As more and more people head into the snowy backcountry to seek adventure beyond groomed trails and ski resorts, these adventure-seekers need to be prepared for the dangers they may face. While most people are aware of the hazards of frostbite and hypothermia, there’s one particular danger that recreationists in New England often overlook: avalanches.
“Though avalanches are more common out west and in more rugged alpine areas, New England has its own areas of risk,” said Dan Cassidy, a member of the Penobscot Valley Ski Club who has learned firsthand about New England avalanches in recent years. “Getting caught in an avalanche is serious business.”
In an effort to increase avalanche awareness, the Penobscot Valley Ski Club is sponsoring an evening program on avalanche safety oriented toward skiers, snowboarders and winter hikers at 6 p.m. Jan. 7 at the Orono Senior Center at 10 Birch Street in Orono.
The short program (one to two hours) is free and open to the public and will be led by registered Maine Guide Jon Tierney, a certified avalanche safety instructor with the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education.
Tierney is one of a small group of American mountain guides responsible for establishing the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education (AIARE) in the mid-90s to educate outdoor enthusiasts in the United States about avalanche safety through a series of structured multi-day courses.
“We can give people a better sense of the things to look for and what questions to be asking in respect to terrain, weather and snowpack, and help them to decide who to travel with and what skills to have in a backcountry setting,” Tierney said.
“The first goal is to not get caught in an avalanche,” Tierney said. “The second goal is, if you get caught, be able to be found.”
Using a transceiver and a probe properly, you can pinpoint the location of a person buried in an avalanche, Tierney said. Then, of course, you need a shovel to dig the person out. But it’s not that simple. Even if you have the proper tools, there are skills you can learn that make all the difference, right down to the technique you use to shovel snow.
“Safety is enhanced by understanding how to avoid risks, and in knowing what to do if the worst happens to their party,” said Cassidy.
Two winters ago, Cassidy and his sons went on a backcountry trip to Mount Washington in New Hampshire, which at 6,288 feet above sea level is the northeast’s tallest mountain and a popular playground for outdoor enthusiasts year round. They arrived a day after a party of 12 were pummeled by an avalanche, and one person was seriously injured.
Later that winter, Cassidy and his sons made a second trip to Mount Washington to participate in a level 1 avalanche safety course. The day they arrived, the body of a solo climber who died in an avalanche in the mountain’s Huntington’s Ravine was discovered and transported off the mountain.
A report of the tragic event, which occurred on March 1, 2013, is available on the Mount Washington Avalanche Center website, where detailed accounts of incidents and accidents on the mountain are posted annually.
“At least once a winter on Mount Washington, an avalanche involves an injury or fatality,” Tierney said. “There’s already been some avalanche activity this winter on Mount Washington.”
The Mount Washington Avalanche Center posts daily forecasts of the avalanche risk in Huntington and Tuckerman ravines, and the bulletin is invaluable to people who explore the mountain’s slopes during the winter.
Maine’s most dangerous avalanche area, however, does not have an avalanche forecast.
“Here in Maine, we have Katahdin,” Tierney said. “People going hiking or skiing there need to have significant avalanche knowledge.”
There are few cases of injury or fatalities reported on Katahdin, but one devastating incident occurred in the 1980s that still serves as a cautionary tale for those who visit the mountain in the winter.
In February 1984, an avalanche on Katahdin’s Cathedral Trail buried five hikers, killing two men in their 20s — Ken Levanway and Steve Hilt — according to previous BDN stories and a report by the American Alpine Club.
“People could easily walk themselves into avalanche terrain up there and not really think of it,” Tierney said. “For example, the Saddle Trail, the route most people take to the summit, is an avalanche slope, and it travels under several other avalanche paths.”
Over the years, Baxter State Park has devoted a significant amount of time and resources annually to avalanche education, Tierney said. Each year, he travels up to the park to teach level 1 or level 2 avalanche safety classes to park staff.
“The thing with avalanches is there’s all sorts of different sizes of them and destructive potentials,” Tierney said. “Some are the normal course of action on some mountains, called fluff. … Only in certain conditions [do they] migrate into something bigger.”
The short presentation hosted by the Penobscot Valley Ski Club in January will just be a small sampling of what one would learn in a level 1 alpine safety course, Tierney said. In addition, he’ll discuss the nature of backcountry travel in the winter, including group dynamics, group goals, winter challenges and risk assessment.
“I’ll go over some basic principles of terrain awareness and the basics of setting yourself up with the basic tools — a transceiver, probe and shovel,” Tierney said. “We’ll [also] go over various human factors and how they all play a role in getting people in trouble in the backcountry.”
By the end of the presentation, he hopes that people who are interested in learning more about avalanche safety will look into taking a level 1 avalanche safety course, which spans three days. A full schedule of these public courses are available at aiare.info and includes courses being held in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont this winter.
To learn more about the Penobscot Valley Ski Club, visit www.pvskiclub.org.