Forest Service Budget Challenges Threaten Avalanche Center Operations Nationwide Chances are, if you’ve gone backcountry skiing in the United States recently, you’ve looked at an avalanche center forecast. Regional avalanche centers utilize a mix of professional observers and forecasters, public observations, and weather stations to generate daily assessments and forecasts of the avalanche risk in mountain ranges across the United States. Looming federal budget cuts have forced the Forest […] Avalanche Zach Armstrong | November 10, 2024 0 Comments
High Avalanche Danger Incites Warnings Across 5 States A large winter storm slugged its way across the Pacific Northwest, Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado last Thursday to Sunday, dropping several feet of snow in many mountain locales. As a result, avalanche danger has skyrocketed across four states, with avalanche centers issuing warnings to avoid steep, avalanche-prone terrain due to the risk of large, life-threatening slides. Washington/Oregon The Northwest Avalanche […] Avalanche Martin Kuprianowicz | December 5, 2023 0 Comments
How Avalanche Forecasts are Made Hopefully, everyone who accesses the winter backcountry environment is familiar with avalanche forecasts. For those who have not yet ventured into the backcountry, or those who are not familiar with all safety considerations, here is a synopsis of how avalanche forecasts are made and why they are so important. The first avalanche forecasts began in 1973 in Colorado. Today, the […] Avalanche Connor Phillips | February 28, 2020 0 Comments
How the North American Avalanche Danger Scale Works: Utah Avalanche Center and the US Forest Service bring you the North American Public Avalanche Danger Scale. You must remember four important points about this scale: 1) The scale is not linear. Your risk increases about two fold for each rising level on the danger scale. In other words, you take on twice as much risk at Moderate as Low and you take on four times more risk going from Low to Considerable. And so on. The risk numbers […] Avalanche ameliatraynor | October 2, 2018 2 Comments
6 to 15-Foot Deep Avalanche Near Crested Butte, CO Jan. 11th + 8 Other Avalanches Over Weekend: The Crested Butte, Colorado area experienced at least 9 avalanches over the weekend. One of them was on Mt. Owen and the crown of the avalanche there was 6-15 feet deep making it an extremely large & powerful avalanche. Moral of the story here: The Crested Butte area of Colorado is very unstable right now. Be very conservative out there. East aspect above treeline. Estimated failure 1/11/14. 2-3′ windslab (faintly visible in picture), stepped […] Avalanche SnowBrains | January 13, 2014 0 Comments
How To: Survive An Avalanche The American Avalanche Institute’s Sarah Carpenter was thoroughly questioned by ArtOfManliness.com about how to survive an avalanche and they wrote a great piece on how to prepare for avalanches, avoid avalanche, and what to do if you’re caught in an avalanche. First, a few avalanche facts: – 24 avalanche fatalities in 2012/13 – Snowmobilers are twice as likely to die in an avalanche – 89% of avalanche victims are men […] Avalanche SnowBrains | November 21, 2013 4 Comments
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