Backcountry Snow
How to read an avalanche forecast properly
Most people read the danger rating and stop. The rating is the least useful part of a document that, read properly, tells you exactly which terrain to avoid.
Topic
avalanche
Every Extreme Sports Adventures article tagged avalanche — 7 pieces across 2 sections.
Backcountry Snow
Cornices: the feature that breaks further back than you think
A cornice is a chunk of snow held out over nothing by cohesion alone. People walk on them, ski under them, and are surprised by both outcomes.
Backcountry Snow
Wind slab: the avalanche problem that builds while you sleep
You do not need new snowfall to get a fresh avalanche problem. Wind alone will move enough snow to build slabs, and it does it on the aspects people most want to ski.
Backcountry Snow
Terrain traps: why a small slide kills and a big one does not
Avalanche size matters much less than what is underneath the slope. The same modest slab is a nuisance in one place and a burial in another.
Gear & Kit
The avalanche transceiver: buying one, and the practice nobody does
The device is not the hard part. Modern transceivers are excellent. The variable that decides outcomes is how many times the person holding it has done a real search.
Backcountry Snow
What a snow pit tells you, and what it very much does not
Digging is the most photogenic part of avalanche practice and the most misused. A pit answers one narrow question well and several important questions not at all.
Backcountry Snow
Slope angle: the number that decides whether the snow can slide
Most avalanche terrain sits in a narrow band of steepness. Knowing where you are inside that band, in real time, on real snow, is the most useful skill in the discipline.