No activity for so long....

I wonder if I should have created a new blog as the title of this blog is a dead end, something in the past, you would think that I have moved on in my life by now and so I have, but I haven't moved away from avalanches. In fact we're now in progress of making a standard in avalanche education in Norway. That does sound heavy, and it is! But the need of making a more complete education on the matter is becoming more and more important as winters come and go as more and more people enter potential avalanche terrain. Today the gap between basic courses and the instructor courses are too big. We (as in the mountaineer group in Tromsø, that is under the umbrella of "Den norske Turistforeningen") plan to make a ladder starting from the basic courses, workshops and instructor education.

As fall is here and many of us are constantly looking at the summits for any sign of any more snow fallen during the night the awakening process of avalanche awareness again is needed. Every season we need to repeat our knowledge of this hazard over and over again and as I am reading, I notice I really need to spend quite much time on the matter to get back in the mode of risk assessment. But as Bruce Tremper writes in "Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain", the human factor are the one factor that most often leads us into bad choices and possible dangerous situations and not the lack of knowledge of avalanches itself.

In a study with data from the period 1990 - 2000 41 fatal avalanches were looked into (Atkins, International Snow Science Workshop 2000) and in 34 out of 41 fatal avalanches the human factors were the cause and not the snowpack, weather of the terrain itself. These victims even had some avalanche training.

This is a bit disturbing, won't it do any good to learn about avalanches and risk assessment? When we started using seatbelts the number of accidents did not drop. This is what Tremper refers to as risk homeostasis. We tend to seek risk as part as our human behaviour, and we do adjust it when safety measurements are taken. Is more safety equipment likely to make you behave more or less risky? Chances are that you think you can survive more hazards and seek even more risks. It seems we have to force ourself into using check lists that we follow trying to push aside human emotions, pressure from the others in a group and so forth. And not to forget, human beings are nothing else than any other animal on this planet shaped by evolution and natural selection. We are social creatures and generally think that the bigger the crowd the smaller the hazard because most of our evolutionary history we spent in caves as nomades having to fight against predators. This is, however, not the case in avalanche terrain. To make discussions and assessment the most efficient, Tremper stresses that the group size shouldn't be exceeding the number of 4 which he calls the magic number. If the group becomes larger, chances are that not everyone will be part of a discussion, not everyone will have taken part in the decision making which could lead to different responses during the hike.There seems to be mismatch between our adaptations to a past environment and us seeking powder in avalanche terrain. We need to fight our very nature to be safe. Sticking with females on a trip would also reduce the chances of being caught by an avalanche. Only 7 percent of fatalities are females in North America. Equally, we tend to think that when the sun is shining after a long period of shitty weather the danger is over. The typical avalanche accidents do happen the first sunny day after a storm.
Communication is crucial and every member of the group should be part of the continuous evaluation of the trip.
- Is anyone tired
- Does anyone have equipment problems
- Does everyone understand the plan
- Is anyone uncomfortable with it
- Is everyone willing to ski down that particular couloirs

Problem is that group leaders not necessarily has the best knowledge of avalanches. Most often leaders have skills in completely other areas such as organizational skills, strong personality, local knowledge and so you can find yourself in a situation where the one that has the most knowledge never gets to speak up loud. You can also get this situation if everyone is at the same level and no one wants to stand out and show themselves superior to the rest. Rather than speaking up, everyone would rather jump off the cliff.

The bottom line as Tremper puts it is that long term survival depends on these skills:
- Having enough knowledge and experience to judge the danger
- Having the discipline to repeatedly challenge assumptions and make decisions based on the facts
- Having the discipline to always follow safe travel ritual for the inevitable times we are wrong

Group discipline is the most crucial factor as I see it. The group needs to have discussed where to go, how to respond to changing conditions, how much risk acceptance every single one in the group has, respecting that people might want to go back prior to the trip. Make the rules and stick to them. Ride one by one and makes sure everyone obeys to that rule. Group discipline is the most important.