality and needs which are nothing to do with the risks we actually see right in front of us on the mountain?
The answer lies in the statistics perhaps. Over 90% of avalanches are triggered by the skier/snowboarder. The vast proportion of mortalities are Caucasian males, well educated, with intermediate to expert mountain skillset.
Women apparently need to keep an eye out also, tending not to speak out in male dominated groups, as well as tending to buy into the machismo mindset.
The good news is that all mountain users can be smarter about terrain and decisions to avoid almost all avalanches. That sounds a lot better already. Doesn’t it?
How do we go about changing the record? In a fascinating article put together in 2004, Ian McCammon has broken down for us the psychology of making bad decisions. We will all recognise these. I broke pretty much the entire list in my story above… and I have many, many other days out too. Yikes!
Decision Traps – The BIG SIX*:
+ Familiarity: I’ve done this loads before, it’ll be fine.
+ Social Facilitation: everyone’s doing it so it must be okay.
+ Expert Halo: that person looks like an expert, follow unquestioningly.
+ Commitment: we’re doing it now or never. Turning back becomes harder and harder.
+ Scarcity: powder fever. Look at it… it’s amazing. Bluebird day. Untracked. It’s all ours.
+ Acceptance: peer pressure, they’ll all doing it. I don’t want to seem underconfident.
What’s the Antidote?
Here’s a growing list of ways to counter our weaknesses. Please mail us and we can refine, adjust and add to this so we can all benefit:
+ Group decision making: one out, all out. And no hard feelings.
+ Constant communication: call it out as you see it, observing and listening all day.
+ Emotional vulnerability: gut feeling, anxiousness, talk it all thru to be smarter together.
+ Signposting: awareness of decision moments we face every 100 meters or so, all day.
+ Mixed gender groups: All female groups safest. All male groups least safe. Men, mix it up.
+ Information: use weather apps, snow apps, learn to use Fatmaps to avoid avi terrain.
+ Group planning: keep flexible goal(s), adjust in the field according to what you see.
+ Take avi courses regularly: prep for the worst, enjoy the best.
*References: McCammon, Ian Heuristic Traps In Recreational Avalanche Accidents:Evidence And Implications, 2004