One of my goals for 2010 was to complete an AIARE Level 2 Avalanche Course. Alpine World Ascents offered a course that fit my schedule so I found myself in Boulder spending a Thursday with 4 backcountry skiers and our instructor, Tim Brown, reviewing a few concepts from our Level 1 courses and laying the theoretical ground work for the next 3 days.
On Friday morning we meet in Empire for a morning of additional classroom work, then headed up to Loveland Pass for our first field session. We started the day with a short tour to a 5-day old avalanche on the Pass Lake slide path.
We spent some time digging in the avalanche debris to produce a few holes in which to hide beacons for a rescue scenario.
While digging, I took time to have a close look at the depth hoar crystals that persist at the bottom of Colorado’s usual snowpack.
After discussing our beacon rescues and a few quirks with some beacons, we toured to a small pond around 11,560 feet to dig our first snow pit with the objective of gathering a baseline profile.
This work was finished by headlamp, but Tim knew the way out to the road. Unfortunately, the snow in the trees had thinned considerably in the couple days since he’d last exited this way. With lots of exposed rocks and downed timber, I decided to remove my skis and boot it out the last bit to the road. There we caught a hitch back to our cars and called it a day.
Saturday again began with a classroom session before we went into the field. Once we moved up to the pass, we practiced taking a full set of weather data (air and snow surface temperatures, elevation, wind speed, sky cover, precipitation rates, etc).
Then it was time to “tour” back to our pond for a more practice making snow pit observations. The others may have been touring, but I’d switched to snowshoes for this short travel day as my skiing skills left a lot to be desired and my snowshoe boots were warmer than my ski boots for standing in a snow pit all afternoon.
Along the way to the pond site we practiced some travel techniques to reduce exposure, such as spreading out through possible avalanche terrain.
I wallowed down a steep slope in my shoes while the others got a couple turns just above our pit site.
After making a full set of observations and doing a few instability tests on columns of snow, we returned to the road and home to await the final day.
Once again we started with a classroom session, including making a tour plan for the day. Given the driving time to and from the pass, we shortened our route up to just do an out-and-back into the No Name basin to dig some pits in a new aspect. Once we arrived at the trailhead, Caleb practiced giving our trailhead talk (going over plans and procedures for the day).
We boot packed our way to a saddle leading into the eastern portion of No Name basin and then spent some time discussing the best way into the drainage.
I was back on skis today, given the distance we’d be touring. Skiing isn’t one of my strengths, and the variable snowpack (half wind slab, half cohesion-less grains) sent me on a skis-over-head tumble. Eventually we all arrived at our intended study-site on the ridge leading to the Hippie Trees.
We worked together to gather weather observations, dig the pit, identify the layers and do a few instability tests. The last included digging out a Rutchblock for Caleb to jump on.
It was nearing dark by the time we wrapped up and began skinning up to the ridge crest. Full darkness caught us there and we slipped down our previous track keeping our skins on before boot packing the last bit to the road.
Back in Empire we wrapped up the course with a better understanding of just how complex the snowpack can be, but in possession of a few more tools to practice and continue our learning.
