Winter School, Part 1

It is a strange thing to go from knowing your local roads and trails (at several levels of zoom!) so intimately to knowing almost nothing, and almost no one to show them to you. I'm not even sure where all the different areas of trails are, which makes research a titch more challenging. I'm slowly acquiring an assortment of guidebooks and topos (did you remember to put some in my crampon care package, James?!), but I'm realizing that winter throws in another wrench of unknowns and potential danger factors I know nothing about being a spoiled, SoCal princess for lo these many years. Even my time living up in San Fran was more straightforward than this. I can't tell you how many times I've found a loop that sounds exciting and challenging and has everything I'm looking for in terms of distance, climbage and freedom from hordes of stupid people, only to realize... holy shit, that there might be some avalanche terrain. And/or what do I do if weather comes in that makes it so hard to find my route down I don't?

So, I signed myself up for a beginner's avy class. The AIARE level one class from CMS required backcountry skis which I don't have [yet], so I went for the offering from the Colorado Mountain Club instead. Ethan and Ben from the Colorado Avalanch Info Center gave two days of outstanding classroom lectures on snow science and how to spot trouble spots, and then we all headed out to Jones Pass to try our skills at digging snow pits and performing rescues, 'cuz we learned that by the time SAR comes to dig you out you're probably dead, even if you survived the initial slide. You have to rely on your mates, which means be extra, super thoughtful about just who you venture out into winter backcountry adventures. We set out from our cars and tested our transceivers to make sure they all transmitted and received, and then set about practicing locating transceiver duffel bags the instructors hid for us, including scenarios where we didn't know how many burials there were.

Next we got into two large groups and took turns coordinating a rescue with multiple unknown burials, only this time we had to get out our probes and shovels and dig the duffels out. We spread ourselves out in a line from one end of the bottom deposition zone to the other and started hiking uphill, looking for signals and calling out numbers to the leader. I got lucky and happened to be standing practically right on top of a burial where I started, but it took at least 15 minutes to find the actual location with the probe and then dig it out from at least 4 feet of snow. It was easier on us, too, since the snow we were digging out hadn't actually slid and required minimal chopping with the shovels to get it out. One of our instructors said that in his Level 2 class they actually buried his instructors (with radios and avalungs of course) to simulate the rescue. The rest of our group dug out the other burial and off we went to dig a snow pit.

Snow pits give you and idea of how the snow is layering, and how well those layers are sticking together. In practice, if you were worried about a slide you'd find a slope similar to the one you were going to be crossing, dig out a cross-section of it and then locate the hard and soft layers, and test whether or not they sheared when you put different weights and directions of force on them. Our slope turned out to be fairly stable, except in the tree shadow. Afterward we had fun jumping on our Rutschblock test column to fill it all in so as not to make a hazard for snowmobilers, which weren't too much of a plague that day but ugh. Do not like.

And now? I feel like I know just enough to be really wary of where I go, because I know just how quickly ugly things can happen. But I also know better how to keep myself out in the first place. And to make sure I take competent and well-practiced buddies out with me!

Next week, I learn to build snow caves and kitchens and all kinds of cool shit you can only do when camping in the snow at the CMC Winter Camping School. W00t!