In the middle of February, Colorado’s mountains were finally blanketed in long-overdue snow.
Skiers cheered, but the avalanche-watchers at the Colorado Avalanche Information Center were fretting. That 4 feet of fresh snow — carried on high winds — buried a weak and shallow snowpack and lit the fuse for large avalanches. With the Presidents Day holiday coming up, forecasters shifted the avalanche danger scale from “low” and “moderate” to “considerable” and even the rare “high.”
Colorado Avalanche Information Center forecasters issued a flurry of watches and warnings, including 11 days of “Special Avalanche Advisories” in the final weeks of February. They called newspapers and TV stations. An avalanche in California’s Sierra Nevadas near Lake Tahoe killed nine people Feb. 17, focusing national attention on the dangers of the sketchy snowpacks across the mountains of the snow-starved West.
Colorado skiers appeared to be paying attention. Despite 18 days of increased danger in the largest avalanche cycles of the season, there were no avalanche deaths and few accidents in Colorado by the end of February. It had been 22 years since Colorado avalanche investigators had made it to the end of February without studying a single fatality in the state.
The season ended with only one avalanche death in Colorado, marking a third season in a row with deaths falling well below the annual average of five since 2014.
Don’t think those snow-studying forecasters are celebrating though. They want to know what backcountry travelers are thinking when they head into avalanche terrain. So they asked.
“We had just gotten through pretty dangerous and interesting avalanche conditions in February with very low snow and very dangerous conditions over three weeks with no serious accidents,” said Ethan Greene, the 21-year boss at the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. “We had done all this outreach and social media and kind of pulling out all the stops and we wanted to see how effective that was.”
The query — pitched through social media and the center’s growing army of survey-taking backcountry skiers who signed up for the 2-year-old Snow Pool research project — yielded 357 responses.
Of the folks who traveled in the backcountry during the nearly three-week stretch of increased danger, 81% used the Colorado Avalanche Information Center website, 58% used the center’s app and 53% tuned into the center’s social media messaging to help plan their ski trips and navigate avalanche terrain.
Only 14% used news reports to help them plan, but 89% said they saw avalanche conditions in news coverage in February.
Almost all of the backcountry travelers — 92% — said avalanche conditions influenced their travel plans and those adjustments included 76% choosing terrain with lower danger, 72% venturing onto lower-angle terrain and 70% avoiding aspects — like, say, north-facing and wind-loaded slopes — that were emphasized in the center’s warnings.
The Snow Pool survey is a unique product, born as a research tool for scientists at Canada’s Simon Fraser University and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. While the annual survey is yielding scientific analysis of skiers interpreting and using local avalanche forecasts, it’s also delivering near immediate feedback to Greene’s team at the avalanche center.
And the responses show they are connecting with backcountry travelers at unprecedented levels. The goal now is to reach a broader demographic, not just the folks who, since they signed up for the Snow Pool, are likely already fans of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center and its work.
Greene says it is a team effort across a growing entire avalanche education movement.
The nonprofit American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education last year offered 414 courses to 3,161 students in Colorado, a slight drop from the previous season’s 502 courses and 3,926 students. The institute’s new free Avalanche Aware courses launched in October and counted more than 3,800 people who enrolled in the one-hour lessons. This winter the institute is launching a one-day refresher course for backcountry travelers who have already gone through the Level 1 program.
“We hope to see lots of students taking advantage of this new opportunity this coming winter,” said Vickie Hormuth, executive director of the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education.
Greene said the increasing number of courses has kindled a supportive culture around avalanche safety. Backcountry travelers are working together. Groups like the Friends of Colorado Avalanche Information Center put volunteers at trailheads to help support heads-up travel in avalanche terrain.
“The winter recreation community has really embraced avalanche safety as a key element in that culture,” Green said. “And without that education and that desire by people to engage, the forecasts would not have a lot of impact.”
If you travel in avalanche terrain in the winter, you can sign up for the Snow Pool survey program. Check it out here.