Snow Science Against the Avalanche (2020)

Snow Science Against the Avalanche (2020)(newyorker.com)

18 points by jsomers 4 years ago | 12 comments

0x38B 4 years ago |

For an educational, gripping account of an avalanche from the perspective of the victims and the rescuers, check out Rescue at Cherry Bowl (1).

"In March of 2013, four friends from Whitehorse, Yukon, made the 1200 km road trip south to Shames Mountain, BC. With fresh snow and clearing skies, they embarked on a week-long adventure exploring the area’s backcountry. Four days in, on a bluebird day in Cherry Bowl, their trip came to an abrupt end."

1: https://avalanche.ca/cherry-bowl/

mylons 4 years ago | |

someone took an avi1 recently

GainKnowHow 4 years ago |

I live in Summit County Colorado. Rule of thumb: Don't go anywhere with greater than a 30 degree slope. I use the CalTopo app that has a layer that shows the areas greater than 30 degrees.

s5300 4 years ago |

I wonder if there’s money to be made in the application of ML/NN’s for an app that uses your phone camera to tell if snowfall on a slope is within avalanche conditions, along with an unmanned drone that’s able to drop a cannonball or whatever to induce the avalanche pingable from the app…

scottcha 4 years ago | |

Maybe of some interest is my project https://openavalancheproject.org which is an attempt to improve/automate some of the forecasting of this with DL.

My goal isn't really a money making one though.

deedubaya 4 years ago | |

We already know the slope angles on which avalanches can occur (23-45deg irrc), and that data is published and accessible. Avalanche conditions are much more complex, sometimes varying from slope to slope.

As for mitigation, it’s not uncommon for an avalanche to trigger after the 2nd+ rider to travel over the same area to trigger a slide, so to effectively mitigate a combination of techniques are required (see inbound any control on ski resorts using bombs, ski cuts, etc).

The best way to avoid an avalanche is to avoid avalanche terrain and understand the current conditions. It’s a risk/reward evaluation every backcountry rider needs to balance.

cmrdporcupine 4 years ago | | |

Best advice I've heard from people who have been doing backcountry for decades: Don't. Hunt. Powder. Don't storm chase. What might make sense for in-bounds at a resort doesn't make sense in the uncontrolled backcountry.

The YouTube videos and magazine shots make it look like that's what it's all about. Foot after foot of fresh snow and face shots. But fresh snow, unconsolidated, after a storm is deadly. Especially early season. The people I know who have been doing it for years prefer late season spring skiing in the backcountry, even if it's icey and crusty.

cmrdporcupine 4 years ago | |

I don't think a camera would be good enough. You need to be able to investigate the layers involved. Maybe some kind of probe that measures temperature/composition as it penetrates the snowpack. And then take regular sampling along a ridge, etc. I suppose if you were to spend a lot of money you could have a drone drop the probe, too. Or maybe there's some kind of radar or whatnot that could penetrate the snowpack and measure density layers and so on.

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